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A Royal Flush is the best you can get in poker. With this hand you got the NUTS for sure.
I’m one of those players, that never got a Royal Flush so far, but today I received something far more better than a Royal Flush.

My girlfriend just gave birth to our second child, a son called Tristen. A Royal Flush doesn’t even come near to the value of what I got today.
Everything went allright, son is in good shape, with 3180gr and 48,5cm, starting to eat well. Also my girlfriend is fine also, she did a hell of job getting him out.

You’ll never hear me say that giving birth to a baby is easy, I’m so proud of her and Tristen.

So in the next couple of days, private life is priority nr1 and we’ll see how it goes with playing online again. Hope to be in time for the SCOOP Event, still have a ticket won with the WCOOP that has to be cashed

Goodnight all!

What hands should you play
When playing poker, your starting hands are very important, but when to play them is even more important.
In the last year, I’ve read a small amount of poker books and pokersites to get my game better.
Especially the sections with starting hands interested me. After trying different methods from different players or sites, some successful, some not.
But by time I started out using a combination of a few charts, matching my playing style.

Hands I play in every position
Pocket pair: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, 99
Suited cards: AK, AQ, AJ, A10, KQ, KJ, K10, QJ, Q10, J10
Unsuited: AK, AQ, AJ, KQ
With these hands, you should raise whenever you’re n middle or late position. If on the blinds, only raise whenever you’ll have a pocket pair or suited AK or AQ. Remember, you’re first to bet in the next draw so a weak hand isn’t good to bet on the blind.

Middle position
Pocket pairs: 88, 77, 66
Suited: A9 to A6, K9, Q9, J9, J8
Unsuited: A10, K10, QJ, Q10, J10

When you’re holding these cards, you have gained a little info about your opponents in front of you and depending on what they’re doing, you could call or raise. Remember there are still people behind you on the table and most of the times you still need to hit a card to win the hand. So don’t bet to much unless you have a good feeling about the table.

Late postion

Pocket pairs: 55 to 22
Suited: A5 to A2, K8 to K2, J7, 107, 98, 97, 87, 86, 76, 75, 65, 54
Unsuited: A9, A8, A3, A2, K9, Q9, J9, J8, 109, 108, 98, 97, 87

These hands aren’t hands to raise, just call to get to see the flop for as cheap as possible. Maybe you’ll hit a monster.
Also if a player in front of you raises big before the flop, throw your hands away, only call small raises.

Other hands
The hands I didn’t mentioned are practically unplayable, you should only play them on the blinds and hope you’ll flop a monster that will turn the tables in your favor.

If you play poker and watch a poker game on TV from time to time, you probably already know Phil Ivey, a Pro Team member at Full Tilt.
If you’re like me and also listen to what the players on these shows have to say, you can hear that most of them have the upmost respect and fear for Phil Ivey with statements like: “I’ll play anyone, except Phil Ivey” or “You can choose anybody in the world to team up with, except Phil Ivey”.
Every other Pro seems to be afraid if Phil Ivey joins the table.

What makes him so feared? Is it that he reads hands like the best? Or that you can’t put a tell on him? Or the way he rolls his eyes searching for information on the table?
Probably it’s this combination that makes him the most feared player in the world and he has a record to prove it.

In the WSOP he made 35 money finishes so far and won 7 Bracelets. He’s also the youngest player ever to win 7 bracelets.
In this year’s WSOP Main Event, he played one of his best Poker ever and earned himself a place in the November Nine where he finished 7th, earning $1,404,014.
Besides the WSOP tournaments he also plays games in the WPT and EPT which made him a stunning $12,000,000 so far.
Makes me wonder what his winnings are with regular cash games?

A special hand I recall that shows Phil Ivey is also human like the rest of us, is a play during this year’s WSOP main event where he’s folding a winning hand.
He’s holding pocket 8’s and after the river card was drawn he made a flush. Smith (his opponent) checked as did Phil Ivey. Smith showed his pair of Aces that he made on the river.
But Phil Ivey who always tries to look at his cards only once and very quick, made a mistake. He probably was thinking he had the 8 of diamonds and of clubs. Instead he had had the 8 of spades and a Flush on the river. After he saw Smith’s Ace, he mucked his cards without even looking at them again. (See video for the play).

Whenever I see Phil Ivey play, I try to learn how he’s playing, what hands he plays and how he’s playing them. If anybody can teach you to play poker it’s Phil Ivey.
You can also learn from him if you follow the lessons on Full Tilt

Joe Cada, is this year’s Main Event winner of the World Series Of Poker. By winning he also broke last year’s winner Peter Eastgate (22) record for the Youngest WSOP Winner ever with his 21 years.
Together with the $8.547.042 prize money he won his very first Bracelet.
In the 3 hours heads-up session against Darvin Moon he proved to be the better one. He had a big advantage at the start with his 135.950.000 chips against Moon’s 58.850.000 chips but it proved to be a tight game.
The last and winning hand #364:
Cada: 9s9c
Moon: QdJd
Cada raises pre-flop to 3 million from the button, Moon think’s about the bet and re-raises to 8 million chips. Cada looks at his cards 2 times and decides to go All-In. Moon does the same and call’s the All-in risking his tournament.
The crowd is going wild. Dealer flops: 8c 2c 7s. Cada is still in the lead and only 2 cards away from WSOP 2009 victory.
On the Turn the dealer draw’s a Kh, still no help for Moon who senses his tournament is over with only 6 outs left.
When the dealer turns a 7c on the River, the crowd is ecstatic. Moon congratulates Cada with his winning and takes home the $5.182.928. 2nd prize price money. Not bad for a logger from the state of Maryland. Moon said that he initially was thinking about cashing his Main Event seat which he had won. A good thing he didn’t

Cada self is a young professional poker player who quit school to play pro. His parents were against his decision, but after they saw how good their son was at it, they came back on their decision and gave him their full support.
Cada made the good choice and is living the dream.

To end up the post, the full result of the final table.
1 $ 8,547,042 Joe Cada
2 $ 5,182,928 Darvin Moon
3 $ 3,479,670 Antoine Saout
4 $ 2,502,890 Eric Buchman
5 $ 1,953,452 Jeff Shulman
6 $ 1,587,160 Steven Begleiter
7 $ 1,404,014 Phil Ivey
8 $ 1,300,231 Kevin Schaffel
9 $ 1,263,602 James Akenhead

Congratulations Joe!!!

Yesterday I played a $1000 freeroll tournament on PokerStars. In the beginning I managed to play lots of hands as my cards where pretty good. This made me climb up to a spot around the first 300 players in a 3000+ tournament.
A play I liked very much was the one where I received pocket kings. Being seated just after the big blind, I didn’t want to make a big raise to let everyone know I had a high hand. So I slow played my kings with just a call and waited to see what everyone else was doing. The next 5 players all folded their hand. Another player called together with the SB and the BB made a small raise. This made me think, should I re-raise him know, or just call him? If he had an Ace and the flop paired him, I had to fold. But I took the risk and just called. The other 2 players in the pot also made the call and the flop showed 5 8 10. SB checked and the BB raised. I decided it was time to stop slow playing my KK and re-raised him. This made everyone fold except the BB, he re-raised me instead. Now the my head was saying me, be careful, maybe he has 2 pairs or a open ended straight draw with 67 or 9J. I called him to see what his next move will be. On the Turn we got a 3 and he checked after taking some time. I on the other hand made a big raise, pushing him almost all-in, what I actually expected him to do, but he just made the call. The river gave us a 7 and sealed my win. I knew after his call on the turn he had nothing that would beat my pair of kings. So I went all-in hoping him to call me, but as predictable, he folded.

But then my luck started to change, I was losing hand by hand, pushing me back in the rankings deeper and deeper. With a flush after the turn, I made a big raise to let everyone know I had a big hand. 2 players called instead. But I knew another spade will make my hand lose as my highest spade was a 7. And of course the river was against me with another spade, so I had to fold my hand after a big raise from the player next to me. I could have called him and take the risk, but another player in front of me called also, so it was pretty clear I lost the hand. At this time I had only 480 chips left from a stack well over 10000. I was pretty frustrated about how the table worked against me and almost went all-in the next hand with 3 7 off-suit, knowing I can’t win with that hand.

But just in time I calmed down to not play that hand and wait for a big one. The one thing I was lucky about is that I was on the dealer button. So I had some time to think about which hand to play.
4 Hands later in middle position I got KQ off-suit and went all-in the first time pre-flop. 2 players called, but on the flop I already made 2 pair. Luck started to change again.
Back with around 1300 chips, I still had to be careful about what hand to play, so playing very tight was the only option. With AK suited (spades) I went all-in a second time. Now everyone at the table seemed to know that I was playing very tight so everyone folded.
Hey I could use this into my advantage. But first I had to play a big hand against another player to really let them know I was playing very tight. And 2 hands after everyone folded on me, I got AA, went all-in again the 3rd time and was up against 2 other players. AA against KQ and QQ. I had a big advantage. After the flop I got trips and nothing seems to be in my way to seal another big win. The river proved me right.

Now I could take advantage of my status on the table. On the button, I made a big raise against 3 players in the pot, making them fold.
After the turn, with the lowest pair possible, I bluffed my way to victory once again. In no time I was back into the top 100.
With only 400 players left, I also was pretty sure, nothing could stop me from finishing into the money. 70 cents, was the lowest tournament price you could win. Only 32 players had to be knocked out of the tournament.
Just after the first break, it was a won deal. I made it to the money. Who would ever thought off that after my losing streak? It made me very happy, that I didn’t went all-in with that 3 7 earlier on.

I managed to play for another 20 minutes or so, finishing me on a 122nd place, earning me $1,30.
As I recall, one of my highest finishes in PokerStars weekly $1000 freerol.

And with this I also broke the $90 barrier in my quest. I’m just $9,01 away from my next $100 goal.

So a few tips from me for not playing on tilt:
• Keep your calm
• Clean out your head
• Don’t look back at lost plays
• Don’t focus on the players you lost against! If they’re any good, they’ll know you’re on tilt and will knock you out for sure!
• And keep the fun in the game.

I’m pretty sure one of you experienced a similar case once or twice. You have any tips on beating going on tilt?