Speak to the old time poker players and they will say ace-king is a trap hand.  But nowadays playing online poker, the young guns will fire away with ace-king no problem, they won’t even think twice about playing them.

All I will say is, watch out when playing ace-king, in my mind they fall into the trap hand category and I would play them with caution. You have to focus hard on what the other players are doing post flop.  I suppose the aggressive play just pushes most people out of the pot, so if you want to play poker like that then chances are that you may win more hands.  Suppose it depends on who you’re playing with.

What do you think about ace-king?

Some players get some backing from either companies or individuals.  The backing helps them make the step-up to the next level and gives them the confidence to take on better poker players.

Lets face it all sports have coaches and some even have a whole team that will help their players from psychologists to physiotherapists.  So why not poker?

Sometimes we just need a little help from outside, someone who will look from a different angle and tell us what to work on to improve.  Thats if you will listen to it of course.  So if you are  a good poker player and want the extra help to fast-track your progress to the top tables, look around for someone who will back you.

Let me just warn you though, its not for everyone, some people don’t like playing with other people’s money and get nervous.  Then again you also get people who don’t play well when the high buy-ins and bets are coming from their own pockets.

Whilst I was playing poker this weekend, I remember a useful little tip a friend once gave me and that was, always keep an eye on how players play when they are having to pay the blinds.  Some people just hate putting in the blinds and will sometimes try and play their hand, even though they have nothing.

If they are tight players and haven’t been playing many hands, then their stack will slowly go down because of the blinds.  Watch to see if they always play their hand when they have comitted chips to the blinds.  Then call them and see if they have the goods.

I bumped into a friend on the weekend, he is an old gaming friend and I asked him if he was now an online poker player.  I was surprised by the answer because he said no, he had tried it and given up, then went back to his computer gaming.

So I asked why?  Too slow was the answer.  So I said, why not try multi-tabling?  But he was adamant, online poker just didn’t do it for him and as for real life poker tournaments – they were dullness in the extreme.

Oh well, you cant please them all – different strokes for different folks!  What some people just dont get is the grinding it out, especially at poker tourneys, you have to grind it out and be extremely patient.  And, grinding is not for everyone, some just dont have the patience to wear out their opponents, they want quick results and action.

But those poker players that do learn how to master grinding will be sure to win some big prizes because it is the key to poker tournaments and winning at online poker.

You will need a few items at home before taking on the world’s best players at the World Series of Poker. First, I recommend purchasing a few books about Texas hold’em. If you have trouble deciding which book to buy, then you need to ask yourself whose book to buy instead. Almost every famous modern poker player has a book out on their personal tips and game strategy. I personally am a fan of Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth, but I advise you to watch the pros on TV and then decide which personality you want to be when you sit down at the table.

That brings me to the poker table itself. Everyone should have a good-quality table at home in order to practice regularly with friends (and hopefully win their money as well). Why not make it custom poker tables? We’ve literally got the best poker tables at the best prices: we invite you to shop around and prove us wrong.

Once you’ve learned some playing strategy and have a poker table you can be proud of, it’s time to put the plan in action. Invite over some friends and work on your game. Look for tells, study personalities and your competitors’ ways of playing. Then with a bit of courage, try your luck playing Texas Hold’em in a casino or card club. Stick to low ante tables and get ready to strike when they deal you the monster. Do that for a few years and you’re on your way to being a world class Texas Hold’em poker player.

One of my all time top texas holdem players is Doyle Brunson.  The Big Pappa is the Texas in Texas Holdem!!

I dont want to go into great detail about Doyle Brunson and his life, if you want to know more about his poker career then look at his website, it has a comprehensive breakdown of everything the Legend of Poker has done and still does.

All I can say is that he is one of the most well known characters of poker – a true legend of the game.

Watching the 10 time WSOP Champion still compete against the young guns, is a true privilege.  Even though Doyle is 75 years old he still holds his own at the poker table.  In the last episode of season 5 High Stakes Poker he plays against young Dario Minieri from Rome, Italy and Tom “Durrrr” Dwan.  No limit Texas Holdem at its best!!!

Doyle plays a great hand of poker, heads up against Dwan, I won’t spoil it for you…  its true old school poker vs new school.  Afterwards, there is a wry comment of “Poker is fun” from Dwan…

Raising before the flop sends a strong message to the rest of the players that you have a good starting hand.  Most of the time you will raise before the flop and risk putting chips into the pot, when you know you have a strong chance of winning.  But, there is a big risk associated with raising the betting before you have seen the flop.

The flop can change everything.  Many a great player has raised with a strong starting hand only for someone else to come from behind, pick up great cards on 4th and 5th street and sink them.  But you have to trust your instincts and back your strong hands.

If you are going to bluff it is quite a good ploy to put in a small raise before the flop just to send a signal to your opponents to say, “Lookout I’ve got something here…”.  Then again if the flop looks like it could give another player a strong hand and they are beting boldly, exercise caution and way up your options of whether it is worth staying in the hand.

If you’ve played in sit and go poker tournaments, you know that the most stressful part of the tournament can be in the late stages, when there are four or five players left. Since most sit and gos usually pay the top three spots, you are in danger of busting out fourth and doing as well as you possibly can without winning any money, which is a frustrating situation to be in. It is, however, important to keep playing winning sit n go poker in these situations.

Since the blinds are usually pretty high by this point, almost everyone is in danger of busting out. If you have one of the top two chip stacks, there are two elements of strategy you will want to employ. The first, and most important, is that you do not want to get involved with the other big stack at this point. It’s just not worth it. Even a double up will not put you in particularly better shape than you are in right now, and getting knocked out at this point would be disastrous.

The second idea you want to take advantage of is that you will have three or four players who are just trying to ride it out, hoping that someone else will move in and get busted so that they can make it into the money. Because of this, when opponents show weakness, it is a great time to strike. If it is folded around to you, a reasonably sized bet will almost always take the pot. If you are a woman, you have an even better position as men tend to think that women only play strong cards and never bluff. That is actually one of the biggest advantages of women poker players, and definitely something you should try to exploit in the late stage of a sit n go.

Players without big stacks will usually push in immediately if they like their hand so that they have a chance to win the pot uncontested. Only the shortest stacks will risk competing with you, and that is only because they have to. For this reason you should be wary of trying this move against the shortest stack, especially if they are in the blind. They know that if they don’t do anything, they will be blinded out, so they are more likely to call you with a marginal hand.

If you are the shortest stack, this is exactly what you must do. If you sense any weakness, you need to go all-in. Waiting around for great cards will kill you. You cannot let your stack get to the point where you can double up and still be the short stack. You also cannot afford to get cute and simply call hoping for a favorable flop. If you play correctly, as soon as you double up or win enough blinds uncontested, the pressure will be on another player to double up or get destroyed by the blinds. Other players are waiting for you to falter, you need to be aggressive and put the pressure back on one of them.

I really enjoyed the last few episodes of High Stakes Poker – Its pure poker entertainment.  There’s an important message there for all the people who learn poker by following what the poker experts do.  In fact there are two important lessons:

1. Mix it up a bit, change your play.  You’ll see sometimes the players will pick a crazy starting hand just to see what comes out on the flop or if they can semi-bluff their way through the hand.

2. And the other one is advertise a bit.  Send out signals and let the players know what you are doing.  I like the way they all have to show a card if they win a hand.  Now you can use that to your advantage, either by showing the strong card or the weaker card.  Simple really. Take a look for yourself and learn.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed the biggest pot in the history of High Stakes Poker!  Its huge!!!

You better believe it, because its true!  Tom Dwan and Barry Greenstein clashed earlier in the poker show, and Greenstein got the better of Dwan… but what will happen this time?  for this $925,000 pot… I’m all in, lets see what you got…

Daniel Negreanu has not had a lot of poker luck in this episode of High Stakes Poker, every time he has tried to get a winning hand together, the cards have not obliged.  When he did get the cards, no-one wanted to play poker…

Elezra and Sahamies dont have the best of it either.  Doyle Brunson continues to play tight poker, but the young ‘online poker’ guns, play loose poker – the older players can’t believe just how loose their poker play becomes sometimes!   It seems to work for Dwan.

Its pure poker entertainment… but let me not spoil it for you…

Take a look… this time its split into 3 clips.  Its your last chance to see these poker pros in action, the next High Stakes Poker show will have a different bunch of poker pros.