Archive for the ‘Poker Features’ Category

Poker Calculator Report – Full Tilt Security Cracking Down Now

In light of the recent negative media in regards to online poker and the security issues at several major poker sites, the minds that run these operations need now be taking a more serious approach to the issue that has begun to define the trust a player has in his chosen poker site.

Suffice to say that Party Poker and Poker Stars have consistently led the way with the tightest security on the market and have certainly gone a long way in actually defining the safety that its players should expect when depositing and then playing with their own money online.

Up until now, the other major internet poker site, Full Tilt Poker has lagged behind the two power units in the market in its security policies. One of those policies is certainly being a public external audit whereby anyone who is interested can analyze the card distribution and hence being able to determine if the randomizer program in use at Full Tilt is actually fair. The other major security issue is the lack of policy with regards to third party â??black hatâ? data mining software being used for profit on the Full Tilt tables against unsuspecting players.

Full Tilt experienced a bonanza of business last year when Party Poker (being a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange) was forced to pull out of the American market to avoid getting into a potential legal battle with the Government of the USA. Within weeks of the legislation, Full Tilt became a major player in the market leaving behind many other poker sites of its comparative size like Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, and Bodog for example. Those sites now are suffering in their own right with â??softâ? security and need to make some big decisions if they can expect future growth.

So given that Full Tilt may have had some growing pains, it could be argued they had other things on their mind than security. In a recent communication with the company however, I have been informed of at least these issues which are now being addressed at this point.

An external audit is now being considered as a Full Tilt company representative stated – â??As for a third-party independent audit of our shuffling and dealing processes, we are currently considering our options in that area and hope to have a related announcement soon.â? I really hope they follow through with this because an external audit will go a long way in drowning out the bad beat drama found in so many poker forums about full tilt hands that went terribly wrong.

Next is the enforcement and crackdown on the data-mining activities of third party software like Poker-Edge. This software has always been the nemesis of Poker Stars and Party Poker where those sites actually scan your hard-drive now to determine if you are using such software. You will get a warning of account deletion and confiscation in about a New York minute if you are actually using it.

Only recently Full Tilt actually put up a list of prohibited software that included Poker-Edge. Now it is one thing to have a list of prohibited software and actually do something about it, which up until now Full Tilt didnâ??t really â??preventâ? its use. That all changed when operators of Poker-Edge actually boasted on their own forum that Full Tilt doesnâ??t even care about using the Poker-Edge on their tables and cited mockingly that â?Poker-Edge does have a b2b affiliation with fulltilt such that if you signup with fulltilt through the poker-edge link… you’ll get poker-edge for free (for three months). So I truly doubt that fulltilt cares very much about that prohibited list.â?

Well that tidbit irked the sleeping giant to the point of identifying Poker-Edge software as being in breach of their affiliate agreement and have now cut off association with that software, and further as stated by the Full Tilt rep â??As far as the data-mining issue is concerned, we are currently reviewing our options, which may include the introduction of countermeasures that will deter and prevent the use of such programs and/or databases. The integrity of our site and the security of our players are of paramount importance to Full Tilt Poker, as they have been since our inception.â?

Given that Full Tilt Poker has now deemed these issues a priority as well, I should think that would be a wake-up call to Bodog, Ultimate Bet, Absolute, and the rest of the aspiring poker sites that want to progress in this game of capturing new players and deposits. You are simply going to need the highest security standards and policies as part of your infrastructure.

Online Poker Cheating – Attitudes are A-changin’

In October of 2007, a horrible cheating scandal was uncovered at Absolute Poker. The news of this scandal made national headlines. Since then, everything is different regarding attitudes about online poker cheating. Can you feel the difference?

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, I’ll briefly tell you what happened. During an tournament at Absolute Poker, some players suspected another player of cheating. After the tournament, the player who finished second filed a complaint and requested a copy of hand histories for the tournament. In return, Absolute Poker inadvertently sent him more data than just hand histories. The information they supplied showed a cheating scheme that linked directly back to Absolute Poker itself.

Here’s how the cheating took place: An observer came into this poker room and informed the winning player of all hole cards during the tournament. And this observer was in cahoots with Absolute Poker; his IP address and account name traced to the servers that host Absolute Poker. In other words, an insider had access to all hole cards in real time, and he relayed that information to an outside accomplice.

No wonder this story made big news. No wonder the poker world is again abuzz with talk about cheating.

Regarding the question of whether or not cheating online ever happens, there used to be a variety of opinions. According to poker authority Byron Badd, writing for Gambling911: “Cheating at online poker really doesn’t happen that often. You hear all the time that people feel they got cheated, but more often than not it is a complaint about a bad beat. Cheating will always be part of poker whether it is online or at a local cardroom, but it usually doesn’t happen very often and is not something you need to worry about when you are at the table.” An opposing view was expressed by Jonathan M. Katz in Slate Magazine: “In an anonymous world where everyone is after your money, and where lying and preying on the weak are encouraged, it’s easy to get paranoid that others are cheating. And in fact, others are cheating.” As far as detecting these cheaters, Steven D. Levitt writing for the New York Times blog, said this: “One of the projects I’ve been engaged in lately is trying to catch players who are cheating in online poker. It turned out to be harder than I thought it would be to catch online poker cheats.”

But now, in today’s new climate following this widely publicized scandal, these discussions are moot. No educated individual can now argue convincingly that online poker cheating never occurs. It does. Obviously. And everyone knows it does. This knowledge has dramatically changed the landscape regarding cheating at online poker.

In years past, the usual question has been: Is cheating online possible? And the commonly-held answer among supposedly knowledgeable individuals has been: No. Now, following the Absolute Poker debacle, the question being asked is more like: Since cheating is happening, how might I protect myself from being cheated? Or maybe even this question: Since cheating is all around me, how can I, myself, cheat?

Yes, attitudes are different now than they were prior to news of this scandal. There is much greater acceptance of the concept of cheating in online poker rooms. There is heightened awareness of the possibilities. More people are asking: Can I cheat too? With all this cheating happening, how might I get in there and get a piece of the pie? Should I educate myself on the matter of poker cheating? Am I being naive if I am one of the few players who still believes the possibility of cheating is remote? These are good questions. I hear them asked all the time now.

Attitudes have changed, which is good-news, bad-news. It is good news because it is based in truth, and truth is always good. The truth: There exist ways to cheat online, even today, and there are unscrupulous people willing to take advantage of those ways. The more the online poker community recognizes this truth, the better.

But this change in attitude is also bad news. The bad news is that more people are now apt to try some means of online cheating. If that is a result of this new heightened awareness, it is most unfortunate.

After all, one fact remains unchanged. It remains undeniably true that cheating is despicable activity. Nothing could ever change that abiding truth. Cheating, even when possible, is never advisable. Cheating is immoral. A cheater, at poker or any other area of life, is a person to be despised. There is nothing admirable or cool about a cheater. The best advice is this: If you don’t know how to cheat, don’t learn. If you do know how to cheat, don’t do it anyway.

Be aware of this change in attitude regarding poker cheating. You are likely to hear new talk about various ways to cheat. Be alert to this discussion coming your way. You will hear it in poker rooms. You will hear it in forums. You will hear it in personal correspondence. But hearing it does not mean that you, yourself, need to be a part of it. And it certainly does not mean that you, yourself, need to be among those who actually cheat. You cannot control the actions of others, but you can control your own actions. I urge you to resist the temptation to cheat. Play fair, and enjoy the magnificent game of poker in its pure, uncorrupted splendor.

Enjoy Free Poker Games

Online poker game has become the flavor of the season. Nowadays, the popularity of online poker games has surpassed the craziness of land based poker games. Let us know why online poker games are so popular among public:

1. Super Speed

The speed of play poker online is generally twice that of land based poker play. So, you can get same fun and pleasure in comparatively less amount.

2. Inexpensiveness

Usually, rake collected by an online poker room costs 5% or less of each pot whereas the same will cost you roughly 10% or even higher in land based poker play. In this regard online play is the better value option.

3. 24×7 availability

One of the interesting features of online poker games is their continuous availability throughout the day. You can actually your time of play at any day and any time and get real fun and pleasure. In land based players must plan ahead and get to the venue at the due starting time.

4. Better Choices

Online poker players provide better more choice, in the number and variety of games to select from and players to play with. So, make sure you decide judiciously and reap better results.

5. Difference in Poker Tells

Poker Tells between online and land based poker play vary from each other. Usually in land based players spend more time observing body language and voice whereas in online poker games gives emphasis on timing, bet size, and table position rather than the judgment of facial expression.

6. Flexibility

In online poker, you are flexible to choose play in more than one room at a time. Clearly this is not an option open to land based players.

So, if you are a poker lover, you must take the pleasure of trying your hands in online poker tables and feel on the top of the world.

Poker Tips Strategies-How To Improve Your Game And Clean Up Your Competition

Since poker is becoming more and more popular seemingly every time you look, material being put out with poker tip and strategies is becoming incredibly popular as well. Since there are many highly successful poker players who know how to play successfully nowadays, they have decide to capitalize on this knowledge by selling poker tips on how to become a better poker player. They will give you information such as a good 3 card player poker strategy, Texas Hold Em Strategy, and just about any other kind of poker you can imagine.

Of course, you can get this information without paying anything, but if you want the top tips to improve your game, you might have to shell out some money. Here is some advice on finding the best tips to take your game to the next level, because whether you want three card poker tips, video poker tips, etc, you can find it online.

Remember, there is a lot of information put out today about poker, and this can range from actually playing in the game itself, to simply finding the best poker site to take you game to (no small decision) etc. Remember, when doing your research on the internet, you can literally find thousands of sites that will give you poker tips, and going through this information would probably be a good idea, simply because the rest of your competition probably will not take the time to do it.

Of course, you need to take the information you get with a grain of salt. Remember, a lot of the informant being put out there today is by players probably not a whole lot better than you; by far the best and fastest way to improve your game, instead of going through thousands of websites, which will more than likely simply confuse you, is to find somebody who’s already successful at playing poker, and simply model their success.

For this, you can buy how to information on the game of poker, and usually for relatively cheap prices. This is much better than going through thousands of pages of free yet often times conflicting information, and ending up more confused than when you first started.

If you plan on playing a lot of online poker, remember that a very important piece of info is to be aware of the specific rules at that particular site; often times, poker players can be thrown out of a site by not abiding by the rules there, and often times this happens simply through ignorance of what those rules are. Therefore, make sure you read up on this before starting to play at any sites, as it will save you a lot of headaches down the road.

Also, be sure to play rapidly when paying online poker. When games are played slowly and methodically, they can become very boring for everyone involved. Even if the rest of the players seem to be going slowly, try to do your part to keep the game moving along. The site owners will like you better for it, because they want as many games played as possible; in fact, sometimes they will implement a time limit per game, simply for this purpose.

To recap: the most important skill to improve your game is to read how to information from somebody who is already a successful poker player, and simply model their success. It would probably be wise to invest some money here, because typically the paid information is far better in quality than all the free bogus info floating around on the net nowadays.

Of course, once you’ve read this, now comes the most important part; actually playing. You can have all the knowledge on any topic in the world, but without implementing it, its’ useless.

Therefore, when staring to play poker, whether it be online or offline, always try to get in games where the players are better than you, because there is no faster way to improve your skills and raise your game than playing against other top notch players.

This is true of any sport, and poker is certainly no exception. Hopefully theses poker tips and strategies till help you to improve your skills as rapidly as possible.