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This free poker online guide comes from an experience I has in a Sit n Go event I played in a few months ago.

I was not in this hand at the time yet I was as duped by the winner as the player who lost it was. There is a simple lesson that comes out which is, firstly, you must learn when to fold and second, as related to folding, learn to recognize all the outs available in the hand – or else!

Here’s why and how:

BLINDS 30/60

A has As-Jd, calls 60
B has ??-??, calls 60
Big blind and small blind joins (Pot 210)

FLOP: 8c-4c-As

A thinks his Ace is strongest and so stays aggressive:

Big blind and small blind check-fold
A bets 300
B calls 300

Because A fired out more than the pot, B is now getting less than 2-to-1 on a call, (1.7-1) which is the right price to call for a Straight or a Flush draw with two cards to come. The bet from A is enough to force an incomplete hand out. However, since B seems to be a weak player who chases draws, he decided to call.

TURN: 8c-4c-As-5c

The Five of Clubs came, and A, at this point, still has a strong hand, but has weakened. His Pair of Aces is good against what he believes should be a stray Flush draw. If he makes B continue, however, he might not be able to play his Pair. So A continues battering:

A bets 500
B calls 500

RIVER: 8c-4c-As-5c-7d

A Diamond came! Not a four-Flush. Of course A believes his Aces are good already, except if his opponent had A-K. So A tries a check-trap

A checks
B bets 1250
A calls all-in 1250

B reveals 8d-6d, wins the pot

How on earth did B get the Straight? When A saw 3 Clubs, he figured B had, maybe , 1 Pair and 1 Club that could make a made Flush later on. It didn’t, so A thought B’s all-in was because of the value of the small Pair B already had. He believed it will be only 8-x or less, so A called with what he thought was the best hand. Not the case!

True the board was risky, but A did not realize just how much danger there was. By putting too much focus on the Flush, he missed the fact that the Board was only 1 card away from a Straight (only a 6 was needed to beat him), then when 3 Clubs came, he was relieved by at the Flush being gone and didn’t consider other potential hands which in hindsight was reckless. His check was correct, but if he had been aware of the danger then a fold would have been best at this point.

And I, too, was duped. I thought B had a busted Flush, too. When B pushed A all-in, I, too, thought he was doing it with a pair and a busted Flush draw. It was with a Straight.

So what sort of free poker lesson does this tale show?

To know when to fold clearly! When a board is just 1 card away from something like a Straight, Flush or some other main made hand, and another player has a big bet on which you figure is not a bluff then you should fold.

Two is to know which cards can crush you. All of them, not just some.

For A, during the Flop and the Turn, he realized that only Clubs can crush him. On the river, because there are only three Clubs (if B had the flush made, he would have moved all-in on the Turn, and A could have folded), A thinks he?s safe. He focused on the Clubs too much; he forgot the 6.

Of course it’s easy with hindsight and analysis, being aware of factors like all the available outs is a tough one if you’re new to poker (hell even if you’ve got some time tucked away) so for that reason it’s best to practice and play poker online for free a lot at http://www.NoPayPOKER.com before you go off to places like Feltstars and PartyPoker or live games and start throwing real money about. Even when you do progress I advise you to come back and play free poker online regularly in order to de-stress, make errors without loss and practice new ideas.

The turbo poker game is a fast paced money or free poker online tournament games where the blinds increase much more quickly than usual..

Suppose, in an ordinary poker tournament, blinds increase every 12-15 minutes. But in turbo poker tournaments it’s more like every 3 to 6 minutes.

Given these numbers, a turbo tournament is upto 4x as fast as a regular tournament.

So how do you factor in a speed of upto 4x into your playing style? Will you be playing many more hands for example? No at at all.

For example, if in an ordinary tournament you “small-ball” – a poker type of play where you play more hands than the other players, like 7-6 (even offsuit) and A-x (suited) which others feel slightly woozy when holding. And if you hit the Flop hard, you bet hard as well – because in the earlier levels the blinds are low in relation to the average stacks, so in risk-reward/Return On Investment terms it makes it worth while.

But in turbo poker games this style doesn’t work. While the Blinds increase the number of hands does not, indeed, they actually decrease. If you are playing, say, 60 hands in the first four levels of an ordinary tournament, in a turbo tournament you will be playing just 15-20 hands, most of them you will fold, of course.

What hands do you not fold?

- A-A, K-K, Q-Q, obviously.

- During the early levels you can also try out connectors because your opponents might be a bit scared about losing their chips early with a, say, weak Ace or King.

- However, in the later levels, where all of them are near to blinding out, also put A-x or K-x (where x is more than 10) and smaller pocket pairs in your arsenal.

Why? Because, simply, if you don’t play, the blinds will not just eat you – they are going to devour you!

If you move all-in with a number of hands than you are accustomed to in an ordinary tournament, you’ll be able to make the others fold.

And even with a caller, you may be on a classic coin flip if you have a pocket pair; you can be a favorite if you have A-x (x>10) and the caller is a weak Ace; and you will have two live cards with K-x and Q-x.

During the late levels the game is going to be mostly preflop; a series of crapshoots; so make the most of preflop aggression.

However, you can also make the most of postflop aggression in the late levels.

Suppose you’re in the button with K-x where x is weak and the blinds call. You sense that the other two players have weak hands. Now the flop comes a bit scary (A-8-3) for instance.

If you have the Eight or the Three and both the other players check, you can bet. However, it’s also possible to bet if both of them check even though you do not have anything. You have position; you are the best player to determine whether each other player has something.

Near the bubble, should you be sinking in chips, move all in with A-x, K-x or Q-x. Most of the time you will be drawing live. Others will be afraid to call you because they don’t know what you have and they will be the one sinking in chips if they call you incorrectly (or if you luck out).

I hope this helps you if you are a Turbo poker tournament player. If you are new to turbo poker them then I strongly suggest to practice them on free online poker first before to start risking your real bankroll

You can play poker online free turbo tournaments today as well as more chilled out freerolls, SnGs and poker leagues at our free online poker site at http://www.nopaypoker.com.

There you can also get into a vast goldmine of pro poker player online free online poker courses and lessons. If you are brand new to poker then the basic how to play poker for beginners course is ideal, after which you can move step-by-step upto intermediate and then win all the time advanced poker player skill.

Excitement runs through your veins as your eyes lighten up to the possibility of what your hand shows: a 2, 8, and yes you guessed it a fabulous King. You mildly lean over giving the slightest touch to the 2 old boys that lay in front of you. All the practice on the free poker games sites has paid off. The cards you hold have finally come in rainbow and the 2 lows are a fair distance apart. Flushes and str8’s are pretty much finished- and the kings reign supreme.

As you sit in anticipation for your turn you take a quick look over your opponents trying not to give any signs away of the fabulous hand you hold- there sits a fish. They have all played their part and helped water the stack as you sit watching it flourish. The bad calls and awful bets are all helping line your back pocket. They continue to outstack you after their latest hail-mary & you sit hoping they continue to push.

Your heart stops as fishy gets his go and as if it was Christmas he throws more money at the pot. This is it, its time to take the pot home; it’s the moment you dreamed of while learning your trade on the free poker games, and you want to take this opportunity. Inevitably it’s time to push your stack and show them all the Kings.

The fish slowly shows his cards and there it is pocket sevens! A huge gasp as everyone must be questioning what the hell they were doing. You stay calm in the comfort that his only possibility of saviour is to pull 2 more 7’s out the hat. Now off of the turn; and as if by magic the first of those 7’s appears. You can’t believe it- and as if things couldn’t get any worse, without hesitation the dealer reveals the 4th dreaded 7! Shock horror!

Your heart sinks and you drop to you knees. You have been forsaken. You swear never to play again as the gods can’t exist and let that happen. You want to scream as fishy. But you don’t. You congratulate and leave.

Later you realise telling the story is a waste of time. This is an internal badge of honour. What more could you have done. You begin to relax again when a larger thought enters you mind.

I guess the moral of this article is just to remember all players have different strategies and all come with the belief there strategy will take them to the end. You must not discard the bad beats or reprimand the opponents who give you them, as these are money making people. Keep them in your mind but don’t divulge this to others- smile and believe their cash will soon be yours.

And remember, there are always free poker games to practice on before you have to take a serious bad beat for real!

It never surprises me how underestimated pocket pairs are in the world of poker. Ok, before I get carried away, I should also say on the contrary they’re also a hell of a lot worse than you may think! Again a lot of this has to be put into comparison on how much you’re betting. To be honest for me this makes no difference as I always believe you should play the free poker games with the same mentality as if you were betting your house.

First off if you have pot odds of at least 4 to 1 you can be safe to call, it is a slight disadvantage but nothing that will break the bank. 4 to 1 may sound like you would be calling every pocket pair but its actually quite hard and impossible in early position.

By folding a couple more times now could potentially saving you a lot of money in the long run. If the blinds are quite small compared to the money on the table, and you have gigantic unspoken odds it’s a good time to see these low odd hands.

When the blinds are few and far between then there’s not too much to fear monetary wise. As if you call every pocket pair you will see fewer blinds over a 3/4 of an hour spell.

Pocket pairs are mostly just something to see a flop with and get away from easy but in rare cases you may even consider going/calling all-in with them. I wouldn’t recommend pushing with anything less then 66 as A2-A5 are popular hands these days. I remember when I first started playing poker and I found out that missing the flop with AK your still usually over 30% to hit by the river so I would just push all in regardless.

Some people including myself at one time thought 30% was not bad at all but really the only time you should with such low percents is when you’re forced into a situation that calls for it. Practice your card skills like this in free poker games first before moving on and up into the green.

I love playing both pay poker and free poker online and very much hope my following tips are of use to you in your own games.

Lady Luck

The first thing to remember about playing poker, like any other card game, there is always an element of luck involved. Many people say that you can make your own luck, which when playing poker is achieved by picking your cards and games cautiously. If you have any card above 10 it really helps, having an ace though is the best option. This is because most people bet only when they have a card with a high face value. The best time to go all-in is when you are holding a face card or even better, two of them. Although as I said that there are no guarantees and still a lot depends on luck.

Observe the Players you are Playing With

You are always going to come across some aggressive players who, no matter what type of cards they have, like to play a risky game and go all-in. My advice would be to avoid betting against these players until they have lost their chips and are out or they calm down their betting.

The other type of player is the one who is very tight with their betting and even if they have a decent hand is still likely to bet a low amount. These types of players are of no significant danger of knocking you out.

Next come the so called bluffers and these can be quite dangerous. It’s really hard to figure out when they are bluffing and when they really have good cards. They confuse you a lot so be careful while dealing with such players. The best thing though is to play with only when you are confident about your cards.

Betting Strategy

Next comes the question of how much to bet and the best tactic seems to be the one where you wait till the last, that is if you get a chance to do that. If not, just play according to the cards you have been dealt and go all out if you really have a good hand. If you are holding a good hand then bet low to keep your opponents interested and then slowly increase your betting. In this way the other players are forced to keep betting and you can increase the number of chips you earn.

I look forward to seeing you at the free poker tables soon!

I want to emphasize the importance of watching the cards that make up the flop – especially when you first start playing holdem free poker games or pay poker. There are some good reasons for this.

As the shared cards on the table are played by all of the players in a game, there is always a chance that another player is holding the same cards as you do, and hold a higher kicker. Take this situation, for instance: Two pair is a very common hold in hold’em. Let’s suppose that player A has two sixes in the hole. That’s a turning hand, because there’s a damn good chance he’ll get one more to make trips, and he’s going to get three cards in the flop instead of one at a time to see if he can get that other six.

The turn comes an eight, eight, and deuce. Now Player A has sixes and eights. Player A is now looking good to win the game over Player B, who is holding an ace, king as there are still 2 more cards on their way and this player will need to catch one of these in order to beat Player A.

Along comes a ten. Player A is still favorite to win with the best handHe now has a three pair, which are useless now. If the final community card hadn’t been a ten, then Player A would have won, but Player B has now won the pot because of his ‘ace kicker’.

If you are new to hold’em, have a go at playing free poker games and see how you get on before betting any real money on the cash tables.

Whether you are new to playing in free poker tournaments or not, you may wonder how to play your chip stacks. If so, then read this guide which will help you decide how to play the stacks from short to big.

First here are a few pointers on playing a short stack. If you are a short stack play as tight as possible but play aggressive. The best way to do this is to steal the blind where possible, rather than just pushing your opponents into a decision. There is no advantage to trying to trap as a short stack seeing you are risking a lot more than your opponents.

Now we look at the average stack. Here you should play your normal game and do not change your style as you are good enough on chips to not need to be aggressive in order to survive. This is the best time to try and steal blinds and antes though. You have enough to scare the bigger stacks and enough to cover smaller stacks.

Finally the big stack. There are two ways to approach this. You can sit back and play as tight as you can until the weaker players are out of the game, or the other approach is to be aggressive and force others into tournament life or death decisions. You can get away by moving with marginal hands in this case.

However, remember that playing aggressive can cause you to let others back into the tournament by doubling them up with marginal hands. So play wisely if you go this route.

By knowing how to play each type of chip stack should enable you to stay in the game longer and hopefully start winning some tournaments and increase your winnings.

I hope these pointers help you out, start by practicing and perfecting your method and skill in free poker tournaments and games and then move onto the money tables.

This approach is just as applicable to free poker games as it is to paid, practice it with the free money and chips and you’ll be doing it naturally when the time comes to play with real green.

Before you even hit the tables, set yourself a couple of ground rules on spending money and time. You DO NOT want to spend an hour losing money over and over again. I try to stick to 3 conditions when playing poker, if I come across one of them at any point, then I know its time to have a break from playing.

While it may seem like they will restrict your winnings, and cause you to make slow progress in the poker world, you limit your losses, and so stop yourself progressing backwards. A penny saved is a penny earned, and those pennies will build up over time if you restrict your losses and have PATIENCE!

The purpose of this is to prevent a huge blowout of all your money and thus causing you to miss out on a huge win after lots of bad calls. Here are my three rules that I stick to:

1. Quit playing and have a break if I have used up half of the cash flow I started with.

2. If I have doubled the money I have bought in with, and start losing it, quit and come back later. On a side note never risk losing a big hard earned stack by going all in. I made this rule and adhere strictly to it so that I never make a loss on what I have earned.

3. If you’re going nowhere (played for 20-30 mins in my case) and haven’t made significant gain or loss then quit and come back later, chances are your luck will be better.

If you have joined a game to win big, then remember, its not the cards you are playing against, it’s the other players. It’s no use going all in with a royal flush knowing you’re bound to win, and watching everyone at the table fold.

A rather general guideline (no more rules!) is that players tend to bet big when bluffing, and small when they have a great hand to try and squeeze as much cash out of everyone as possible.

However, this is not always true. First look at the players at the table, try to guess their playing styles, notice patterns in their behaviour and then apply this guideline to them. It works for me I would say around 80-90% if the time.

A good poker player will try and do this to you, so always vary how you play after you hit the table! If you make yourself seem predictable and easy to read. E.g. start off by folding weak hands and only playing the good ones. When people see that you raise whenever you get a good hand, and fold on weak cards they will write you off as unable to bluff, and you can bluff your way through the next couple of weak hands, with most being too scared to call your bluff.

If you have a rubbish hand and have no chance of winning, make it clear that you are bluffing. Then as soon as a good hand does come along (it will eventually, it’s all just about PATIENCE) then you can bet big, people will probably call your bluff, and you can just rake in their cash.

When starting out playing poker, its best to stick with playing free poker games before taking a risk with your own money. You’ll find that many free players don’t do rules very well and play silly but you will get a lot of experience in general game aspects on free poker sites so that you won’t waste too much money when you play for the real thing.

I remember when I first started playing free poker and there were so many terms that I didn’t understand, it was like a whole different language.

This guide is to help decipher some of the more complex terms and hopefully introduce you to some new ones in hopes that they will help not only improve your game but can make poker more enjoyable.

We all know some of the terms like , flop, turn , river, check, raise and so forth but there are even some terms for those that are foreign to some players. Such as…

4th street – aka the turn

5th street – also more commonly called the River

But that is not the limit of the terms you can keep in mind while you’re contemplating your next moves. Keep these in mind when you are watching the bets come around to you.

Plays tight – generally means that a player does not play lots of hands

Plays loose – the opposite to playing tight, and the player tends to play lots of hands

Plays “ATC”- they play anything “ATC”= any two cards”.

On tilt- means that a player is being erratic with their bets usually from losing a tough hand earlier.

Now that you have an idea on pre-flop situations now let take a look at board activity terms.

Over pair – When you have a better pair in your hand than the board.

Top pair – means that you have paired the highest card on the board with one in your hand. Next down is middle pair and bottom pair respectively.

If you manage to survive the flop but have 4th and 5th St. left to endure. Then you have three more terms to keep in mind as you go.

Outs – the amount of cards that can give you a winning hand.

Drawing dead- this basically means that you have no chance of winning a hand. Some players if they are drawing dead may bluff or go on tilt at the last second to try and steal the pot.

Having the “nuts”- Having the nuts means you have the best possible hand available from the cards on the board and in your hand.

Some tricks on betting

Granted, in all free poker play and pay poker, everyone can bet, check, and raise but even those three options can lead to some interesting possibilities.

Even terms like check and raise can lead to some pretty interesting scenarios and put players in a frenzy.

One example is to check-raise. That term means to check when the bet comes to you but then raise if a bet comes up. This tactic can hide the strength of your hand and can lure a player into losing a lot chips if he is not careful on how he plays it.

Value bet – Is a bet that is not a large bet but is considered small enough to call. Some players may call a value bet in hopes of gauging a player’s game play or to see their hand.

Semi-bluff bet – Is similar to a bluff bet but is enough of a bet to make a player think very carefully about what their next move is.

[b]Pot odds -[b] This term I would say is the most useful term to keep in mind. Pot odds is the ratio of your chips in the pot versus the whole pot. For example if you have $1500 in a $6000 pot your pot odds would be 4:1. Keep this in mind if you are in a tight hand and not sure if you should risk more or not.

Pot committed – Term meaning that a player has a majority of their chips in the pot. This is a very useful term as it can decide to back off on a hand or force them all in if you have the nuts.

These terms can all be used in free poker games as well as other poker situations, but if it’s at your table that you see and hear them, then you will know what is going on and that vital knowledge can give you the edge on your next game and hopefully put more chips on your side of the table.