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Gus Hansen gets chomped

Just as everyone expected, Gus Hansen has been throwing his weight around online again, winning the day's largest pot (so far) against David Benjamine, while losing the second largest against trex313.

When Gus Hansen is on the table, you never really know what to expect. He's hyperaggressive, ridiculously skillful and always, always, always good for some serious action.

It's this aggression that can fool opponents into paying Hansen off in situations where he should receive nothing, but it's also this aggression that will allow his opponents to hit monstrous pots when they make the nuts themselves.

In this hand online high-stakes pro trex313 gets a little bit of good luck (not all that much, since he did have approximately 900 outs), and a nice large pot.

Game: $500/$1,000 - Omaha Table: Hansen Knockout Players: Gus Hansen, trex313 Date: Jan. 17, 2009 4:00:22 ET Hand ID: 10087952685

Table Setup
Gus Hansen Seat 1 Stack size: $109,093 Posts small blind of $500
trex313 Seat 2 Stack size: $72,397 Posts big blind of $1,000

Pre-Flop
Dealing down cards
Gus Hansen calls $500
trex313 checks

Flop 9 8 6
trex313 bets $1,500
Gus Hansen raises $6,500
trex313 calls $5,000

Turn 9 8 6 [4]
trex313 checks
Gus Hansen bets $15,000
trex313 raises $60,000
Gus Hansen raises $86,593
trex313 calls $4,897
Gus Hansen shows 6 3 8 7
trex313 shows J 8 T 2

River 9 8 6 4 [7]
trex313 wins $144,794

Hansen flopped the absolute nuts; unfortunately for him, flopping the nuts in Omaha isn't exactly a license to print money. Omaha is a game of redraws, and Hansen has none. With a flush draw on the flop, and the four on the turn opening the possibility of a backdoor flush draw, Hansen decides to get all of his money in while he's still ahead.

The money goes all-in; Hansen with the nuts, trex313 with the open-ended straight draw, diamond flush draw, spade flush draw and middle pair. With all three of his draws live to win the pot, the 7 on the river gives him the flush, and a higher straight. Either one is good enough to win the $144,000 pot.

The Final Table: Pokers Lure

It should come as no surprise that Texas Hold 'em poker is responsible for the dramatic upsurge in online gaming profits. After all, one only has to turn on the television most any weeknight, and a poker tournament will surely be showing somewhere. The exposure these days is relentless.

The draw, of course, is the thrill of the final table and the riches that come with it. From poker's roots in dusty Old West saloons, to dazzling casino rooms, to the home PC, it is everywhere today. According to the research service PokerPulse, more than 1.78 million poker players made real money wagers online in January. That number is only expected to increase as tournament prize money continues to grow. On most any given day, an online 'hold 'em' tourney will reward those "in the money" with purses of $100,000, $250,000, even $500,000.

Certainly $2,500,000 is a large sum by anyone's standards. And that's just what a young fellow by the name of Chris Moneymaker from Tennesse won in the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP). That princely sum was parlayed from a $39 investment in a "qualifier" at an online poker room. His overnight success story aired countless times on cable television, and suddenly, poker was hot.

Not to be outdone, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer turned a $160 "satellite" entry at the very same poker site into a seat at the 2004 WSOP. Raymer's result? Champion! And a staggering first prize of $5,000,000. Online poker had arrived.

Consider that in January 2002 the industry gross 'rake' (or fees collected) per day was around $100,000. Today, it's near $2.5 million per day. An estimated $16 billion was wagered on internet poker sites in 2004. And, as new devotees enroll in mind-boggling numbers, it's difficult to gauge an industry consensus on just where the limit lies.

Though the poker resurgence began in the U.S., it may be growing faster overseas. Britain, already a gambling-crazed country, accounts for roughly 80% of the European poker market. Germany and Austria have burgeoning poker clubs and communities, while the Scandinavian population may be the ripest emerging new market. Also, it's interesting to note that 30-40% of new European players are female.

The phenomenon of women in poker may hold the key to explaining poker's rapid ascent. In the past, poker was viewed more in the Old West sense. That is, that poker was a game for males conducted mostly illicitly and in less than pleasing surroundings. In fact, up until just a couple of years ago most Las Vegas casinos had gotten out of the poker business. A handful of poker rooms on old Fremont Street were essentially the only games in town.

The internet, however, changed all that. It offers anonymity, is safe and hassle-free, and presents the opportunity for copious rewards in exchange for relatively modest entry fees. What more could a girl want? If she (or he) has the skill, it's possible to compete alongside world-class players and actually win.

But is it extraordinary skill which will get you to the final table? Perhaps. Numerous authors have written on the subject of the perfect poker strategy. The odds, the hands, probabilities, you simply must know what you're doing they say. Just don't tell that to Chris Moneymaker though. He'd never even read a book on poker prior to winning it all.

Mathematics and Poker

A big question amongst many poker players is whether or not you need a good knowledge of poker mathematics to be a winning poker player. The simple answer is that it is by no means essential to incorporate mathematics into every situation, but by doing so you should be giving yourself more of an edge. The maths involved in poker decisions is not complex by any means, and anyone with a standard level of education is able to perform the calculations quickly in their heads whilst at the poker table.

Mathematics can be used in poker to work out the probability of certain cards being dealt at any point during the hand. If we are able to work out the probabilities, we can then determine whether or not it is worth calling a bet to chase after a draw. So obviously if we can work out that a certain draw is unlikely to be completed by the river, we will be less inclined to call big bets to try and catch those cards. Using the probability of completing a draw along with the amount you have to call in relation to the pot to figure out whether it is profitable to chase after a draw is called pot odds.

Pot odds can be worked out calculating the number of outs in relation to the number of cards left in the deck as well as the bet amount we have to call in relation to the size of the pot, then these number are compared to work out if a call is profitable. For example, if we are on the flop and we have a flush draw, there are 9 cards left in the deck to complete our hand. There are 47 cards in total left in the deck, 38 of which will not make our draw, so by putting these numbers together we get a ratio of 38:9, or put more simply, 4:1 odds of making our flush by the next card. Therefore, for every 4 cards that will not make our hand, the other 1 card will. If you find this method difficult, you can use poker odds charts to help you quickly figure the odds out.

The next step is to work out the ratio between the size of the bet we have to call and the total amount in the pot. So if the size of the pot is $50 and we have to call $10 to try and hit our flush, the odds we are being given are 50:10, or put more simply, 5:1. Now when comparing the two ratios, we have 4:1 odds of completing our hand with 5:1 odds to try and hit our hand. This means that the odds are in our favour because the odds we are getting from the pot are greater than the odds we are getting from the cards. Therefore if we make the call, this will be a profitable call in the long run.

As mentioned, mathematics is all about poker in the long run. Just because you are able to work out the pot odds for each individual hand, it does not mean that you are more likely to win the hand. You may lose many hands in a row, but as long as you have the correct pot odds to call each time, in the long run you will come out on top as a winner. Poker mathematics is a great weapon to add to your poker arsenal, and it is good to know when you should and should not call bets for each drawing situation.

How to Choose The Best Online Poker Room

If you are interested to start playing poker online, you may wonder what your chances to win any money are. Online poker has become an extremely popular pastime and the web is abundant with online poker sites. But are you getting started on the right track? How to find out that?

When choosing your virtual poker table you should start with reading poker blogs. You will get first-hand online players information, the pros and cons which will help you find the best online poker room for you. Consider the time spent reading the online poker blogs an investment in your future comfort, security and steady success in online gambling.

Next, you should check poker sites ratings. The poker rooms are usually ranked by winning poker players. Their rankings are written from personal experience and observation and are considered trustworthy. Credible sites would usually have general introductory bonuses or offer credits against your sign-up. These are highly recommended for a start because initial risk is relatively low.

It is not a bad idea to start playing for free. Offering online poker free rolls (free poker games) is a typical strategy of the high-ranking sites. The best online poker rooms usually use this mechanism to attract visitors and convert them into regular long-term players.

This way you can play without risking your money and you will have time to get to know the online poker room from the inside. The navigation of the site should be handy and simple in order to keep you from loosing precious time and engage you in play as soon as possible.

Give the promotions sections a thorough look over. On the best-ranking online poker rooms you can find different promotions like satellites to live tournament entries, free rolls with weekly prize pools, exclusive cash rolls and more. To be completely safe, check the "about us" and "contact information". A site offering online gambling should be a licensed one. And the information in these sections should be extensive, the more the better for credibility rating. Before you choose your best online poker rooms, read the small print with the sites’ terms and conditions. You may get well surprised by some of them. You may unearth a wealth of information from the FAQ sections of these sites as well.

Virtual poker rooms which respect and care for their players have usually invested in setting up poker school sections. These will teach you the strategies for developing a winning hand and account for the details of the game play. The best online casino rooms would want their players to be successful and try to keep them coming back to their terrain. So, look for online poker room tips on big online gambling sites. Their virtual poker rooms are usually high-class and secure ones.

Money Management

To be a successful poker player you have to be able to exercise good bankroll management skills. If you are unable to manage your poker money correctly, you will never be able to become a long term winning poker player. Even if you were the best player in the world, it would be impossible to be able to make money from poker if you did not use good money management skills.

Bankroll management basically involves playing at a certain levels and buy-ins to help prevent yourself from going broke at the poker table. You have to set yourself limits to where you can play poker due to the variance found in every poker game. There are always going to be times where you have runs of bad luck that you cannot control, and you will lose money due to the bad runs of cards, and not necessarily due to any bad play. Therefore there is no use in putting all of your poker money on one table, because there is a good chance that you will lose it all and not be able to continue playing poker.

As a result, it is important that we have a large enough bankroll to absorb the effects of this variance so that we can continue to play poker even when we have very bad runs of cards. In addition, we don’t want to go over the top and play at micro levels with a huge bankroll because it is unlikely that we will go broke, and we want to give ourselves the opportunity to win a decent amount of money from our poker sessions. Therefore there are useful rules that you can follow to make sure that you give yourself the best opportunity to make money from poker without going broke.

In cash games, you should never put more than 5% of your bankroll onto the table at any time. So if you want to play in $1/$2 cash games and intend to buy in for the full amount, you should have a bankroll of at least $4000. This will then give you enough room to take a few bad beats and losing sessions, but still be able to continue playing poker without the fear of going broke. Another way of looking at the 5% rule is to remember that you should have 20 times the maximum buy in of the level you wish to play at in your bankroll. Most online poker rooms offer a wide range of limits, so it is perfectly possible to keep your bankroll under control, no matter how large or small it might be. Alternatively, if you are a tournament player, you should have around 40 buy-ins minimum for the level of tournaments you wish to play in.

It is important to remember however that bankroll management is only useful if you intend to play poker regularly, and that you are a winning player. If you only play poker casually then it is not as important to have a set bankroll, but to just be careful with your money instead. In addition, bankroll management will have no effect on your moneymaking endeavours if you are a losing poker player. However, bankroll management will slow down the time it takes for you to lose the money if you are used to playing at higher stakes.