Category Archives: Poker

Is online poker legal or illegal to play in the US?

Gambling, Online Poker, Poker, PokerStars, Uncategorized

As a matter of fact, online poker is still legal just as any other type of gambling at online casinos. I will explain why this is legal and how US players are being misinformed about what is legal or not. You may have remembered the Anti-Gaming laws passed in 2006 which tried to cut down on the online gambling industries and banks that process deposits and withdrawals. In fact, this law does not effect US citizens, nor can they be punished by this law.

The Anti-Gaming legislation was designed to clamp down on online gambling by taking advantage of some loopholes in the US Constitution. By law, the government doesn’t have a say in what you can do in your own home or with your own money to some extent, especially with gambling online. So they couldn’t shut down online casinos and prevent players from playing there that way. Instead, they went around the system and targeted the banks instead.

It is the banks that would receive punishments and the laws are directed towards them. They are not supposed to transfer money between customers and gambling outfits, so big online e-cards like Neteller stopped providing funding services for gambling.

Poker on the other hand is considered a game of skill and not pure gambling. Players can still deposit money into these places with credit cards, money orders, electronic checks and other methods, so there is nothing to worry about there. With casinos though, there are other ways to get money into these places without using big name banks like Neteller. Each casino has their own payment methods that you have to look into. The reason that they generally do not accept US players is not because it is illegal for them, but because it is very inconvenient to get a good payment method because there are so few banks that cater to US players. Instead, they have to use smaller, relatively unknown sources instead.

So if you are located in the US, there are a few good poker rooms such as Pokerstars and Carbon Poker

Part 4 – Advanced guide to razz poker expert strategy

Gambling, Poker, Poker Strategy, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

This is the last part of the 4 part strategy guide to razz poker. Check out the in-depth detailed article about advanced razz poker strategy for the informative strategy. I will write a basic run down of the strategy here in this post. Yesterday, we talked about different kinds of bluffing and when to really use the bluffs. Today we will talk about 4 common types of players you will come across and how to use advanced strategy to take advantage of each type of player.

There are four main types of players:

Tight and Aggressive

Tight and Passive

Loose and Aggressive

Loose and Passive

In short, the tight and aggressive player is very easy to spot. Tight players are conservative and tend to fold often but aggressive players tend to go all-in or raise when they get something good. So if you see a player folding on every hand and then suddenly raising like crazy, then you know that this is a player of the first type. The strategy with these players is to bluff more often and steal the antes early in the game since they will usually fold. If they suddenly start betting aggressively, this means they finally got their powerful hand that they have been waiting for, so it is wise to fold during this time.

The tight and passive player is harder to detect. They will usually fold often but when they get something good, they will just call your bets without raising aggressively. Watch these players to see how often they fold. If they fold often but then suddenly start calling your bets, they may be trying to slow-play their powerful cards and draw more money out of you so be cautious. Passive players tend to be more advanced and experts like to use the passive strategy often.

The loose player who is aggressive is another easy one to spot. They will usually bet money on every hand and call often, but they will become aggressive once they get something good. The strategy here is to not try bluffing them often because they are loose and will probably call your bluff. If the become aggressive, watch out because they will usually have the strong hand.

The loose and passive player is indisputably the most dangerous. They bet on every hand and will call all the bets, but they will not become aggressive when they get a killer razz poker hand. They will slow-play their powerful hand until the end and will usually draw out lots of money from other players at the same time. Again, restrain your bluffing and play tight with these kinds of players since they tend to be the most advanced.

Experts tend to use a combination of these player types in order to throw their opponents and competitors off their game. What I would recommend is tagging a note to each player and write down what kind of strategy they use. This way if you come across them in the future, you can remember their ways and take advantage of their playing style to win more money.

Part 3 – The intermediate strategy guide to razz poker

Gambling, Poker, Poker Strategy, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

Yesterday I talked about the beginners guide to razz poker. Today I am going to go through a short version of the intermediate guide to razz poker and go through some of the mid-level topics that are important to razz. You should be comfortable and pretty well versed in the rules of the game and experienced with some basic bluffing by now as well as reading players more easily. This guide will go through more intermediate and advanced methods of bluffing.

There are two types of bluffing known as straight bluffs and semi-bluffs. Both of these are generally used only during certain parts of a hand. Straight bluffing is essentially used most effectively at the beginning of the hand after players have been dealt their starting hand. You need to take advantage of the door cards on the table. Straight bluffs actually means that you are bluffing but would surely lose the hand if someone called your bluff. So on a 3 card hand, everyone knows that you do not have a full 5 card hand obviously and this would count as a straight bluff.

Players are supposed to get the impression that you have 2 powerful hole cards with that powerful door card. In fact, you might have K-K-A with the ace showing, which would be a horrible hand, but no one knows about the kinds so ignore all of your hole cards when bluffing. If everyone else has higher door cards, then raise and try bluffing.

Later on, semi-bluffing becomes more effective after you have 5 cards dealt already. More players will be less willing to fold to a bluff after they have committed so much money to the pot after 4 or 5 rounds of betting, so a semi-bluff is much smarter than a straight bluff. In a semi-bluff, you should have at least a decent hand or be chasing a likely good hand. That way if a showdown occurs, you still have a chance of winning. If other players do not call your bluff, then you win the hand anyways without a showdown. Use semi-bluffs on 5th, 6th and 7th street.

There is much more to this intermediate guide when you read the article in the link above so I encourage you to read the full details there. I will write about the final advanced guide tomorrow along with the expert’s article.

Part 2 – The beginners guide to razz poker strategy

Gambling, Poker, Poker Strategy, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

Continuing from yesterday, I will write a basic version of razz poker beginners strategy and continue the second part of the strategy guide. This guide is intended for novices and beginners who are just learning razz poker or have never played it before. This information will go through a few basic things you should learn in order to get good at razz strategy before moving on to the intermediate and advanced guides.

I wrote a detailed guide in the link to the article above but I will go through the same thing in shorter words. Beginners should read the rules and learn how to play the game by reading the articles in the link above. Basically, you are trying to make the lowest 5 card hand out of 7 cards possible. If you have played 7 card stud played for the lower pot, then this game is essentially the same thing. A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest and strongest possible hand in razz and this is your goal.

Straights and flushes do not count for anything in the game so you can ignore those. You should pay attention to pairs though because these are always damaging and you must throw out an extra matching cards as you can only count one. The dealer will deal out 3 cards at the beginning after everyone has paid the ante. Two are face down and one is face up, known as the door card. Whoever has the highest door card, which is also the weakest, must be the first to bring in action by making a bring-in bet.

Now the beginners strategy should focus on the door cards on the starting hand. This card is facing up for everyone to see and this becomes an important aspect to take advantage of. If you have an ace or a 2 showing, you should raise the pot because these are strong. If you have a 3 through 7, just call. If you have anything higher, it might just be wise to fold.

There is a little bit of bluffing you can do as well. Remember, do not bluff on every single hand or else everyone will get used to it. The first thing in bluffing is to ignore the 2 hole cards in your starting hand (the cards facing down that only you can see). Make sure your door card is strong with an ace or 2 and make sure everyone else has high door cards before bluffing. Since a lot of money needs to be invested through 5 rounds of betting in razz, more people are likely to fold if you raise really early with an ace showing for example. This is a great way to steal the antes as well, but make sure everyone else has weaker cards showing.

For the rest of the game, watch 4th, 5th and 6th street or the 3 next cards to be dealt that are open or facing up for the table to see. If players get a pair showing, this is very bad and you should attack the heck out of that and become aggressive, especially if the rest of their cards are low. There is a great chance they will fold in this situation and you can take the pot. You do not want to keep too many players so late into the game since they might actually get a great hand after being dealt 7 cards, even with a pair.

So the main goal as a beginner is just become more comfortable with the rules and learn how to bluff better. Focus on door cards and watching what players have with their face up open cards.

Part 1 – A few basics of razz poker strategy

Gambling, Poker, Poker Strategy, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

I am going to write a basic 4 part guide to general razz poker strategy over the next few days that will include an beginners, intermediate and advanced guide to strategy. There are a few basic things that players should keep in mind, particularly about razz poker. Razz is a game that is not as well known as many other poker games. Just this fact alone suggests that there will be fewer people to play against in poker rooms.

When there are fewer people in play, then you can get to know certain players better and write notes on them. By doing this, you can keep track of different kinds of players over a long time and take advantage of various player times to become more profitable in the long term. Also, there are many inexperienced players that are just trying out razz poker to see what the game is like and this is another profitable advantage if you use this fact in your strategy.

One of the main strategies that you will learn in razz poker is to steal the pot and get players out of the game quickly. The reason behind this strategy is the fact that razz poker is a game of high variance. Because players are dealt 7 cards, there is a higher chance of them getting a decent hand by the end of the round. You are less likely to win if there are many players during the last round of betting before the showdown. Also, you can take advantage of the fact that 5 rounds of betting usually requires a lot of money to be invested into the pot and many players do not want to commit to doing this after only a 3 card starting hand.

So the goal is to bluff and steal the antes and bring-in bet early in the game. Keep out the “chasers” who are trying to get to the end without betting much and catching a powerful hand later on. This high variance property of razz ensures a high probability that these chasers will “catch” their high ranking hand. So get these players out early on 3rd street (when the 3 cards are dealt on the starting hand) either by bluffing or raising them. You will find that the strategies will mostly all revolve around these concepts.

Playing razz poker online at PokerStars.com

Gambling, Online Poker, Poker, PokerStars, Razz Poker

We all known that Carbon Poker is one of the best online poker rooms to play razz. One of the number one reasons why is because there is simply a large number of other players available to play this game with. Unlike the famous Texas holdem game, razz is nowhere near as popular even though it has been played for decades at the WSOP and there is a major main event for razz each year as well.

In case you were wondering, there is about 200 players for razz on an average day, but often times it will jump up to a few thousand during certain parts of the day when people are not at work and can play online. This is particular true on the weekends and holidays as well. One thing that is common among all PokerStars and Full Tilt tables is that razz poker games are fixed limit. This is the only table variation available at the moment, but some have claimed that no limit tables are also available when things get busy.

Players can play free stakes with play money and practice the game for free as well. The most common stakes is $0.04/$0.08 which would be considered micro-limit. The reason you will not see $0.01/$0.02 stakes except during special circumstances is because the antes and bring-in bets need to be some ratio of the small blind or $0.04. It would be hard to divide fractions of $0.01 so you will rarely see this kind of table.

On the high end stakes is the very high limit $100/$200 room as well, which is fixed limit of course. In between, you will see these kinds of limits as well:

$0.10/$0.20

$0.25/$.50

$0.50/$1

$1/$2

$2/$4

$3/$6

$5/$10

$10/$20

$30/$60

So there is a very large variety of table to play at. Many people enjoy trying to start off at the bottom, earn some certain goal or “conquer” the table limit and level up to a higher limit before eventually making it to the $100/$200 tables. It does take some time but it is not unusual for players to actually do this. Note that these are just the casual ring-table or cash games. There are also many tournaments with buy-ins that range from as low as $1 to $1000. The same goes for sit and go tournaments as well, so PokerStars is like a nice playground for razz poker players and there is a ton of stuff. Check them out if you haven’t already.

How to determine if razz poker starting hands are good

Gambling, Poker, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

This post will continue on with the discussion yesterday about good hand rankings and we will talk about determining good razz poker starting hands. This is actually an important topic to learn because there are some guidelines that players should use to determine what types of starting hands are good and which ones are fair. I will go through each of the four different classifications of each hand and a few examples of what would be good to continue playing on. Note that the starting hand is dealt after each player as paid the ante bet. Two cards will be facing down so only you can see them and one card will be facing up so everyone else can see it, known as the door card.

Excellent starting hands are those which contain the wheel card numbers or numbers that make up the most powerful hand in razz poker. These would be the cards such as A-2-3-4-5. You want all three of these cards to contain one of these numbers but you do not want pairs of these numbers as I explained yesterday.

Good hands are the same as excellent varieties of cards, except the highest card would be a 6 and two others would be lower. Fair hands are the same as good or excellent starting hands except the highest cards would be 7 or 8. Having a 7 high would be much more favorable to have instead.

Finally, the poor hands are those which have a high card of 9 or higher. The general razz strategy is to fold on any poor starting hands such as 7-8-9 or something like that. In many cases, A-2-9 would be considered a poor starting hand even though the A-2 part would be excellent on it’s own. The choice to call the bring-in with this hand depends on how aggressive the other players are and whether the ace or nine is showing to everyone else. If the ace is showing, you can use a bluffing strategy but I will write about that another day.

Ranking hands in razz poker and card strengths

Gambling, Poker, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

Check out our detailed guide on rankings razz poker hands for the in-depth information. Rankings hands is razz is not really too hard to do but it does take a little bit of getting used to. As you might already know, the goal in razz is to make the lowest hand possible, which is the most powerful hand in the game if you want to win. Actually, the highest ranking hand is a low-ball straight known as the wheel or just an ace-low straight which consists of the cards A-2-3-4-5.

Remember that flushes and straights don’t count and pairs are bad for the hand as I explained yesterday. One thing to remember is that you still need to keep track of suits on cards if you end up in a tie breaker. If someone both gets an ace as the door card, one way to determine who pays the bring-in is by the suit. Ranking from strongest to weakest suits: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs.

Now there are a few other details you should know about ranking hands in razz. If two people have 5 card hands and one has a 7 high and the other has an 8 high, the person with the 7 high hand will win the pot all the time. For example, a hand of 2-4-5-6-7 will out perform a hand of A-2-3-4-8. Your hand is as powerful as the highest card and you want that high card to be low.

Here is another useful example, which hand would win: A-4-6-7-9 or A-4-5-8-9? If you said the first hand, then you are correct. The nines tie up so you have to look at the second lowest card in each hand. The 7 is lower than the 8 so this hand would win no matter what other lower cards were in play as well.

One other thing to note is that if you get a bunch of pairs, three of a kind or four of a kind, players must throw the extra cards away. There may be a situation where players can only make a 4 card hand. All 5 card hands will beat any 4 card hand. All 4 card hands will beat any 3 card hands and so on. This is really about as hard as it gets with the ranking concepts, but check out the article for more details.

Learning a few important rules in razz poker

Gambling, Poker, Razz Poker, Stud Poker

Over the past week or so, we have added about 20 guides related to razz poker and I will go through some of the basics here on the blog and post a link to each of the articles. That way you can visit these pages and have access to all the other guides as well. The first thing we will talk about is the razz poker rules and how to play razz. I wrote a rules guide about a year ago but I decided to update it with better information.

Basically, the rules of razz is pretty straight forward. The game works just like 7 card stud played for a low pot. The goal is to make the strongest 5 card hand out of 7 total cards. The strongest cards are actually the lowest. The rules state that aces are counted as low and that the most powerful hand in razz is an ace low straight, known as the wheel (A-2-3-4-5).

The rules also say that straights and flushes do not count for anything. They neither harm or benefit your hand and are simply worth nothing. Even though the wheel is a straight, it is not the straight that actually makes it powerful, but just the low cards. Pairs of cards actually harm your hand since you must discard one of the pair cards. The second strongest hand is A-2-3-4-6 and the worst hand you can get is 9-10-J-Q-K.

Before the game, each player must pay a small ante before being dealt any cards. When players are first dealt their 3 cards, two of them will be faced down and are known as hole cards that only you can see. The third card is facing up, known as the door card. Whoever has the lowest ranking door card (king, queen, etc.) will be the one who must pay the bring-in bet. They must either pay this bet or fold. If they pay, they will be the first to bring in action and each player will begin taking turns betting.

After this is done, a 4th card will be dealt followed by another round a betting and then a 5th and 6th card each followed by rounds of betting. These cards will also be open cards or facing up. Finally, the 7th and last card will be dealt facing down so only the player can see the card. One more round of betting will take place before the showdown where the winner of the hand is determined. There are many strategies to take advantage of when dealing with these up cards that all the players can see so read more about it in the guides. I will also explain a few here on the blog later on.