Online Poker Tools

There are quite a number of online poker tools, some that used to be the rage earlier yet recently outclassed by something better; and there are some you may have experienced, others you may have not, that we can put under the category of the best online poker tools.

The 2+2 forum is one online poker tool that represents the wide and comprehensive selection that you can find in the online poker community. This particular poker community consists of all kinds of beginners, experts and professional online poker players too. You have information in the form of questions and answers and discussions in the forum and quite a lot of it is highly useful. Another online poker tool that has all variations of the game and more is the poketfives forum. It’s fun and educational and one can really learn from scratch up. Feedback and advice is given totally for free and several experts in the game more often turn out to be fairly helpful than insulting like on some places like the pokernetwork forum. Various other forums that you can find, like the one at pokernews.com have specific target questions. These target questions more usually come from experienced online poker players. And the answers are also often provided by professional online poker players with the experience and skill to offer sound advice. Pick such forums and become members asap. The right kind of poker forums are great online poker tools.

Pokenum, a poker hand analyzer, used to be a good poker tool for determining the win percent of your opponent’s hands against the win percent of your hands. This online poker tool had a very cool feature with which you could add cards to the board and you were also able to see the manner with which your hand strength changes relative to other hand strengths. There are quite a few other online poker tools in the market that have replaced this particular one. This particular online poker tool also has an open service code so one can use it in making hand strengths better, more productively if one has the requisite skills.

The university of Alberta’s computer poker research group and the evergreen poker club are perfect online poker tools that serve as resources with downloadable codes. If you are a VC or C-programmer or someone who has access to such people you could acquire skills needed or even outsource for a small fee for designing your self-owned poker simulation, and build and market your own online poker tools. If mathematics is what you love, you can also obtain information from online publications from the university of Alberta’s poker research computer group which is another helpful online poker tool.

Another online poker tool that is highly recommended is pokertracker.com – well, it is the world's largest and most popular online poker tracking and analysis software tool. Displays real-time statistics on your poker table. As per their website, the PokerTracker also imports the hand histories that poker sites write to your computer. It then parses the hands and stores statistics/information about the hands into a local database so that you can look at every possible angle of both your and your opponents' poker game. A highly handy online poker tool indeed.

Poker Odds Calculators are other handy online tools. These are available on sites like pokercalculatoronline and pokerprolabs. These poker calculators let you determine the percentage and odds of winning without even knowing your opponents hands. Most calculators require you to input your hand as well as the opponent’s hand. Like if I know my opponents hands every time I played poker, I would be an even better player, maybe the best. You just have to select how many opponents you are playing against and your pocket cards. You will get your chance % of winning and chance % of tying. You can also add cards to your opponents and see how that affects your hand. Great online poker tools, these.

These are only few of the examples of online poker tools. You will encounter more if you do a simple search on google for: online poker tools and it gives you a host of options and results that will make your job a lot easier.

Poker Betting Limits

Poker Betting & Limits

Poker Betting Rounds - The cards in a poker hand are normally dealt in parts, with a betting round between each partial deal. In each betting round the first player to act is determined by position (in Holdem or Omaha) or upcards (in Stud). We are talking about a game rule structure that we use for implementing in poker software. The opportunity to act continues to the left around the table until all remaining active players have bet the same amount in the round. If no money has yet been bet in a round, each player has the choice to:

• Check - he can stay in the hand without adding more chips to the pot, or
• Bet - raise the stakes by adding more chips to the pot.
  

If the player checks then the next player has the option to check or bet and so on around the table. If all active players check then the betting round is complete and play continues. Once a player makes a bet each subsequent player can either:

• Fold - if the player thinks his cards are not good enough to play he can discard them without putting more chips into the pot, and take no further part in the hand, or
• Call - to call a player must put enough into the pot to match the total bet of the last bettor or raiser; or
• Raise - if a player wants to raise the stakes he can 'call' the current bet and then raise a further amount. Subsequent players will need to make their total contribution to the pot equal to that of the last raiser if they wish to remain in the game.

Play continues to the left around the table with each player given the same set of options. When all players have either folded, called the last raiser or put all of their chips in the pot, the betting round is complete and the cards are dealt for the next round. Of course, if a player raises and no one calls him then then he wins whatever is in the pot and the hand is over.

The first betting round in a deal is started using blinds or forced bets to build a pot. The player after the blind or forced bet must fold, call or raise. In subsequent betting rounds the first player to act may check.

Poker Betting Limits - three styles of betting.

• Pot Limit - a player may bet or raise up to the amount of chips in the pot. The pot size is computed after the player has called e.g. If there is $35 in the pot and it is $15 to call, he can call $15 and raise $50.
• No Limit - a player may bet or raise any amount.
• Limit - all bets and raises are in fixed increments e.g. in a $2/$4 Holdem game the bets and raises after the deal and flop are fixed at $10 and after the turn and river they are fixed at $20. In limit betting there is a maximum of three raises in a round.

All-in Side Pots - A player cannot bet more than he has on the table. When a player has put all his chips in the pot he is said to be 'All-in'. If a player goes all-in for a certain number of chips then he can only compete for that level of stake from each of the other players. If there are several players in a pot and a player goes all-in then that players chips plus an equal amount from any active players plus any chips from folded players are gathered into a main pot and any surplus chips are put into a side pot to be contested by the remaining active players only. If several players go all-in there may be several side pots.

Poker Software Code - Coding The Odds!

When we write Poker software code (programming for poker software) we follow what we call as the “science of odds.” There always is a math to it which is what we in the online gaming world call as “coding the odds”. Knowing the odds of different hands in poker is a valuable tool. Not only for a poker player, odds and poker game rules come in handy for writing the code and the algorithms that go into creating online poker software. A great software programmer has to work with a game rule specialist and implement and incorporate the math into his poker software code.

In poker software code, the probability of many events can be determined by direct calculation. In most cases, the probabilities and odds are approximations due to rounding.

When calculating probabilities for a card game such as Texas Hold 'em, there are two basic approaches. The first approach is to determine the number of outcomes that satisfy the condition being evaluated and divide this by the total number of possible outcomes. For example, there are six outcomes (ignoring order) for being dealt a pair of aces in Hold' em: {A♣, A♥}, {A♠, A♦}, {A♠, A♣}, {A♥, A♦}, {A♥, A♠}, and {A♦, A♣}. There are 52 ways to pick the first card and 51 ways to pick the second card and two ways to order the two cards yielding (52×51)/2=1326 possible outcomes when being dealt two cards (also ignoring order). This gives a probability of being dealt two aces of 6/1326 = 1/221

A royal flush would then work the following way:



For further writing poker software code, here are the odds of other combinations in poker:

In general, when we have to sit down and write poker software code from scratch, it is a harrowing experience quite a few times, and fun as well.

Poker Gear Changing!

To be a sucessful poker player, one must be able to assess their situation, adapt to their current surroundings, and make subtle "poker gear changing".

It can often be very difficult to step out of the box one builds for themselves and into a totally new style of play in the middle of a poker game, but this is exactly what most professional poker players do on a regular basis. If you have watched any amount of live poker, and I don't mean just final table action of the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel or the World Series of Poker on ESPN, you have likely watched this happen more times than you can count.

Only with the introduction of the hole camera equipped poker tables have we been allowed to watch these professionals and their poker gear changing at work. Being able to make these adjustments to your game, are vital to your success, whether you play internet, cash games, or tournament poker. Introducing this strategy of subtle poker gear changing into your game is important for several reasons, but the most important one in my opinion is that it prevents you from becoming predictable at the poker table.
One of the biggest mistakes players make is that they get stuck in a rut of only playing premium hands. While this is solid strategy if one wishes to play a super-tight game, in the long run, the predictability of it is going to make other players at the table take notice that when you raise a pot, you are sitting on a monster, and will influence their decision to fold rather than gamble with you. You are in effect, chasing away your action.
If you are viewed as an extremely tight player, only playing premium hands, you are going to get fewer callers based solely on your reputation. To prevent this from happening it is beneficial to you, to play some of the better marginal hands in certain situations.

When doing this, always be aware that in the event that you do not improve your marginal hand after the flop, it is best to get away from it and live to fight another day. So you see poker gear changing helps you in optimizing your game.

THE BIG BANG FOR YOUR BUCK FACT SHEET!

Most poker affiliates run a site or two and earn money from sign ups or conversions to their sites.

You can make money from domains, ad sales, and conversions. Sit on a portfolio of over 1k domains and sell only when you get a sale that is worth your time and investment. If you buy 10 domains at $70.00 and 9 aren’t so great and a guy offers you $80.00 for the one domain that is good, you just say no until we get $300.00. You can rather just sit on a couple of the good domains from that batch and let a few expire. Then you can take that $300.00 and buy a script to run on another good domain you have. Then you can make money from ads and conversions on that site.

You also make money from selling poker ads on all your sites. Banner sales can be a great way to make money with a poker site. You can sell a banner for 150$ per month on any of your poker sites. Think of that in terms of real estate. It’s like you need a 100k property to earn 1k in rent per month. When you figure things like taxes, mortgage and all that, you lose money sometimes. However, you can start a poker site for 50$ and pay server cost of 3-10$ and earn $150-$400.00 off it per month after a year of working on it. I have seen folks do it in 3-6 months as well.

I recommend doing all of the above. Buy and sell domains, sell ads on existing sites you own, and promoting poker with your own banners and links.

How much do poker affiliates make? It depends on how hard you work! There are variables that can affect incomes of any profession. You can see this example in the sub-prime mortgage crisis going on right now. The mortgage collapse happened because of a number of things put together. Poker affiliates on the other hand, have been affected by the laws imposed by any “government”. You don’t just rely on poker affiliate income. You buy and sell domains, sell advertising, and you can also have a poker content writing service at the same time.

CPA - cost per acquisition. This means you sign up as a poker affiliate to earn money just upon sign up or conversion of a depositing poker player.

REVENUE SHARING - Revenue Share is when you earn 20% (or much more) of the rake revenue of a poker sign up for a fixed time or even lifetime rake - till the time the player plays on that poker site.

If you chose rake revenue share and your players don’t play at all, you are NOT going to make money. Although now, to make things easy www.raidbet.com has a direct deposit E check for players. With over 20 payment deposit and withdrawal options, things become much more easier. Couple that with a lot of loose players playing on the site, you will find that, players you direct are going to make a steady income and winnings on the site. Herein, lies the KEY: PICK LOOSE POKER PLAYER SITES to aggressively promote and push your players to. Your money is guaranteed! 

The best affiliates have always stayed away from CPA because they don’t want to sign up a whale and miss out on earning tons of lifetime revenue on that player. The fact is you can make thousands of dollars every month depending on how many sign ups you get. It also depends on whether you offer rake back or not. You can make upwards of almost $2000 a player per month if they play 4 tables every day of 5/10 NL or limit. This would be considered a whale. With most players you will make $20 - $120 every month.

GET 100 active poker players!

RAGS to RICHES!

I once attended a gaming affiliate conference in Macau. It was no great shakes – some people came and spoke about things I already knew more than them. Others came up and clouded and obscured facts to such an extent I laughed out loud at least ten times. Though it stopped them in their tracks for that moment, they did continue to present stuff as fact without ever bothering to gather any evidence to substantiate it. Well, there were NO real gaming affiliates in the gaming affiliate conference! There were quite a few gaming software providers who came looking for affiliates – I was one among them, of course – and there were marketing folks who seemed to be experts in their field, though leaving much to be desired. There was this one stern European gentleman who came dressed in a suit with two cohorts flanking him on all occasions, and sat and scorned everyone around him as if he was the sole appointed heir of Warren Buffet! But, I digress! I want to talk a little about affiliate programs, specifically gaming affiliate programs, especially poker-related.

It’s simple, really. Affiliate programs are set up so that players or webmasters who bring in other players get rewarded.

Well, gaming/gambling IS one of those recession-proof businesses, and with a little bit of effort and good sense, a six figure income as a poker affiliate is very realistic indeed! And if you happen to be really smart and hard working, you can hit that six figure income or more EVERY MONTH.

How to be an affiliate? Let’s narrow it down to 5 basic points:
1. Figure out what poker niche you’re interested in.
2. Brainstorm potential domain names. Register any one you prefer.
3. Build a 2 or 3 page site.
4. Sign up for some poker affiliate programs.
5. Build content and get links.
Raidbet.com affiliate programmmm. www.Raidbet.com Affiliate Program
Often there will be a choice of two models of income. The first is a CPA (Cost-Per-Action or Cost-Per-Acquisition), which essentially means that the poker affiliate receives a one off cash booster of anywhere between $75 and $150. The second is a shared revenue model, whereby you receive a small percentage of the overall (lifetime) revenue that the player you have encouraged to join generates. The CPA model is very much a get rich quick model, generating a large initial income, which is liable to dry up if you don’t remain active in seeking new customers/poker players. The shared revenue model is a slow building but potentially lucrative option. The more people you attract and the more they play poker the more money will be coming your way. Simple…

www.enteratlantis.com affiliate websiwww.enteratlantis.com affiliate website...
Out of all the verticals in affiliate marketing, the poker affiliate market is by far the most exciting and lucrative market there is.

Show Me the Money!

A typical card room fA typical card room from the Cybertech Poker Network...
The surest and quickest way to make a great return on a stable investment is to invest in some SKIN! :)
Lol, don't get me wrong, the world of online gaming has its own funny lingo, and it does pay to learn some of it. Even when you're not an avid gamer - you do love to be entertained, don't you?

Most online cardrooms don't stand alone. Most of them belong to a poker network of some kind. When an online poker site participates in a poker network it's called a "skin" of that network.

Poker networks are large and small depending on the software and time they have been operating. There are several advantages to both the “new poker site” and a player signing up on these sites of a partnership between an online poker site and an online poker or gaming site network.

To start with, huge amounts of time and money is spent in developing the cutting edge software required for poker and other gaming products – belonging to a stable poker network with great software enables the owners of individual poker sites (or anyone interested in making money partaking in the online gaming wave) use of the network’s fully developed, state-of-the-art, robust and scalable poker software applications, risk management systems, payment processors and marketing promotions. The players, too, benefit from the technology and security maximizing their poker experience.
Another fun gain for players is that they can create separate player accounts for all the poker sites with a poker network, thus allowing them to take advantages of all the bonuses available on the various sites and also the treat of using a poker software application that they are familiar and comfortable with.The bonuses and promotions are also unique to each individual website (unless it is a network promotion) and that alone increases the options for maximizing profits. To top it, the geographical distribution of each skin would give players the unique opportunity to actively socialize and derive maximum fun.

I would consider this as the best reason to play on a poker site belonging to a network – as also to run your own online gaming site through a network – because ACTION and COMPETITION are GUARANTEED! Tables on networks are always FULL, so one has a larger pool of players to draw from. This is an important advantage to new sites that would have to put together a steady player base from nothing.