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Johnny Chan beats Eric Seidel for the WSOP 1988 title

This poker video features a younger Johnny Chan and Eric Seidel in the WSOP 1988 Main event final. Johnny Chan was sitting with J9 suited and Erik Seidel was dealt Queen 7 off. The flop came Q T 8 making Chan a straight and a pair of Queens for Seidel. Chan bet, but Seidel raised with Johnny Chan calling. The turn came 2 helping neither player … Johnny checked hoping Seidel would move all-in, which he did.

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How to Make a Semi Bluff in Poker

Contrary to popular belief, most winning poker players do not bluff as much as books, movies and the average Joe Schmo give them credit for. Don’t get me wrong, if you’ve read a player at your table to be weak and know that he is capable of laying down hands, by all means take and advantage and try to take the pot away from him with a bluff; in that situation, a bluff is a high percentage play. Generally speaking, however, avoid bluffing just for the sake of bluffing; it’s simply not profitable to bluff all of the time. Before you make any decision at the poker table, especially the decision to bluff, you should be armed with a well thought out plan and a legitimate reason for carrying it out.

There are many different types of bluffs you can execute at the poker table and each bluff has its own set of preconditions that should be closely adhered to in order for your play to have a good chance of success. The common misconception about bluffing is that you can bluff anyone out of any pot at anytime, an error in thinking that can cost you some serious dough. Sure, you can get lucky with a bluff and make someone fold their hand, but in reality the player who folded probably had a terrible starting hand, completely missed the flop, or was bluffing himself; maybe even all of the above! For the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on the semi-bluff, a post flop maneuver that can land you a nice sized pot either with or without the best hand.

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Called a semi-bluff because the play is part bluff, part value bet, you’ve hit a small piece of the flop and have a chance of improving your hand with a draw. The ideal target for this move is a tight passive player, as you’ll find is the case for most bluffs, because this player will more than likely fold his or her hand to your first bet, assuming he or she did not make a strong hand on the flop. You’ll win this hand one of two ways: your opponent will fold to your bet or you will make the best hand via your draw. Be weary of the tight passive player who calls your bet or even makes a raise when you are semi-bluffing; he’s probably got a monster. Let’s take a look at an ideal semi-bluffing situation:

You are dealt the K 10 of diamonds on the button and only one player has entered the pot before you. The small blind calls and the big blind checks. The flop comes 2d 10c Qd, giving you middle pair and a flush draw. Both blinds check and the player who limped in before you makes a little less than a pot-sized bet and now the action is on you. At this point, you probably don’t have the best hand, as your opponent’s bet likely indicates a pair of queens or even two pair. However, you are in a position to make a decent sized raise, or in this case semi-bluff, that serves many purposes. Not only will you gain additional information regarding the strength of your opponent’s hand, if he calls or re-raises you, but there’s a chance that you will take the pot down with your raise, and an even greater chance that you will get to see the next two cards for free because you’ve represented a strong hand on the flop and your opponent will be hesitant to bet into you.

The semi-bluff is a powerful weapon to have in your poker arsenal. Just remember to set the table before you eat! In other words, make sure the conditions are right for a bluff before you start senselessly throwing your chips around. A successfully executed bluff will make you feel like a king, but a bluff gone bad can often lead to an early end to your night. Randomizing your bluffs is a good way to keep your opponents guessing, which is what the game of poker is all about.

By Garry Gates - Poker Expert

League Games at Full Tilt & Pacific Poker

This weeks Euro / Non US tournaments will be at 888.com Pacific Poker

888.com Pacific Poker $50 freeroll
Thursday 12th June at 7.00pm GMT

888.com Pacific Poker $1 buy-in with $50 added
Sunday 15th June at 7.00pm GMT

Please note you will need to pre-register for the tournaments by adding your Pacific screen / player name to this forum thread … Pacific Poker Game Invite List (this weeks list will close and be sent on Tuesday for both the freeroll and buy-in games - so please add your name ASAP to help admin)

Once your on the list - you will be sent an invite email from Pacific then you need to go to the Pacific poker lobby and confirm your registration before the start of the games.

Pacific Poker is one of the most popular European poker rooms known for it’s very easy to beat players, new improved software and a very easy to clear bonus offer - Check out our Pacific Poker Review - Download using our links for a NEW 100% up to $400 bonus - Pacific Poker / 888.com is NOT open to US players.

Our Weekly Non US league will run over 24 games - Thursday $50 freerolls & Sunday $1 buy-in’s with $50 added games played over 12 weeks at 4 of our top recommended Non US poker rooms … Titan Poker, PKR Poker, Pacific Poker & RedKings Poker.

This weeks US Open tournaments will be at Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker $50 freeroll
Thursday 12th June at 7.00pm EST

Full Tilt Poker $1 buy-in with $50 added
Sunday 15th June at 7.00pm EST

Play Online Poker

Full Tilt Poker is one of the top 3 biggest poker rooms, excellent software and a great lineup of poker pro’s you can play like Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson & Gus Hanson - Check out our Full Tilt Poker Review - Download using our links and use BONUS CODE: 4kingbonus for a 100% up to $600 bonus - FullTilt Poker is open to US players.

Our Weekly Non US league will run over 24 games - Thursday $50 freerolls & Sunday $1 buy-in’s with $50 added games played over 12 weeks at 4 of our top recommended US open poker rooms Hosts will be Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, Bodog & Carbon Poker.

Check out the 4kingpoker Private Tournaments page - passwords will be sent out via PM (around 24hrs before each tournament) to members with 10+ posts in the forum.

Check out the full 4kingpoker.com Non US league II leaderboard & results

Check out the full 4kingpoker.com US Open League II leaderboard & results

Good Luck and hope to see you at the tables
Cheers Scrawnybob

PKR Tournament TV

PKR.com have now launched PKR Tournament TV airing nightly, the shows will feature in-game footage captured from the final tables of two of PKR.com’s most prestigious tournaments – the $100 buy-in $10,000 Guaranteed tournament taking place each Thursday and Saturday’s $60 buy-in ‘$20,000 Guaranteed TV Showdown’. Hopeful players can buy-in direct or qualify via satellite for as little as $2.

Taking its lead from popular real world poker broadcasts, PKR’s televised tournaments allow viewers to see all hole cards while listening to expert analysis provided by the PKR.com podcast team - host Colin Morris and commentators James ‘Jabbawa’ Bach and Dan ‘Danski’ Grant. The rich real-time 3D graphics at PKR poker, customisable player avatars and range of emotes all contribute to making this the most engaging, entertaining and watchable online poker programming ever seen.

Check out our full PKR Poker Review for a choice of bonuses including a massive 100% up to $2000

Scrawnybob’s Poker Ramble & Bankroll Update

It’s been a long time since I had a ramble, mainly because between working on adding new things to 4kingpoker, running my other business as a freelance photographer & trying to get a million and one things done in the house and garden … So I haven’t had much time to play.

When I have had time to play it’s been at a mix of sites and not really with a focus on my minimum deposit challenge … I think maybe I should have added in all the other sites I have a bit of money on as I seem to have faired reasonably well at some of the others and then rushed into games at the sites in the challenge and pushed generally too hard and too fast to get the stats up … and failed … guess without the pressure I tend to be more relaxed and just do my own thing without feeling anyone is looking over my shoulder.

Minimum Deposit Poker Challenge

A brief update on the minimum poker challenge with a couple of other sites I’ve been playing cash games at thrown in (to make things look at little better) but I haven’t put in some of the other sites that I have proper bankroll’s at.

Pacific Poker ($30 deposit + $8 bonus) … up to $46.64 … Having made some progress I think I blew a couple of hands which knocked me back but still showing a profit for hardly any play (and allowing for the $1 buy-ins in our games too)

Titan Poker … ($6.93 lying around) … $1.75 … Disaster after working it up to around $12 and then I had some kind of fit and started getting tilty and impatient, this is just about the worst thing you can do in low low stakes games (note to remind self again that you cannot bluff players who dont know what they are doing so dont try it). Still I’m not going to give up on this one as I’ve done well there before illustrating one of the downsides of cashing out too much of your bankroll at sites and having to start again.

Bodog … ($10 deposit) … $15.59 … Having got it up to somewhere over $40 easily enough I did it again with a meltdown combo of “not being in the mood” to play poker and thinking somehow I could walk on water, slow play every hand and watch tv at the same time and there is only one word for that … dumbass

These sites I have been playing more but with a fairly loose attitude towards bankroll management

Carbon Poker / Poker.com … ($10 left over) … $86 … One of my favourites as I’ve done well here in the past. But becoming something of a reoccuring theme I messed up this month. I had managed to work up $10 left over at Poker.com up to $150 and then in one session the other night took that up to $300. Nice until I just got a bit too confident and having made the nut ace high flush on the river, figured I had the other guy tapped for making the flush on the river also. So we proceeded to have a re-raise battle into an already juicy pot. I got blind sided to what should have been obvious to me that the Q diamonds also put a pair on the board and there was an outside chance of a full house … bugger that hand took me right down to rock bottom as I was stupidly in the $1/2 game playing all of my $300 roll at the one table (sometimes you just want to). So that wiped me down to around $25 which after a couple of sessions at the more sensible $0.10/0.25 tables is now up to $86.62

Bear in mind I have in the past found Carbon Poker / Poker.com to be pretty much a player cash machine, you might not get a massive choice of games but you really can clean up … I’ve started with very little before and cashed out enough for a holiday and started again and cashed out some more.

RedKings Poker … ($20 ish) … $59 … Redkings is on one of my favourite networks OnGame originally I started by playing on the founding room - PokerRoom. The cash games at RedKings continue to stay juicy even though the site is one of the biggest. I tend to dabble a bit here as I’ve played the software since forever and it never gets old, this has led to a recent foray into Omaha games of which I’m pretty raw and un-schooled even so landing 2 ful houses in as many hands dealt me a lesson in how very similar hands can have very different outcomes, the first netting me a load and the second wiping out around half the profit from the previous hand … although I’m definately going to work on this more as I’d really like to start playing HORSE.

PKR Poker Tournament Challenge

PKR Poker … ($300) … $5.35 … And so to my other little project, playing only SNG’s and MTT’s at PKR which has become a firm favourite of mine for sitting down for hopefully longer sessions and getting back into the swing of MTT’s. This hasnt been entirely successful due to my appalling bankroll management denial. Starting off with somewhere around $300 I’d decided to only play $10 or $20 buy-in MTT’s and a few SNG’s if needed to keep in the game.

The plan went to crap as soon as I decided this money should be used to go for the big games and try to qualify for some live tournaments or something big. With a couple of wins in $50 SNG’s to keep my ailing bankroll I was merrily entering $20 / $50 / $100 / $150 buy-in tournaments with litte regard for long term planning. I’ve played the last couple of PKR Tournament TV games purely to try and get on TV … how daft is that ?

Well I justified it to myself on the basis that a few moments of glory on SKY would be a good bit of PR for 4kingpoker.com which while fun trying was a pretty stupid way to go about it.

The last PKR TV game was a $109 buy-in and that was pretty much all my cash … with the super distraction of admining the passwords and the usual last minute issues of our tournaments at the same time as playing I went from doing pretty nicely to fighting for suvival … and obviously lost, coming I think around 50th out of 150.

Still it was fun and now left with a measly 1.80 I’ve so far got this up to $5.35 but this isn’t really my idea of fun running it back up in the cash games, it was always the plan to play fast and loose with the $300, playing some bigger games at a site that I really look forward to sitting down at for several hours. So I might just have to move some bankroll around to get me back into those bigger MTT’s and SNG’s … I will get 4kingpoker it’s moment on TV lol.

Pro Am Poker Equalizer part 1

This poker video shows and interestingly different take on poker tournaments. Pitting professional poker players up against celebrity recreational poker players the twist is that the amateurs start with a 3 to 2 chip advantage to give the pro’s something of a handicap. This is quite a cool idea similar to handicaps for golf players leveling the playing field.

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