While my daughter took a nap the other day, I worked in my home office with an old episode of “High Stakes Poker” on in the background. In this episode (the first of season four, for those who are interested), the players agreed that anyone who wins a hand with 2-7 will receive $500 from each player at the table.

Burkholder took some time with Poker News Daily to go over a hand he played with Adam “Roothlus” Levy during his WCOOP victory. Levy is a well-respected online player (also ranked on PocketFives) who recently made a deep run in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. With 12 players remaining in the tournament, their table also featured online stars Greg “DuckU” Hobson and Thayer “Thay3r” Rasmussen.

There is one kind of player that I seem to have success against in the heads-up portion of a tournament: the massive overbettor. This type of player is super-aggressive post-flop with any sort of decent, yet not monster, hand. Really, unless the board looks ultra-scary, he is not likely to take his foot off the gas once he becomes the aggressor.

The key to using the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is making choices that have a positive expectation over time. In Part One, we went over the calculation of a player’s current chip stack as a dollar value. Now we can move forward and make decisions based on that information.

One of the most difficult decisions in the game of poker is what to do with small pocket pairs. While they are a pocket pair – and in this case we are considering pocket deuces through pocket sixes – and are ahead of every hand but a higher pair, at the end of the five card board they can be easily run down. Thus, the decision to play and how to play these hands can be problematic.

The Independent Chip Model (ICM) is a game theory application that has become essential in sit-and-gos. It is best defined as a way to calculate your equity in relation to the prize pool based on the stack sizes of the remaining players in the tournament. Simply put, ICM is a way of analyzing how much your current chip stack is worth as a dollar value.

One of the most common lines I heard uttered by players, almost exclusively amateurs, was, “I’m folding everything until I make the money. Even pocket Aces.”

Most people who say this are not serious, but every year, without fail, I hear about someone who actually did fold Aces pre-flop and showed them to the table to prove it. The question that inevitably comes up after something like this is, “Is it ever reasonable to fold pocket Aces pre-flop?”

Adam “Roothlus” Levy is a professional poker player from Orlando, Florida with well over $1 million in online tournament earnings. But like many of his internet cronies, Levy has made a smooth transition to live poker and his results certainly back up the argument that the online crowd has some serious game.

One of the greatest benefits of playing online poker is that you are able to play as many tables as you want to at the same time. This allows you to get in significantly more hands per hour than was ever possible before, increasing your overall hourly win rate.

Football season is in full swing (well, as I am writing this it is – if it is late spring as you, yourself, are reading this, then just bear with me) and anyone who follows the game knows the importance of an offensive line to a team’s offense: the linemen protect the quarterback, taking on charging defenders to keep him from getting pummeled, and they also open holes for the primary running back, helping him get to the end zone. In poker, there is a betting strategy that plays a similar role to that of the offensive line: the blocking bet.

One of my favorite things about online poker is the “raise” button. It is so convenient, right there, big and bold, ready to be clicked. Despite my love for it, however, I almost never use it in No Limit Hold’em games.

Coming off his bracelet win in the World Series of Poker $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout, Matt “mattg1983” Graham went on a tear toward the end of the summer of 2008. He picked up wins in the $33 rebuy on Full Tilt for more than $6,000 and the star-studded $215 Sunday Second Chance on Pokerstars for $53,330. Then on August 5th, Graham won the $109 rebuy on Pokerstars for $38,390.

Like a tiny snowball causing a giant avalanche, making a small mistake while playing poker can lead to disastrous consequences. This is especially true while playing no-limit Texas Hold’em. The ability to put your entire stack on the line at any time greatly increases the impact that a single mistake can make. The earlier in a hand that you make a mistake, the more time that mistake has to snowball into an avalanche of bankroll destruction.

What is Omaha and how do you play it? With Hold’em tables overflowing with players, many new players are heading over to the Omaha games. So with that in mind, here is a guide for getting started at Omaha and making sense of Omaha Hi-Lo as well.

Imagine the following scenario: you are on the bubble in the World Series of Poker Main Event and, for some reason, you let your chip stack get so low that you are now all-in in the big blind.

Scott “dorinvandy” Dorin goes over a crucial hand at the final table of his WCOOP victory. With an overwhelming chip lead, he got involved in a pot with a well known pro that proved to be “the” hand of the tournament.

One thing many players forget is that some of the differences between the different online poker software platforms, subtle and otherwise, can really throw you for a loop when starting out at a new place: at best, they are annoying; at worst, they can actually lose you money.

Paying attention to what goes on around you, both in live and online tables, will give you an edge over careless and unattentive players.

Flaming others at the poker table can actually reduce your profitability. So don’t get mad - get even.

A common mistake that many poker players make is that they are too passive. This isn’t to say that you should become an over aggressive maniac, but there is a fine balance that needs to be reached.

Be it online or live, how you act at the table can and will have a direct impact on your overall win rate.

A great benefit of playing poker online is that you are in complete control of where, when, and how you play. Make sure it helps you play your A game.

Almost every live poker game in the world has at least a few players that are known regulars in that game. Thisis how to take the most advantage of the seasoned regulars through your table image.