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Usually when a poker online player checks, it is considered a sign of weakness, and that the player does not have a strong enough hand to bet. But appearances are intentionally deceiving in poker online games.

A player generally checks for three reasons:

* The player is holding a weak hand not worth betting.

* The player is on the come for a draw to complete a hand such as a flush or straight and hopes to see another card for free.

* The player has a monster hand, such as a flopped set, and is slow playing it to keep other players contributing to the pot.

* To be deceitful with the intention of check-raising if anyone bets.

When faced with a check, you have to consider the player. Ask yourself if this player:

* Is normally tight and folds to any bet? If so, then bet yourself.

* Have you seen this player slow play a hand earlier?

* If this player does slow play big hands, has there been any deceitful check-raising play? If so, only bet with caution.

Any time you face a player who checks, then raises, you have to consider that this player has a monster hand already. The only way to counter a check raise is to check back instead of betting into it.

Always remember that a check is not always what it seems when you play at Everest Poker.

One of the best ways to keep your identity variable to the other poker players at the table around you is to vary the way you act on your hands. While many books will say that preflop there are certain hands you should play certain ways from certain positions, achieving a true random element to your holdings and betting patterns will help distinguish to other players an unknown that your play that much harder to counter.

The varieties of limping, raising, and flat calling with certain kinds of hands preflop should be just variable enough that there is some question in your online poker opponent’s mind as to the range of cards you could be playing. If you only ever raise from under the gun with aces, kings, or queens, you will be tagged in the future for this action. On the other hand, opening the pot for a raise with atypical hands such as suited connectors and small pairs, or any prospecting hand, can add an element of surprise not only when you make your hands with them, but when you show down those odds cards raised from odd position.

Limping with big hands, raising with small hands, and otherwise scattering your effect is a manner of camouflage, of remaining unpredictable, even if the majority of the time you stay close to center of a strong, tight game of poker online.

I’m not the most temperate of fellows. In fact, I often find myself pissed of at the poker table, most often because of a bad beat. I don’t go off like Phil Helmuth, though-my tirades are usually internal, which is great for my opponents, but pretty bad for me, since my frustration tends to manifest itself when I go on tilt.

After bad beats, I find a lot of scary thoughts going through my head-stuff like “I’m due for a win” (which almost always means that I’m not due for a win), or I’ll start to convince myself that the lousy poker cards that I’m dealt will look a lot better after the flop (which they almost always do not).

Sometimes I can control these reckless impulses, but when I don’t, it sure ends up costing me. I’ve tried to get over my little bits of rage, but every now and then it comes back to bite me in the butt, so to make up for my lack of control after a bad beat, I make myself sit at least one hand out after a bad beat to calm myself down. By the time I come back and play poker again, I don’t feel the need to play crap anymore.

If you’ve got a tendency to shoot yourself in the foot after a bad beat, try sitting out a hand or two-it might end up saving you a few chips.

As an online poker player, you are probably used to the phrase “put your money where your mouth is”. This is an old challenge that is often thrown at over rash players to back up their bold claims with a little hard earned cash. When you are learning to play poker, however, this phrase can take on an entirely different meaning. Let’s talk about table etiquette for a moment to show you what I mean. When you play poker in a live casino, you are often obligated to put your money on the table instead of handing it directly to the attendant. This practice was originally designed to prevent collusion between the players and the dealer. While there are more systems in place now to prevent collusion, the same standard practices still stand in most casinos. You can be severely reprimanded if you violate this policy.

When you are first playing poker online, you need to learn to literally put your money on the table. This is a very different procedure than most players have experienced in their casual home games. It can be both very emboldening and challenging to put their money directly on the table. You need to get used to putting you money where your mouth is, and place it straight on the table.

A game may be a game, but lessons learned at the poker table can often cross over into real life lessons.

I’ll be the first to say that you see the true color of a person when you see them play poker. Are they devious trappers or aloof drivers in traffic? Sometimes the real unmasked jerk comes out at the poker online table. Leave it to money to bring out the worst in people.

But when we look at the game of poker as it relates to the outside world, it can also be seen as practice for real life situations. Poker can help the inexperienced person to deal with stress and anxiety in a more professional way. It helps you separate your emotions. If you take a bad beat and it lingers on your mind, you’re probably going to make poor decisions during this time of mental instability. You’re more likely to risk your chips in a spot that you normally wouldn’t. We’ve seen it time and time again on TV; some players are representatives of this behavior - the Mike Matusow Blow-up.

In real life, think of this as getting into a fight with your girlfriend and going out to the bar and sleeping with a random available girl. If you had more experience dealing with stress, you might not let the argument send you down a road of bad decision making. I’m not saying poker is going to keep you from cheating on your girlfriend, but what I am saying is that it gives you experience at handling situations. If you practice staying in the present in the casino, you might do a better job dealing with your otherworldly realities.

800/1600 200 ante - 5 handed, 11 players left in tournament. Hero is poker chip leader with 36k and is in small blind. BB has about 30k, others have significantly less. UTG raises to 4k, +1 calls, button folds, SB go all-in with As Qs (11,400 in the pot) and BB calls with AK. UTG and +1 fold 10s and 7s, board blanks.

It’s never easy to judge if the Blinds are going to wake up with a hand and contest you. This player was upset that he didn’t take the BB into account when he shoved. But the table was 5-handed and 4 players had already acted, so it’s unlikely that the BB will get involved.

Basically, there are two ways to play this poker hand in my opinion. One way is exactly what he did. There was nearly 12k in chips that he could scoop up by putting pressure on the smaller stacks with a pretty good hand (AQ). If he gets called from one of the two players involved he is either crushed or flipping. He is not getting called by KQ, QJ, or even AJ really; basically he’s not getting called by anything he dominates. He’ll get called by a mid-big pair as well as AK and probably AQ. If the player has AK he is in a rough spot and if the player has a pair he is likely coin-flipping with the larger stack. Even though you don’t want to have to coin-flip, by pushing all-in, he’s forcing his opponent to make the decision to coin-flip. Betting is always the correct play when a likely result is your opponent folding.

In this case, the BB woke up unexpectedly with AK and decided he wanted to get involved. It’s a tough call for the BB, with 3 of the 5 players already aggressively attacking each other. His AK is probably live, but it can’t be in great shape against any one hand. If he gets action against 2 or 3 players and hits, he’s likely to win or place very highly in the tournament. Either way, he’s making a bold call. His call forced both the other players to fold their pairs (10s and 7s) and he was lucky to play heads up AK vs. AQ.

The other way that our hero could have played the As Qs hand from the SB would have been to fold. He was the poker chip leader at the brink of a final table. If he was the chip leader with 36k in chips, that means he had 22.5 big blinds (not taking into account antes). This does not make him secure enough to be pushing players around with no worries. More importantly, if he has 22 big blinds, imagine how rambunctious the short stacks are going to get soon.

online poker, where payouts can reach up to 15% of the field, sometimes just making it past the bubble isn’t a very good return on your investment at the casino (ROI).

The phrase min-cash is used for when the players pass the bubble, but barely make a profit over their buy-in; the first tier of payouts may only be 1.2 or 1.3 times the buy-in. So, an example of this would be a $10+1 buy-in event that starts out paying $14. The player has done very little more than not losing any money. Some tournaments pay fewer spots and begin payouts of at least double the entry amount. Though it is more difficult to reach the payouts, it is economically worthwhile to do so.

Some tournaments with a high buy-in employ the min-cash system and some do not. An important thing to think about when looking at these tournaments is the portion of the field who has entered via satellite. These players have risked far less than the buy-in to play the event in question, so when they pass the money bubble, even if only for 1.2x the “buy-in”, they are actually making a large return on their small investment. If a player gains entry into a $200 buy-in tournament through playing a $20sattelite, the $240 cash is relative their $20 investment, hence a large profit.

Some satellites require the winner to play poker in a particular event, and some offer a choice of many tournaments in which they can enter. When you satellite into events on some websites, you can unregister from them and receive a cash equivalency. But, the cash that you get by unregistering cannot be cashed out or used in ring games. Usually, they are called Tournament dollars (money that can only be used to buy into tournaments with.