Online Poker Players Are Society’s New Celebrities

According to the new Celebrity Apprentice Joan Rivers, professional poker players are “beyond white trash.” But I think there are millions of people who would beg to differ. In fact, poker is wildly popular right now and so are those who play it professionally. This is evidenced by the fact that poker players like Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Phil Gordon and many others have achieved huge celebrity status in recent years.

Poker’s star-making ability has inspired many to try to make a living on online gambling Web sites. Some have actually been very successful and as a result, poker has created a whole new wave of Internet millionaires. These successful poker players are sometimes surprising, because they’re often very young and not seasoned professionals. But for every group of successful poker players, there are also plenty of people who are victims of online poker scams. These scams happen to mostly new players, because they are lured by the promise of easy money and don’t do their homework first.

To make sure you don’t fall into this same trap, the following points can help you determine whether a site is a scam:

• If the site doesn’t look professional, don’t play there. Sub-standard construction could be an indicator of the work of a quick-buck artist or a cash-strapped owner who may go belly-up and take your money with him.
• Check if the site or its owners are members of the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC). IGC members pledge to follow a code of ethics.
• Make sure the site has 24-hour support with a toll-free phone number and e-mail.
• If the site looks professional, is an IGC member and has good contact info, do a few small transactions as tests before you put up any major money. These will reveal a lot about the integrity of the site.

Everyone has to start somewhere, so there’s no reason why with a little luck and a lot of practice you couldn’t become one of online poker’s stars. Just make sure to do your homework first, so your success won’t be tainted by regret.

How Can I Win When Playing Heads Up Poker Online?

I am somebody who loves to play online poker. It is more about the enjoyment and the relaxation than about attempting to gain financially. It goes without saying that it is always good to win and if you can make some money from playing a game that you enjoy then it’s a massive bonus. I usually play on the five-man tables where the first two get paid out. I aim to play very tight in the early stages as I am eager to reach the final heads up. If I can get into the final two I feel that I have a seventy percent chance of winning the tournament as I then change my poker strategy from playing tight to playing aggressively.

I am by no means a professional poker player; in my business life I run a web promotion agency and I also help people who offer business cost cutting. As a side line to these main business interests I am also involved in the stuttering therapy sector.

I used to be a very poor “heads up” player as I would often get bullied out of the majority of the hands. I realised that I had to learn a new way of playing in the final stage of a poker tournament as what I was currently doing was not working.

I soon learned that I needed to be the aggressor, the poker bully if you like. Instead of folding the majority of hands I now play, on average, ninety-five percent of them. I raise the pot with any ace, king, queen or Jack and raise all in with any two picture cards or when I am dealt an ace with a picture card.

By doing this I win a lot of the pots by default and if the other player chooses to call I believe I have a great chance of winning the hand. Just limping in can lead to all sorts of problems/decisions. Make it easy on yourself and your brain by being decisive early on. It has be said that we all lose from time to time; this is fairly obvious but these methods have enabled me to gain a seventy percent success rate at heads up during the last three months. I hope these tips work as well for you as they have for me.