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Over 100 poker players and professional players have joined the first Filipino Poker Challenge Jan. 30 in Concord Card Casino Vienna Prater amusement center in the largest city.

Melvin Lopez, the chief controller of the event, is delighted that over 100 Filipino heard his call to participate in the tournament.

“This is the first time, the Filipino Poker Tournament will be held here in Vienna. I am quite puzzled by the presence of a number of Pinoys here. I am very honored and grateful for this enthusiastic response,” Lopez said ABS-CBN Europe News Agency.

Poker participant Rodel Reyes said, “The success of the first Pinoy Poker Challenge in Vienna has again proven that to win a highly competitive poker tournament, one needs not pure luck but lots of patience, mental discipline, physical endurance and sustained keen perception.”

Another poker player, Elmer Nicolas, said, “This is the very first time that such a game is being staged here in Vienna. I am very excited and hope I could make it until the end.”

Contrary to the perception of some “kababayans” in Austria that poker is just a game of luck, the organizer explained that poker could become a gambling vice if this is played the wrong way.

“In first-rate championship battles, competitors seriously prepare for the mental, as well as physical stress of the game. Poker, as a competitive sports, demands the same degree of preparation, strategy, mental and physical conditioning similar to that of tournaments in chess, backgammon and other mind games,” said Lopez.

The manager of Concorde Casino Prater expressed her appreciation for the enormous participation of the Filipinos. She likewise mentioned that the company is ready to stage Filipino Poker events, not only in Vienna but also in other key cities and provinces in Austria.

At the end, Fu Nguyen, an Asian national with Filipino background, emerged to become the last man standing at the First Pinoy Poker Tournament in Vienna, winning the top prize of 4,000 Euro (P240, 000). He took his big stack to the final table and made his presence felt by eliminating the last players.

With the success of the event, controllers hope to redo a similar tournament for players and fans of Filipino Poker.

Every time a poker player sits down to play the cash game, whether it is in a Las Vegas casino, at home, or at an online poker room, a decision must be made on how much money or chips they want to bring to the table. Most card rooms will have a minimum buy-in amount, and certain games might have a maximum. When players decide to purchase the minimum, or only a small amount of chips (nicknamed ‘short money’), it is considered to be an indication of weakness and a ‘tell’ on the players ability or recent fortune.

Players that start the game with a short chip stack are often considered by the others to be scared of losing, and consequently must play cards with a poor poker strategy. It has been observed that players not expecting to win often use a short-buy to limit their losses on playing mistakes, while good players maximize their potential wins by having a big stack at the table. The ‘short money’ image of weakness holds true much more at no-limit games over other forms of poker.

Strategically, aggressive betting, semi-bluffing and blind stealing is usually considered correct strategy at no-limit games, and short stacks simply don’t have the amunition to make those bigger bets needed. Big stacks can make the occasional bluff with the confidence of staying in action if it goes wrong, and can use their calling ability to deter small stacks from risking a bluff against them. Using a big pile of chips as a psychological tool to induce or prevents bets from weaker opponents can be a very successfull strategy when done properly, and good players will immediately recognize anyone not able to do the same as a potential target.

Your own mind-set should be considered when purchasing chips at a table as well. For example, a player that buys-in for $20, loses it, re-buys for $20, loses again and put another $20 on the table, will likely be in a much worse position mentally then a player that simply started with $140 and now has $100 on the table. These sense of losing multiple times will put players on tilt and make them lose focus much more than being down on chips ‘temporarily’.

Occasionally short money players are actually good players that are broke for reasons outside of the game, and other times a small stack that is seen may not have necessarily started that way earlier in the day. Although these incidents aren’t an indication of the players’ ability, it may at least be a tell on their current state of mind. A player facing problems away from the game never seems to play their best poker and players on a bad run, no matter how good they can be, often go on tilt and play differently or poorly when loosing.

The ‘short money’ tell is one of the few behavioral tells that seems to hold true online as well as in real life, however it seems to have more accuracy in actual brick and mortar casinos. Winning players should be looking to exploit any players presenting this remarkably reliable tell, mostly by raising and betting aggressively against these small stacks. It is important to avoid this situation yourself by consistently sitting down with one of the larger stacks at the table and remaining adequately funded for any poker game you play.

Poker is a game of chance. You must win the game a lot depends on the hand you have, but there is a certain amount of strategy that you can include a game that can help solve your hand when used properly. Here are five tips for when you play poker with low limits.

Low-limit poker is used to playing primarily for lower stakes, because the bet limit is lower than in other types of poker Limit. Suggestions that follow are used primarily in online poker, but can be used for playing live game.

In Low-Limit poker the strategy is much different from that of the higher stakes games seen on television or played in the casinos because the game is played differently, you must incorporate a different strategy when playing.

First, find a way to pay close attention. Stay alert at all times so that you are fully aware of what your opponents are doing, as well as yourself. Because you are playing a Low-Limit game, the players will not play like they would if the stakes were higher, since there isn’t nearly as much at stake, but it is still crucial to know what is going on.

Next, manage your Low-Limit Table Bankroll. Know how much you want to walk away with, and when you have lost to that amount, leave the game. This will keep you from continually betting and possibly losing even more money than you started out with in the first place.

Next, use Sit-N-Go’s to get your No-Limit fix. If you like playing Low-Limit poker, play at the Sit-N-Go’s instead of the lower stakes NL cash tables. Sit-N-Go’s are there to get No-Limit enjoyment, and the loss is limited to the buy-in.

Next tip, maintain discipline. Find another table if you feel you are unable or do not want to continue playing at the one you are on. Discipline is the key to not losing too much money, and developing it early will help you even when playing larger stakes games.

Last, build your stack playing Low-Limit. If the action seems to slow for you at ten person tables, move to six handed ones. There is more action there and here you can continue to play disciplined, aggressive poker.

Online poker is a great way to practice low-limit strategies. Here, you do not play, and have the opportunity to improve your game and learn more about strategy and technique. Once you have developed your strategy and feel more comfortable with your game, you can go to a casino where the game is live. You may even decide to move to larger stakes games.

When playing mixed games, many people consider the Holdem rounds elementary. Lots of people sit back and wait for either good cards or good time to try and take down some pots. However, many either have forgotten or just choose to ignore some very simple concepts that will help you take down more pots during Holdem. Here are a couple of basic concepts to remember while playing Limit Holdem.

Semi-bluffing Draws

One of the most basic skills, you should develop a design is Holdem hands semi-bluff. For example, let’s guess you start with king (Heart) 10(Heart) and are in late location with no raise in front, or you are in a pot laying you proper odds to call. You then see a flop that falls Ace (Heart) 9 (Heart) 6 (Club). This flop is somewhat bad for you, but is a great flop for a semi-bluff.

First, you are about 38% to hit your hand. If by some chance nobody has an ace, you very well may win if a king or ten hits the board. However, for sake of argument, we are going to assume that someone has an ace. What do you do in this situation? If action is checked to you, bet out. If you are bet into, then put in a raise.

Some of you may ask, why not take a free card? Actually, the bet or raise is done to try and pick up a free card on the turn should you miss your flush. Let’s say another club hits the turn. More times than not, your opponents will check to you unless they significantly improved their hand. You can then check to take a free card and it only cost you one small bet. If you check on the flop and the flush doesn’t hit, then someone is likely going to bet out on the turn, and you will now have paid double to try and draw.

This is a very old school play and considered elementary, but you will be surprised how many times that people will check around on a flop and hope that they get checked to again on the turn.

Learn to be a Calling Station

This concept is tough for some tight “rock” players to understand, but in Limit Holdem, you are going to want to call down with your weaker hands, even if it seems long odds to win. Let’s say you started with Q-10 in the big blind with the small blind and one limper calling along. The board ran out 10-J-2-4-6 and you called a bet on the flop and turn. The limper folded on the turn and the small blind bet out on the river once more.

You are looking at seven big bets in the pot. This is a pot you really need to call down with your pair of tens. There might be a good chance that your opponent had A-9 and failed to call, or maybe they have a small pair, such as sevens. In either event, it is only going to cost you one bet to find out to potentially win a pot of seven bets.

A lot of people get into a NL Holdem mindset and have a tough time calling down with second pair unless they have a stellar read on their opponent. In Limit Holdem, you need to pay more attention to the pot and whether making the call is correct via the odds, most of the time it will be. You will be surprised how many times a second or third best hand will take a pot. Aggression is key in all forms of poker, but folding to someone just because they led out all the way is not always the correct decision.

Many old school Limit Holdem players will read this and say to themselves that I am not telling them anything new. However, the majority of players that start playing HORSE for the first time have seldom and sometimes never played a hand of Limit Holdem.

It is indeed a different beast, and all have to start somewhere. In addition, for those of you who have played NL for some time probably need to be updated on some of the concepts that were as fundamental as breathing. Use these tools to pick up the pots and grow your stack. Good luck to you on the tables.

Poker players love playing variations of poker games in both online and offline poker rooms. When playing mixed poker, you get a chance to play mixed poker where you get to play these variations in rotations.

One of the most popular forms of mixed version is the HORSE poker which includes strategies of Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, Razz and Stud-hi-lo. Depending on the poker room and house, the rules of the game may vary, but most mixed versions make use of certain standard rules.

So even before beginning the play, players are expected to understand and agree to these set of rules. So if you are willing to eliminate or add a few games, then each and every player must agree to it. The general rules and regulations are always decided in the very first round and they are announced by the dealer.

When playing this version, each and every player gets a fair opportunity to act as a dealer. So even if in any variation there is not dealer button, then it is important that the button must travel to each and every player playing the game. Players are always reminded of the type of game played in every round. So if you can play all variants of the poker, then you are always a good mixed poker player.

When the regular player feels that they can play the video poker games at around even money or even beat the houses in some cases – they are ready to dive in and start playing right away.

But here the thing: you need to implement the perfect strategy and have a big bankroll, before any player’s vision of beating the house come true.

First off, it’s pretty hard to use ideal strategy unless you have spent immeasurable hours perfecting your video poker strategy. Second, you need a really large bankroll since it takes thousands and thousands of spins to reach the top payout rate.

Add in the fact that you go through video poker hands rather quickly, and you have to be seriously well-funded to have any chance at earning the top payout percentage.

Even if you aren’t an extremely experienced video poker player, you could be playing 500 hands or more an hour. Sure you can play for just $0.25 a spin, but you also have to take into account that you’ll be earning a much lower payout percentage than the one advertised.

For instance, if the game you are playing offers a 99.5% payout percentage, you need to win the jackpot at some point to earn this payout percentage. Assuming the jackpot doesn’t come for 70,000 hands, that’s a lot of video poker to be playing.

Getting to the point, if you are only earning 90% back on every dollar you spend until the jackpot finally comes, you’d be losing $15 an hour if six hundred $0.25 spins were made ($150 X 0.10 house edge).

Of course, this does not seem to play much more well-funded, but a lot of someone with $300 bankroll. Basically, your bankroll should be gone after 20 hours or 12 000 spins, and this was not enough to get the jackpot.

So the point is that you need a large bankroll if you’re going to earn the top payouts in video poker games.

In what will be the second book of poker for each author, drag the poker coaches Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt and Paul “GiantBuddha” Hoppe joined forces to produce a title of the most interesting poker story.  Do not listen Phil Hellmuth: The correction of 50 worst songs of poker advice I ever heard.

The book is available for pre-order or a book or e-book from DustySchmidt.net, and has an arrival date of 06 December as the e-book, and January 2 for the newspaper. Schmidt once again is the publication of the book through the publisher he founded to treat your poker as a business, Imagine Media LLC.

The highly anticipated follow-up to Schmidt’s Treat Your Poker Like a Business and Hoppe’s Way of the Poker Warrior saw the two team-up to produce a poker strategy book this time around. On his blog, Schmidt outlines hoe the two used each of their strengths to make the ultimate strategy book –Schmidt as the more instinctual player, and Hoppe as the math wizard.

As the title implies the text will center on debunking strategic myths about poker and showing you the correct ways to deal with different situations. The book is clearly aimed at the more aggressive cash-games that players find both online and in Brick & Mortar card-rooms, as opposed to the easy-to-beat games other books focus on.

Here is how Schmidt summed up the books contents on his blog:
“I don’t personally think it does a whole lot of good to tell people what to do with KQ on a QJ8 board against an aggressive player since poker is so dynamic and there are like thousands of boards that can run out in no limit holdem. Rather, the key is to teach people how to think about these decisions. Why do we raise flush draws out of position on one type of board texture against an aggressive player and not another? Why do we play KQ on a K74r flop for stacks against one guy and maybe even find a fold at some point in the hand vs. another opponent type? It’s all in there in this book.”

Dusty Schmidt has won over $3 million playing online poker, is a member of Team PokerStars and lead instructor at DragTheBar.com. Schmidt has maintained SuperNova Elite status since 2008, and has somehow managed to ever post a losing month at the online poker tables.

Paul Hoppe is a Limit Holdem specialist and heads the Limit Holdem coaching team at DragTheBar site.  He managed to double its revenues in the poker tables every year from 2007-2009, and has maintained a rate 1.5BB/100 impressive victory in the last 30 months.

Poker strategy in the world can become very complicated – especially when you get into heavy stuff based math! But sometimes the simplest ideas still reign true when it comes to poker strategy. So, to expand on this point, let’s look at a good game concept of micro-piles, which will help you build your bankroll up.

Micro Stakes Poker offers the most diverse crowd of gamers worldwide. Some people you find at the micro stakes players who dream of one day to find their way to the nosebleed tables, those who have no idea how to play poker and are willing to travel some and even high school students who are not in the legal age to play.

In any case, most micro stakes players either don’t have a large enough bankroll to play higher stakes, or they aren’t willing to risk much money in online poker. If you find yourself in either of these categories, then the following strategy will be useful.

If you’re a micro stakes player, you should try mixing your real money sessions with play money sessions. Now this might sound stupid at first because you’re already not risking much money to play in micro stakes. But on the other hand, if you are playing micro stakes poker, chances are you are playing scared since you aren’t willing to risk any money to move up limits.

Thus, instead of playing a full session of fear, why not play aggressively and without fear of meeting a half. The other half of the time can be playing for play money tables just get satisfaction from playing an entire session. You can shuffle money and real money sessions as you wish, but a good idea is to make the session fun money first and then play real money tables next.

When the average player feels he can play the video poker machines, even for the money – or even better than houses, in some cases – are ready to jump in and start playing right away.

But here’s the thing: you must execute the perfect strategy and have large funds, primarily to beat your dream home becomes reality.

First, it is quite difficult to use a perfect strategy, unless you’ve spent countless hours perfecting your video poker strategy. Second, you need a huge bankroll because it takes thousands and thousands of rotations to achieve the higher rate of pay.

Add in the fact that you go through video poker hands rather quickly, and you have to be seriously well-funded to have any chance at earning the top payout percentage.

Even if you aren’t an extremely experienced video poker player, you could be playing 500 hands or more an hour. Sure you can play for just $0.25 a spin, but you also have to take into account that you’ll be earning a much lower payout percentage than the one advertised.

For instance, if the game you are playing offers a 99.5% payout percentage, you need to win the jackpot at some point to earn this payout percentage. Assuming the jackpot doesn’t come for 70,000 hands, that’s a lot of video poker to be playing.

Getting to the point, if you are only earning 90% back on every dollar you spend until the jackpot finally comes, you’d be losing $15 an hour if six hundred $0.25 spins were made ($150 X 0.10 house edge).

Of course, this does not look much like a player well-funded, but there is someone with a bankroll of $ 300. In essence, the funds are gone after 20 hours or 12,000 spins, and it is not enough to reach the prize.

So the fact is that you need a big bankroll if you want to earn big winnings from video poker games.

There are many tough games to play online, like chess or billiards and even football. The most popular of all is the online poker. Millions of people play these games online poker and enjoy the pleasure of making money quickly, or even a little more. Sometimes people say I have won thousands of pounds on them, while some have cried over losing too. Whatever your story, if you’ve never played poker online, you better keep reading!

An Internet search will show you that there are many sites that allow you to play online poker on their sites. Some sites offer free trial sessions, and if you’re a beginner, it would be a good idea to try a free trial run just to get the hang of it. Most online poker games, players must download the software. Before downloading software, verify the authenticity of the software.

Let your anti-virus check if it is a clean download, other wise instead of a poker game download you will end up downloading a virus and that is not a pleasurable experience as many of us have seen! So check before downloading! It is also important to make sure your system is compatible with downloads, if you are working on an old system, you might have to make some minor upgrades to your system in order to start playing.

Now, before you start playing, you need to know how you wish to make payments for the games. Some web sites accept cheques. If that suits you then it is fine, other wise you can always set up an online electronic account with which you can make payments easily. Again, verify the destination of your payments before you send them.

Finally, remember to control yourself when you play and not get overwhelmed by the victory. Often people are more money than they should and end up losing everything. Online Poker is just a game, and you should play accordingly. Observe their movements and know when to stop. It can be fun when played in moderation. So go ahead and make a move!