Even some players that are profitable are finding it hard to justify risking their cash on the tables when there are bills to pay.

Thankfully there exists such a thing as a ‘free poker bankroll’. Now, this won’t be a whole heap of free cash, but you can get around $50 for free to play poker with, if you know where to look. One good site for finding these free bonuses is at No Deposit Poker Bonuses which, as you might expect from the name, deals exclusively with those free bonuses where you do not have to make a deposit in order to get the money.

If you need a bit of a boost to your bankroll you should certainly check them out. Of course, if you are a seasoned player you might already have an account at the poker room where the deal is being offered, but as there are over a dozen different free offers surely there will be one that will suit every player.

Anyway, you don’t have anything to lose in checking them out – see what you can get Here

However if I am say playing NL200 six max then I know that my opponents will be playing far more aggressively on average. However aggressive three bettors are aggressive three bettors and that really doesn’t matter if it is full ring or six max. However my favourite line against these players is to play some poker with them and this is especially the case if I think that they are the dumb LAG that often frequents the lower middle limits these days. I do not want to four bet players who I may feel may five bet shove on me.

So even if I am out of position to an aggressive LAG then I still may call the three bet. The stacks would have to be fairly deep of course and so if I raised to say $1.50 in NL50 and my aggressive opponent three bet to $4.50 then I would often call and look to play a pot. At the end of the day the $4.50 pre-flop is only 9% of my total stack if our stacks were $50. If we had more of course then the percentage would be lower. However in my experience then the NL50 level is such a great level to multi table because there are so few great players at this level.

So I would definitely have several ways forward here but what does deserve a mention is that I would make my four bets slightly smaller than what other players make them. If I raised to $1.50 and get three bet to $4.50 and I wanted to four bet then I would do so but not to a pot sized bet. Making it something like $11 is enough to make your opponent think that you have something strong and that you are at the top of your range. If you opponent plays along after that or five bets then you can get away from the hand with a minimal loss.

But with $6.75 in the pot then a raise to $11 is not committing you to the pot. However here is where many players go wrong because they make their four bet to something like $18 so when their opponent calls then any bet on the flop is almost pot committing.

The movie starts as Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) loses his entire bankroll of $30,000 playing against Teddy KGB (John Malkovich) who runs an illegal poker room that Mike plays regularly in. Sickened by this loss he decides to concentrate on his law studies promising his girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol) that he is now done with cards and will not play anymore. He is so sure that he does not want to play poker that he takes a delivery driver job rather than be staked into a game. On one delivery he stops at his professor’s house where a home game is ensuing. To the surprise of the professors he demonstrates his card prowess, but still he refuses to play. The professor respects his skills and backs him when he is in a rough spot later in the movie.

Once Les “Worm” Murphy (Edward Norton) is released from prison the action hots up with Mike being enticed back into the card games. But Worm is careless and ends up in a spot of bother owing money to a very unsavory character. Mike is forced into a worse situation than when he loses the $30,000 in the opening scene and bets it all to get back to even. Worm gives the movie an edge and is slightly out of control, not taking care to put himself first and making poker a dangerous thing for Mike to associate with.

The movie is well produced with a nice reference to the fact you can actually win money from poker if you are good enough. The struggle with his girlfriend Jo, who is completely anti-gambling is true to life of a lot of poker players who’s family worry about their increased gambling activity. Mike can see their point, but he has belief in his skills and he feels that he must play to take advantage of the opportunities. It is pushed throughout the film that poker is a game of skill that is subject to luck, rather than the other way around.

The ending is neither a positive or negative one. The movie ends with Mike going to the World Series of Poker, having proved to himself he can win by having played a hand against Johnny Chan before the film begins. Significantly after beating Teddy KGB he only ends up with as much money as he starts with, giving reference to the fact poker is no guaranteed route to success. We learn that beating Chan in a pot was the was the basis of him taking a shot at Teddy KGB in the opening scene as he had believed he was good enough to win. He learns throughout the film that apart from the knowledge he is good enough, having no money to play is what stops him fulfilling his potential and thus bankroll management becomes a key theme throughout the movie with staking, loaning and paying back debt all covered in detail.

I found the movie to be a realistic portrayal of poker. It touches on staking and taking shots, as well as both appreciating and mocking the tight careful player Knish (played by John Turturro) who grinds a steady living as risk free as possible. The young player Worm is the reckless young player caught up in the gamble and taking too many risks, whilst the main character Damon is somewhere in the middle. Most poker players will be able to identify with one of these characters. Even the bad guys in the movie are honest enough to pay up when they lose. Street credibility and honour is prevalent throughout the movie where these players live dangerously but in a perverse way watch each others back, with begrudging respect to their fellow gamblers.

This DVD is a must see for poker players. Norton and Damon both play excellent parts and are convincing as poker players. The movie gives a good all-round account of poker, with the benefit of finishing on a more optimistic note than some other poker movies like The Cincinnati Kid.

By Malcolm Clarke

Before the Online Poker Boom

Before online poker blew up, very few people were playing online poker. The technology for a quality online poker experience didn’t even exist before the late ‘90s, and at that time only hardcore gamblers really knew about it. Once sites like PartyPoker, PokerStars and ParadisePoker began perfecting their software, more people took an interest in the online game, but it was still a relatively low-traffic enterprise.

The Online Poker Boom

That all changed in 2003 when Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee, won the main event of the World Series of Poker after winning his seat through an online satellite at PokerStars. Moneymaker’s win was viewed by more people than had ever watched poker before due to new technology allowing watchers to know the cards that each player held. After seeing Moneymaker win millions after getting his start online, thousands of people flocked to the Internet to take their shot at poker glory.

The Online Poker Bust

Poker and online poker especially, grew and grew over the next three years, as evidenced by the number of participants in the main event, which jumped from the hundreds to the thousands. Young players were discovering the game online and becoming expert pros in a fraction of the time it took their predecessors to achieve the same heights. Then in 2006, an exiting Republican Congress shoehorned the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into a bill designed to protect the United States from terrorism. This made it much more difficult for American players to get money into online poker sites and caused PartyPoker, the biggest online poker site, to withdraw from the U.S. market. This event precipitated a slowing down of the popularity of online poker.

Online Poker Today

Today, online poker is healthy, but the caliber of the competition has gotten much higher. Many of the poker players used the UIGEA as a good opportunity to withdraw from online poker and cut their losses, while others had finally played enough to become skilled at the game and were no longer easy pickings. Today there is plenty of traffic out there for players looking to get into online poker, but being a consistent long-term winner may be more of a challenge than ever before.

One underrated method that’s been gaining popularity recently, however, is eWalletXpress. And not only is it gaining popularity with US-friendly casinos, but some are even starting to give members their best casino bonus if they use this eWallet as a preferred depositing method.

What exactly is eWalletXpress? Well, for those unfamiliar with it, this method is basically PayPal with a little less popularity to date. It’s not big for online shoppers, but gambling sites take full advantage of it.

It works simple enough. You open a free account with the site and put your money in there either via credit cards or a bank transfer, and then you can transfer money from your eWallet into a wide range of poker rooms and casinos to get your Hold’em fix or to play video slots.

eWalletXpress is exactly like Neteller, for those familiar with that eWallet before it started acting ignorant.

Most poker players are probably going to join at least one of the big three sites mentioned up top, but there are hundreds of other poker sites out there accepting US players. And since they’re all competing with one another, gamblers would do well to browse their options and to find the best incentives and formats for them.

Even if you find that the site you want to join accepts eChecks or credit cards, it’s still a good move to go ahead and get eWalletXpress. It doesn’t cost anything to keep it open, and keeping a few bucks in there makes it convenient when you want to join a new poker site.

The best part of eWalletXpress, however, is that you can withdraw your game winnings straight into that account. This means you won’t have to deal with the anxiety of putting money into your bank account, and you won’t have to wait weeks for a check to be mailed. You can simply transfer it into your eWallet and have the money handy at your disposal.

The 888 Poker room operates on its own proprietary software, and the new software update seems to have led to an increase in the player numbers on the site in the last six months.

888 Poker Bonus

First things first, the 888 Poker bonus is still as good as ever, offering up to $400 at 100% deposit match. One very good point to note about this bonus deal is that you get 25% up front, without having played a single hand of poker.

This is not the standard bonus that most other online poker rooms offer. So if you decide to play online poker and make your first deposit for the maximum bonus and deposit $400, then with this bonus deal you will actually have $500 to play with. You can release the remaining 75% of the bonus by earning player points at the table. You need to earn 10 Bonus Points for each $1 of bonus money. Another good thing about the 888 Poker bonus is that you can earn bonus points for both cash and tournament play.

888 Poker Software

The recent software update included what they call ‘ghost cards’. This is the feature that shows you a faded version of your hole cards when you have folded so that you can see what you might have filled if you had stayed in the hand. You can also turn this feature off if you prefer.

Some other changes include the way that play money and real money are handled. Previously players had to choose which play they wanted before logging in to the site. Now the software uses the more standard system where you can choose the play money tables or real money tables with the same login.

Other areas that have been upgraded are the cashier system and the players bonus page, both of which are now a bit more user friendly.

To be fair here, I don’t think there ever was much of a problem with the old 888 software, but even so the new upgrade makes the whole experience more pleasing.

888 Poker Tournaments

One area that did not need any improvement is the 888 poker tournaments schedule. Even so, they have added Double or Nothing tournies which have seen amazing growth in popularity in recent times.

One other addition to the tournament schedule that is worth noting is the new ‘Challenge’ series of tournies. These tournies run every day with varying gauranteed prizes, the largest of which is the Saturday Challenge with a gauranteed prize pool of $50,000. The buy-ins to these tournies vary also,with the lowest being the $1.00 +10c buy-in to the satellite to the Thursday $10K GTD Challenge.

The previous bonus of a maximum of $50 at 100% match was well below what most other online poekr sites have been offering.

The bonus code for this new bonus is STARS600.

So, why was the old bonus so small and why have they increased it now?

Well, the general consensus on the previously tiny deposit bonus from Poker Stars was that they didn’t need to offer more, as they were, and still are, the most popular and biggest online poker room. I guess that they would prefer to spend their promotional money on various advertising and events rather than give it to their players.

It must have worked, as PokerStars has grown to be the biggest online poker site in recent years and by far out ranks their nearest competitor, Full Tilt, in terms of player numbers.

Having said all that, then you must wonder what reason they can have for increasing their bonus now. It is not as if they are feeling their competitors breath down their figurative neck as the distance between Poker Stars and all other sites in terms of player numbers has only increased in the recent past.

My guess for this sudden bonus increase, and it is only a guess, is that it is because of the situation in Italy, where all poker rooms that want to accept Italian poker players are required by Italian law to have a separate poker site just for Italians.

Being forced to launch was is esentially a new poker room just for Italians means that Poker Stars, and other sites in this situation, do not have the weight of numbers that they were used to using to dominate the market. So they had to offer a decent sized deposit bonus to their Italian players. I imagine then that when this situation became common knowledge it could give rise to some resentment from existing players, which in turn might lead to some bad press and negative feeling about their site.

This is only a guess, mind, and now that I write it down, I’m not sure that it makes as much sense as I had initially thought.

Whatever the reason, it is now a good sized bonus that can stand up against most other sites bonus offerings.

Further to that, Poker Stars are also offering their existing players a reload bonus of up to $300 at 50% deposit match. Which is good for their existing players as most of them will have only received the old bonus of $50.

All in all, way to go PokerStars!. Claim this bonus at Poker Stars.com – use the bonus code STARS600.

It seems that the legal basis for this move rests on the Wire Act, which is more usually the law used to go after online bookmakers and not poker rooms.

Also unusual in this move is the fact that the funds targeted belong to online poker players and not the poker rooms. Bearing in mind that there is actually no law on the statute books in the US that prohibits playing poker online, the seizure of ordinary citizens cash would seem to require some serious explanation.

So what is that explanation? Well, so far the people behind this move, the US attorneys office of New York have refused to comment on the case.

The Poker Players Alliance has been quick to respond this this move, issuing the following statement;

“The PPA is disappointed that this unprecedented action has been commenced against law abiding poker players. The payment processor funds frozen by the Southern District of New York belong to individual poker players – not operators of poker websites – and do not represent the proceeds of any gambling activity, much less illegal gambling activity. This money should be immediately released by the Southern District to ensure that player payouts are not further disrupted. To that end, the PPA is coordinating a legal strategy to appropriately protect PPA members who are impacted by the Southern District’s actions. Further, the PPA has contacted the affected poker websites and has been informed that deposit and payout issues of players are being addressed and will be fully satisfied.”

The main poker rooms affected by this move are of course those rooms that still take American Players, such as FullTilt Poker, Poker Stars and UltimateBet and Absolute Poker. Full Tilt have come out with a statement effectively guaranteeing their players money. The important part of this statement is

“All players who were affected by the current situation have had their funds returned to their Full Tilt Poker accounts and all new withdrawal requests are processing normally.”

And the whole statement can be read here.

We have also heard, but cannot find any online statement yet, that Poker Stars will also cover any of their players withdrawals that may have been affected by this seizure.

Andrew Cohen took the bracelet, and the $80,000+ prize, on the second day beating out a field of over 800 other players.

Cohen, 39, who works as a bartender at the Palms Casino, had the right attitude even after winning the game, saying “…I don’t care about the money … It’s the bracelet that counts…”

That is an excellent attitude to start this years WSOP with.

With seven weeks of play, we will be leaving the blow-by-blow, and day-to-day reporting to bigger and better poker news sites. Luckily for us, sites such as PokerNews and Bluff magazine have reporters on the ground at the event in Vegas and will do an excellent job of reporting the highlights and the interesting play.

That means that we can cherry pick the really interesting stuff here.

Event number 2, the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em was won by Vitaliy Lunkin out of a field of over two hundred. His effort get him a bracelet and a cheque for $1.8 million, winning the final showdown with a very nice pocket aces which held up.

Thang luu won event number 3, the $1,500 Omaha Hi/lo 8-or-better, to take home the top prize of over a quarter of a million dollars. And in the process he set some kind of record, as he also won this same event last year, making it two in a row.

At the time of writing, Event number 4, the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em, is still in play. There are over 6,000 players entered to this event, making the top prize over three quarters of a million dollars, and the final ten percent of the field can expect a payout.

In a nice touch, this years bracelet winners will receive their prize in a little ceremony scheduled during daylight hours, instead of the more usual practice of receiving it right after the event ends, which often times is during the night when all but the most die-hard fans have given up and gone to bed.

This move should bring a small amount of extra publicity to some of the lesser known events, and their deserving winners, whihc should be good not only for them, but also for the public perception of the game in general, and the world series in particular.

The first such ceremony should take place today, June 1st, and hopefully this will be continued in future years, making this a nice tradition.

Rep. Menendez reasons for suspending the bill seem to be his growing realization of the amount of opposition that it would face, not least from the Governor of the State of Texas, Rick Perry.

Governor Perry is on the record as as promising to veto this, and any other pro-gambling legislation. The next serious attempt to legalize Texas Hold’em in Texas will probably not be taken until after the next State election, which hopefully will produce a governor that is less anti-gambling.

In his statement withdrawing the bill from the House agenda, Rep. Menendez said “You need to know when to hold them and you need to know when to fold them”.

That statement shows a shrewd understanding of what must have been a gamble all along, because it was evident from the beginning that no matter how many stages the bill passed on the way, ultimately the showdown would be with the Governor, and his veto power.

Ultimately, the play here was that the progress of the bill would raise enough public support and backing along the way that it would present a much stronger hand when it came to the House vote. Rep Menendez withdrew the bill last Thursday when it became apparent that the gamble had not paid off this time.

A significant element of the suspended bill, especially in these hard economic times, was the proposal to allow local communities to vote for or against allowing poker in their own community, and to allow the communities that voted in favor to issue the poker license thereby raising much need finance.

As with any law that protects people from themselves, one has to wonder just who the anti-gambling stance is protecting.

It certainly isn’t protecting those poker players that voluntarily choose to gamble their own money in currently unlicensed games. These players are not only at the risk of being raided by Law Enforcement and having their funds confiscated, but they are also in danger of being robbed by criminals that know that poker games are outside the law.

This bill in reality only recognized and tried to regulate what is already a fact in Texas, that people want to and will play poker. With enough public support of politicians like Jose Menendez, the next gamble will hopefully pay off.