PokerStar’s Has just announced Andre Coimbra as their newest addition to Team PokerStars. Check Out his documentary and see how he became an online pro:

This video explains PokerStars VIP Program, which is essentially a “Rake-Back” program, but instead of having to know some secret hand shake, it’s available to everyone!

So now a break even player, or even a slightly losing player can still make a decent living at over $100,000 a year! Lets be honest, I have a Master’s degree from an Ivy League school, and I’d be lucky if I could find a job making $60k to start. I’d rather bust my @$# playing poker and be in complete control of my life and schedule, than waste my life slaving away for the “Man”.

In conclusion, learn to play poker. It’s hard, but not harder than working 40+ hours a week in some scummy office for the next 20 years, only to get laid off when you’re 56 and find yourself living in a van down by the river.. LOL

On another note, both of the pros in this vid look as if they just finished a long session of poker. They’re not even interested in the video, they just want to get back to their gind stations.. Mercier looks like he found those pants behind his dresser, but he couldn’t find his belt so he just tied a rope around his waist. The funny part is, both these dudes are millionaires!

Watch this example of Phil Ivy (The world’s best poker player) floating the flop and the turn, to take down the pot on the river with the worst hand!

The “Float” is a very powerful poker strategy, that allows you to take advantage of someone who often continuation bets after they lead with a pre-flop raise.  Because they raised pre-flop, they will want to keep the initiative by betting on the flop, regardless of whether they connected.  The reality is that the flop will only improve on your pre-flop hand 1/3rd of the time.  That means without having any knowledge of our opponent’s hand, we know that roughly 67% of the time he missed the flop.  So we “Float” is continuation bet in hopes that he will check on a later street, and we can take down the pot.

So let’s say you’re sitting on the button with A9 off-suit, and someone in front of you raises pre-flop. You assume that because they raised, they have a playable hand, but you’re feeling lucky and you want to play your A9 off-suit. So you decided to call, and everyone else has folded. The flop comes, and without even looking at it, you know that the raiser will have missed the flop 2/3rds of the time. The person who raised, also knows that, so it’s in his favor to make a continuation bet, and hope that you missed the flop and will fold. But you’re smarter than that. You decided to call his continuation bet, so you can see what he does on the turn. If he really missed, it will be very difficult for him to bet twice with nothing, so he will just check. And that is when you take advantage of your position and hammer him with a convincing sized bet. More often than not, he’ll fold and you will have taken the pot down.

This works because poker is not about what hand you have, it more about what hand your opponet doesnt have. You see, you can bet with any two cards, but it much harder to call with nothing.

This video does a great job at explaining how to calculate pot odds, and compare them to your drawing odds.  If your drawing odds are greater than your pot odds, then you will be assured “Positive Expectation” or +EV.  Poker is all about finding +EV situations and exploiting them, while avoiding -EV situations (when pot odds exceed your drawing odds).

In my opinion, understanding statistical expectation is really the only thing that one really needs to master the game of poker.  You can screw everything else up, but if you can master the concept of expectation nothing else will matter. 

Enjoy, and keep studying!

After watching this trailer, I can’t help but think why some people just suck at poker, and will forever suck, while others seems to have a natural ability as if sponsored by the poker gods themselves.

The beauty of poker is that someone can be a terrible player, but never realize it because their own ignorance and aggression sends them on crazy meteoric winning streaks, naturally reinforcing the notion that they are a spectacular player. Eventually this winning streak will end, and they will find themselves uploading funds again (such as the case with Michael in the film). As depressing as this is for Michael, this is a “Beauty” because it is this very attribute about poker that keeps the Donkey hee-HAA’n and the Eagles soaring. Without Donkeys, poker would be a bunch of solid players trying to steal blinds from each other; a meager and painful existence at best.

As cliché is it may be, knowledge is power, and the more you know about poker, the more you can separate your existence from that of a donkey.

Study Hard!