Category: English

Extreme Turbo Poker is a very popular variant of a Sit & Go tournament, also referred to as SNG tournaments. Poker Tournaments seem to be taking over more and more from regular "Ring" games at  Online Poker Rooms. It is easy to find these games but one of the places I recomend for good Sit & Go Tournaments, and in particular Extreme Turbo Poker, is Spin Palace Poker.

Sit & Go Poker tournaments are described in other articles on this site but in brief they are the most flexible form of Poker tournament there is. All you have to do is go to the Poker Room lobby, click on Sit & Go Tournaments and then click on the betting level you are happy with, for example $5. As long as there are still places free on a table you can join it. If all the tables are full then just wait a few minutes, a new one is sure to pop up. Most poker rooms mix all the variants of Sit & Go tournaments together and there are quite a few different types, like heads up and full table freezeouts and I will be discussing all these other types in future articles.

Extreme Turbo Poker is usually played as a No-Limit Texas Hold’em game but I have seen some Omaha games as well. The rules are much the same as in any other Poker tournament, you are given a stack of chips in return for your entry fee to the tournament. It is then a straight elimination match between you and your opponents and usually the top 2 or 3 players will share the total cash pot, which will be the entry fee multiplied by the number of players who entered. It should also be noted that Extreme Turbo Hold’em is usually played shorthand with 6 people but can also be played longhand with 10 players.

The main difference with Extreme Turbo Poker compared to standard Sit & Go poker tournaments is the speed with which the blinds increase. Each stage of the tournament is split into levels and each of these levels correspond with a betting level. In a standard poker tournament these levels rise every 5-10 minutes but with extreme turbo Poker is is every few hands so very soon the blinds can be up into the hundreds. This of course means that you have to play very aggressively right from the start to build up your stack otherwise the blinds will eventually destroy you. In many respects it is similar to the final few hands of a multi-table freeroll or standard multi-table poker tournament, where the betting levels are typically very high at the end and there is a lot of bullying and stealing of blinds. A lot of good players therefore use Extreme Turbo tournaments to practice for this stage of poker tournaments as well as also playing "Heads up" Poker, where there are just 2 players, to practice the final end game!

People either love or hate Extreme Turbo Poker tournaments and it depends a lot on whether you are a tight or aggressive player. I would however recommend that if you don’t like it you should probably force yourself to play it as it means you need to get out of your comfort zone, every one should feel comfortable in playing good solid aggressive poker sometimes, whereas at other times it is important to have the discipline of playing tight.

In summary Extreme Turbo Poker is an extreme roller-coaster ride through Poker World and I highly recommend you all check it out. 

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As you can see from the pages of our websites and  indeed just by having a look around the internet that there is a massive choice of online casinos, poker rooms and other online gambling sites like sportsbooks and online bingo places on the internet these days. It is however important that you choose an online gambling site which is right for you and this depends on a number of factors.

Firstly you need an online casino or poker room which is reliable. All of the casinos that we have listed on High-Roller Casinos are reputable and honest. If you should ever have any problems with any of them then please inform us and we will chase them for you, that is our service to you. 

The second thing to look out for is the type of games which are offered. In our reviews we try to give an indication of the games offered by each of the online casinos and poker rooms but the only proper way of seeing this is by visiting the site, downloading the software, registering for a play/fun account and trying out some of their games. If you decide that you like their games, you can deposit some real money and start playing for real.

The third thing are the bonuses. I could write several articles purely on the topic of bonuses and in fact I plan too over the coming weeks but for the purposes of this article I want to stress one thing, always read the terms and conditions of the bonuses before signing up for them so that you know what the gambling requirements are etc. Some bonuses seem mind blowing large but have big conditions attached to them whilst other smaller bonuses are actually far more realistic and you can achieve them just through regular play. It is also important to note that some games are excluded from bonuses, very often Blackjack is.

One final important factor when choosing an online casino is the customer service offered, you should always keep an eye out for Live support or Live chat, if a casino offers this then it is a sure sign that they take customer service very seriously. With Live chat the casino or poker room provide a customer service agent who you can talk to in real time and therefore resolve your problems much quicker. This isn’t to say that casinos and poker rooms without live chat aren’t good but it is a definite plus.

In summary, choosing the right casino for you is probably a combination of all these factors and many more, the most important thing and the best way to get started is to read our reviews, look at how we scored the casinos and poker rooms, click on the link and check them out for yourself, if you like what you see, sign up and enjoy.

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One of the most popular bets for inexperienced craps players is the field bet. Once again, it seems like a good bet. The betting area occupies a large chunk of the craps layout at each end of the table. For the table minimum, a player can wager that the two, three, four, nine, ten, eleven or twelve will appear on the next roll. Only a five, six, seven or eight will defeat that bet. The bet pays even money.

But take a closer look. Even though the field numbers winners seem to be more numerous than the losers, it’s simply not true. The amount of dice combinations that make up those seven numbers totals 16. But there are 20 ways to roll the five, six, seven and eight, so the player is giving the house a 5.56 per cent advantage. Looks can be deceiving in craps.

Another often well advertised bet at most dice games is the big six or eight. Because the six and eight are rolled so frequently, players mistakenly believe it is a good bet. By placing this bet, the player is betting that a six or eight will appear before a seven is rolled.

It is the same bet as a place bet on the six or eight, but the payout is considerably worse. By placing the six or eight, the player receives odds of 7-6, but a winning wager on the big six or eight only gets even money. A casino advantage of 9.1 per cent means the player will lose £1 for every £11
gambled. By placing the six or eight, players are dramatically reducing the casino’s advantage to only 1.5 per cent, meaning a player loses £1 for every £66 bet. But you won’t see that advertised anywhere. Only the most knowledgeable players realize they can get the best bets at the craps tables, while avoiding the “sucker” bets.

Video poker is not live poker, and except for how you evaluate the hands, it bears little resemblance to the table game.

Video poker is a fairly recent phenomenon, dating back to only the mid-Seventies. Although early slot machines used cards and poker hands as payout symbols, players had no choices to make; the reels stopped wherever the machine determined they would.

The increasing popularity of video poker can be traced to several factors and characteristics it has in common with many of the more popular casino games. For instance:
– It’s fast (like craps).
– It gives players the opportunity to make decisions and a reasonable control over the results (like blackjack).
– It’s similar to poker (like many of the newest casino games).
– It gives the possibility of a large payout and is not intimidating (like slot machines).
– You can play it for a low minimum, an investment as small as a few coins.

Maybe what makes it even more popular is that it returns your investment for a pair of Jacks to Aces. In effect, this makes the player feel that a tie (a push) is a win. This is an important psychological factor that makes it seem like you’re winning more than you actually are. Maybe it’s because when you drop a coin into the machine, you consider that a lost coin, so that when it reappears on an even-money payout, you feel like you’re a winner. It’s a subtle point, but a powerful one.

Perhaps the chief reason that video poker is becoming more popular is that even a casual player can determine the value of an individual machine. By simply glancing at the pay table included on every video poker game, you can determine how much that machine will pay back to players who use the optimum video poker strategy, or expert strategy.

Playing winning video poker requires three very important tenets. First, you should only play machines that give you the highest payout. Second, you must know how to use the best strategies to play those machines. And finally, you should be aware of how those machines reach those payout percentages. That is, you must be aware of whether that payout percentage is reached by awarding a single large jackpot or whether it encompasses many smaller payouts.  The level of frequency of the payoffos is called the volatility of the machine.

Many machines can be played to pay back more than 100 per cent of the money invested. How is this possible, you ask? Isn’t the casino going to lose money by putting these types of machines on the floor?

This question has two answers. Yes, the casino would lose money if every player on that particular machine understood and used expert strategy. But since only a small minority of video poker players truly know how to take advantage of
such a machine, no, the casino will not lose money by offering such a machine. And even if it was just expert players that were attracted to such a machine, they wouldn’t all be able to play at the same time. Therefore, the casino would undoubtedly surround that machine with others offering a significantly lower payout than that single 100 per cent-plus machine, guaranteeing the casino the chance to win more money from those other players.

The late Walter Matthau described poker as exemplifying’all of the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great’, Along with Hollyvvood road movies, the images of the ‘rambling-gambling man’ and the poker-playing cowboy, willing to risk all on the turn of a card, are abiding metaphors for the free¬spirited American ideal, A recent Hollyvvood film, Rounders starring Matt Damon, realistically portrayed the game with all of its thrills and excitement. Set in New York’s underground poker world, Rounders tells the story of a card player who attempts to leave behind the poker-playing rounds for a legitimate career and a chance for a new life with his girlfriend. However, the new life is short on the buzz of high-stakes poker games and the Damon character is soon drawn back to the poker table.

Rounders gives one perspective on the game of poker, but often poker games are played by groups of friends purely for enjoyment, with winning or losing being secondary to the social experience, and with the stakes often nothing more than matchsticks, Inventor Sir Clive Sinclair is perhaps the best known of all the players who have appeared on Channe14’s Late Night Poker series, and he plays socially in a private game. For him, poker is an opportunity to meet friends and pass an enjoyable evening, Sir Clive has played poker for about ten years and for a recreational player he has acquitted himself very well against the ranks of professionals in the series. I am not alone in believing that if he played as much as some of the rest of us, he would become a very formidable player indeed.

However, I would contend that to experience the true thrill of poker it should be played for stakes that matter to the players. If you are playing for a sum of money that is meaningful to you, your sense of excitement will be heightened, your palms will start to sweat, the adrenaline will start to pump in your bloodstream and you will experience a sense of risk rarely encountered in everyday life.

It’s only one card, but what a difference it makes! with 53 cards in the deck, the different possibilities for winning hands in Joker Poker are very appealing to slot players who enjoy video poker. When that Joker appears on the screen, it adds an immediate bonus.

The explosion in the popularity of video-poker slot machines has understandably led to the development of games that use wild cards. The Joker Poker slot machine is the most popular of these games. It adds a 53rd card to the deck for each hand. Since this gives the player more opportunities to draw winning hands, and indeed makes the game easier, the payout is lower than ordinary video poker.

The Joker will come up about ten percent of the time and the player must be prepared to react to certain situations in a different manner to how he would in an ordinary video poker game. Strategy changes in this game and the different situations must be understood to take advantage of the higher payouts.

Though there are many different types of Joker Poker machines – most pay only on two pair, others pay for Jacks-, Kings- or Aces-or-better – and pay tables vary, the strategies are applicable to most situations. In Atlantic City and some riverboats, the highest jackpot is for five-of-a-kind. In Las Vegas, the royal flush cops the top award.

The Joker can be used as a substitute for any other card, or used as a fifth imaginary card of any value (to complete a five-of-a-kind hand, for instance). The machine automatically computes the best hand when using the Joker.

The only exception to this rule is that the Joker cannot be used to complete a royal flush (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten of the same suit). A Joker completing this hand is paid off as a straight flush. In most versions of Joker Poker, the lowest payout is two pair, unlike many video-poker machines that pay out for Jacks or Better.

There are some basic rules that apply only to Joker Poker. These guidelines are formulated by the unique situations and odds that exist by the addition of the one wild card.

Never draw more than three cards, regardless of the first five cards received. If you get a Joker in the first five cards, always keep one additional card to start with a pair, before the draw. If you don’t have a Joker, keep at least two cards of the same suit, so you at least have the beginning of a flush. Drawing a royal flush simply is not possible when you get a Joker in the first five cards, so any flush will be paid off, at best, as a straight flush.

When you start with a Joker, you can’t finish with two pair. It’s simple.

With the Joker, partial straights are better than partial flushes. If you have a Joker-Seven-Eight-Nine any Five, Six, Ten or Jack will payoff. That is 16 possibilities. For a four-card flush with a Joker, you only have ten possibilities to complete that flush. Though the payout for a straight is slightly less than for a flush, you will draw a straight more times than a flush.

Winning at Joker Poker is no more difficult than an ordinary video-poker machine. Joker Poker is, however, much more complicated, and you must understand what the addition of the wild card does to the probabilities. This very challenge makes Joker Poker more exciting.

Give it a try.

Baccarat requires no skill. Luck is the dominant factor and nothing at all can be done to affect the outcome of the hand after you place your bet. All decisions are automatic. You cannot reduce the inherent house advantage by altering your betting strategy or even counting cards. It’s simply not possible.

A mathematical study of the game reveals that the Banker hand wins 45.8 per cent of the time, the Player hand wins 44.6 per cent, and the Tie wins 9.6 per cent. By ignoring the tie bet, we find that the Banker hand wins 50.7 per cent of the bets and the Player hands win 49.3 per cent. The house charges the five per cent commission because it would simply not be fair to give this Sort of advantage to the baccarat player.

Like the toss of a coin, the hands in baccarat have no memory. Just as whether the previous coin toss came up heads or tails, it doesn’t matter whether the previous baccarat hand is won by the Banker or the Player. You could toss ten heads in a row, and there’s no guarantee the 11th would come up tails. The same is true in baccarat, but the “streak” of the same winning hand is what makes the game so fascinating.

Every casino provides a scorecard to its players to keep track of the winning hands. While this is a very useful tool, it’s important to remember that it is simply a reflection of the history of the game. Many players believe that it is an indication of future trends, but many other players have gone broke trying to chase patterns or streaks.

Because baccarat offers simple decisions – odd-even, up-down, heads-tails – it is a game that has long intrigued systems sellers.
A simple system with a fancy name is the “Gargante Marche” system. In fact, this system is simply one that takes advantage of streaks. The theory is to latch on to a streak and ride it until it fizzles out. It sounds simple, but is actually difficult. While you’re waiting for the streak in baccarat, you’re going to experience what is known as a “chop”, where the winning hand alternates between the Banker and the Player irregularly. You’ll be there for the streak, but you may have a long wait. In the long run, this system is no more effective than simply guessing which side is going to win.

Baccarat is the casinos most elegant and profitable game, with an air of sophistication and wealth. Although it looks complicated and intimidating, baccarat is one of the casinos simplest and most profitable games for the player.
 
If roulette is a glamorous game enjoyed by Europe’s upper crust, then baccarat is the game of kings. Until James Bond began playing the game in the Sixties, it was one of the casino’s most misunderstood games. Crouched in mystery, baccarat is conducted in a private gaming room, and caters to some of the world’s biggest high gamblers – or “whales” as they’re known to casino executives.

The dealers are attired in tuxedos rather than standard casino uniform. The supervisors watch over the game like hawks, sometimes sitting in chairs elevated above the game, to give them a complete view of the action. The players seem to be a cut above those vou’d find on the casino floor.

It seems a million miles from the rattle of the slot machines, where the players are noisily slamming coins into the shrill machines. Baccarat is unlike any other casino game, but it is in reality one of the simplest games in the house. Yet because of its elegant atmosphere, baccarat seems to be beyond the reach of the average gambler. Don’t let them try to tell you that.

Baccarat (pronounced “bah-kah-rah”) is one of the most socially involved games, one where you get to know your fellow players, and one where it’s very difficult to do something wrong. At the same time, you can’t make bad strategy decisions that will erode the minimal house advantage. In short, baccarat should be investigated by any player looking for entertainment and a good return on his investment.