Online poker games represent the best opportunity ever for new players to learn the game for absolutely free. Eventually, a lot of these beginners will move on to play in real casinos, so this article might be your first guide towards a successful poker career!

The primary thing to understand is that playing poker on the Internet is not the same as playing poker at brick & mortar casino. While the rules are usually the same, the way the games played are quite different. I’m not saying that playing poker in a real casino is better than playing online, or necessarily more profitable. In fact, playing on the Internet can give you many advantages.

At poker, it’s very important to know the deck that’s being played with. A deck of cards has four suits, such as hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. Each suit has 13 cards including a single ace, jack, queen and king and the numbers two through 10, so in one deck there are 52 total cards (4 x 13 = 52). In order to win, you have to combine these cards to make the best possible hand. These include Royal flush, Straight flush, Four of a kind, Full house, and Straight.

An important thing to consider in the basic poker strategy is to find out the percentages of the odds you have to face during the poker game. It is essential to remember these odds so that you can make a good decision fast when your turn comes.

Discipline is another winning strategy in poker. What distinguishes a professional poker player from amateurs is that he will not give up his decisions to sheer dumb luck. A professional always desires to win the game by playing his hands cleverly.

Fortunately, there is one software that can help a novice player to play and win a poker game. It’s called the Online Poker Analyzer (OPA). With the help of this brilliant software, you don’t have to calculate the odds, watching the opponent’s hand or even discipline yourself. All you have to do is to follow the OPA since it will tell you exactly how to play and win poker one step at a time.

So if you want a fun, fast-paced game to play on the Internet, you will find that it’s quite easy to learn how to play poker. Of course, becoming a world champion in poker tournament might take a lot of practice, but the truth is the basics behind poker aren’t that difficult to grasp.

Click here for more information on the Online Poker Analyzer.

Accoding to their web page there is still time to qualify …
“Ready to be the next Champion?

The road to the World Series of Poker* Main Event starts here - and PokerStars is the only place to win your seat in 2009. Cash, FPP and Steps WSOP* satellites are available now in a range of buy-ins, under the Events > WSOP tab in your PokerStars lobby. Our satellites give all players a shot at qualifying for the ‘Big Dance’, with a prize package worth $12,000. ….. click here for more info”

Titan Poker is awarding its top players with $13,000 WSOP packages, which include the $10,000 buy-in to the World Series of Poker Main Event, 7 nights of luxury accommodation at the Rio Hotel and Casino, and travel to Las Vegas, where the prestigious poker tournament will be staged this summer.

Online poker players from around the world have been competing for the WSOP (http://www.titanpoker.com/wsop_09.html) prizes at Titan Poker’s satellite qualifiers, which start for entries as low as $0.77+$0.07.

In addition to the tournament series leading to the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, players are also vying at Titan Poker’s satellite tournaments to win seats to the 2009 WSOP World Championship of Pot-Limit Omaha. A satellite series is also taking place awarding winners with seats at two WSOP No Limit Hold’em $1,500 Buy-in Events.

Titan Poker WSOP Main Event Super Satellite tournaments are staged every Sunday night, while the other Super Satellites are running on Saturday nights, giving players multiple ways to win their way to Las Vegas and a possible WSOP bracelet.

New depositors at Titan Poker during the month of May have a chance to win a $13,000 WSOP Package completely for free. New depositing players receive tournament entries to a series of freeroll satellites, players can win their way to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas without making a single tournament payment.

Now we’re bringing that same passion to the world of poker with a unique opportunity for you to join the winning team at the much-anticipated, televised Poker Ashes, to be held in London on June 22-23!

Of course, it wouldn’t be any kind of Ashes event without world-famous captains, so Australia’s Shane Warne and UK’s Darren Gough will be heading the Poker Ashes clashes – will you make it onto one of their teams?

We will be awarding one Australia side seat and one England side seat for the top skilled players who can prove they’ve got what it takes to bowl over the opposition – an opportunity that money just can’t buy!

Not only will this exciting event be televised in the UK (Sky), Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand, we’ll even throw in your travel and accommodation expenses, $1,000 spending money and a whole load of autographed cricket memorabilia – now that’ll be one unforgettable experience! ”

 To find out more about this event click here

Titan Poker is proud to offer its players an exclusive jackpot tournament series, where they can take home cash prizes of tens of thousands of dollars.

Win six consecutive $50+$9, six-player Fort Knox Sit ‘n‘ Go tournaments and you‘ll take home the jackpot prize starting at $50,000. The jackpot increases by $10,000 every week and has frequently been awarded with prizes as high as $150,000.

If your consecutive winning streak is broken and you finish in second place, don‘t worry. You still qualify for a prize! Six tournaments in a row with either a first or second place finish gives you $750 in cash.

The Rio Jackpot starts out initially at $25,000 and increases by $10,000 each week until some skillful player manages to win six of the tournaments in a row. The Maui Jackpot starts at $15,000 and also increases progressively week by week. That‘s an incredible deal for a $5 + $1 sit ‘n‘ go tournament entry.

Don‘t have a big budget for tournament play? There‘s a jackpot sit ‘n‘ go tournament series for you – the Dirty Dozen. And all you have to do is win four tournaments in a row for a quick $2,000 prize.

Jackpot sit ‘n‘ go tournaments = poker action with huge prizes at Titan Poker! Titan Poker currently offers more than $16,000,000 in monthly guaranteed prizes. Get into the action at Titan Poker today!

TitanPoker.com (http://www.titanpoker.com/), the largest poker room on the iPoker Network, will substantially increase the benefits it offers its top online poker players in a special promotion to be staged during the month of May.

Avid poker players will enjoy double rewards for their game play in May. Players will receive instant cash bonuses, issued to them as they generate Titan Poker Points. Special player benefits for May are up to $2,000 per player. In addition, players will be able to use these Points to make purchases at the Club Titan Store.

“It is certainly worth my time to play exclusively at Titan Poker,” commented one of the poker room’s most active VIP players. “When I do the calculation of the return on investment for my online gaming activities, I see that the best benefits are available to me at Titan Poker.

In January 2009, Titan Poker launched Club Titan, the most generous rewards program available to keen online poker players. The Club Titan VIP program is easy to use and rewards all of its players, novices to big-time poker enthusiasts alike.

I have been side tracked for the last 6 months on a model train project and this has all but reduced my poker playing to nil. Since my last update 7 months ago I have played in the Bigger Deal monthly tournament 4 times and three times I was card dead for most of the tournament and unfortunately I played too tight so when I did catch something then it was no big deal for the big stacks to call me. On the other occasion I actually won the tournament so I guess that sort of makes up for it albeit that my signed copy of Bigger Deal hasn’t turned up yet. I’ve got the book already so its not really a problem.

I had a phone call from Titan Poker last week who invited me to play in a Saturday freeroll which I did and I finished 151st out of 1548 players and frankly it was a stupid call on my behalf with a suited Q8 but it was against a player who had been going all in with low cards and playing good hands cagey so I though I may be in good shape. He had two lower cards sure enough … it was just a shame that one was a 7 and err so was the other!

I have another 6 Saturday special tokens in my account so I am going to try and do better next time I play that tournament but what is really exciting me is that I was also asked if I wanted to play in a ECOOP tournament which offers seats to the $1500 ECOOP III main event. There are 10 seats on offer so I thought why not. What I wasn’t told at the time though was that there are only 350 players invited to play into the tournament so I feel quite glad to be asked. That tourney is at the beginning of December so I will need to get myself up to speed before I play that one.

I am so far off my targets for this year that it is untrue BUT I have recently changed my job and I am now working a lot closer to home and I am close to a Rileys snooker club that have life poker games every week. If I don’t, therefore, break my live poker playing virginity by the new year then I will definately be joining the club and playing in the Monday night games in the new year so I think that I will be in good shape to do that and then play in their poker leagues.

Best Online Poker

• instant M calculations
• player profiling
• tilt factor monitoring
• matchcard showdown (ie what are you beating)
• odds calculations
• miniview and customised settings
• video tutorial guides

I took advantage of their free 48 hour trial last weekend and I was sufficiently impressed that I have taken up a license. If you would like to test drive the software for 48 hours then please click the link below:

alternatively you can check out my video site where I have posted a Tournament Indicator video so you can get a flavour as to what the software can do: http://toplvideo.blogspot.com.

On Sunday I tried to qualify for the Pacific Poker $75k event and I entered an initial $3 sub satellite which I won but then when it came to the main satellite I was out in 30 place from 80 players. It was a bit dissapointing as this was one of those games where I just didn’t pick up any sort of hand but because of the structure of the tournament (semi turbo!) I had to start making moves but I kept running into hands. After that I decided to play the turbo sat at $26 and I went out early here when my 66 hit a flop of 2 6 Q and as I was getting on the short side I pushed and typically I was against the guy with QQ!!

I did try an play in an $11 game at Party Poker this afternoon but after having identified the donk at the table I managed to go against him the only time he had a hand and his trips busted my 2 pair. (what a d o n k I am!) lol

Anyway I’m schedule to play a $22 PL Omaha later today at PokerStars and I am putting up a prize for this. To be honest because of the buy in I’m not expecting a huge turnout but I will put up a prize even if there is only 3 of us. Of course as ever we welcome anyone who would like to play and the details are in the previous post.