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Coreection on first link- Party Poker

that's cool about the moon!

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Get $25 free on first deposit at the world's largest poker room with 70,000+ players
http://www.partypoker.com/ use code: shefa

And in addition, feel free to click on my home URL as well...

I believe partypoker has a linux client now. I haven't found/tried it myself, but i've been told so, and will be trying it out shortly.

Many gambling websites such as http://www.onlinegambling.com/ and http://www.partypoker.com/ allow users to gamble using credit and debit cards. They also provide other methods of payment such as paypal - which uses a savings/checking/credit card account anyways. The online gambling industry is thriving.

I think micropayments would work very well for people who want to download music, do research, or gain the benefits of some other inexpensive transaction.

One problem I've heard about is collusion. You go to a casino or a card club and play for money with people you don't know, and you don't realize that two of them are actually in it together. For instance, they'll have a secret signal so that one knows to drop out when the other is bluffing. Seems like it could be equally bad online.

The nice thing about playing online though, is that the house always knows what cards everyone has. And also, the house can keep track of who plays together. This makes it _much_ harder for players to successfully collude. I play online a lot at Party Poker. At first I was afraid of people colluding against me. A friend of mine also joined up at the same time as me, and we started playing on a lot af tables together. After a few hours of switching tables and always playing together, they wouldn't let us play at the same table anymore. We weren't colluding or anything, they just noted that two people had been playing together for a long time, and the odds of it being random in a pool of thousands of people is relatively low. At first I was kinda pissed that I couldn't sit with him anymore, but then I realized that this meant that if anyone were trying to collude, it would be very hard.

This is different than playing live, because the house can't do a statistical test of whether or not two people have been playing together too much. Also, if players are acting suspicious online, the house can always take a look at what cards the suspected colluders had, and see if one of them laid down a good hand, or something like that. Overall, I feel pretty confident that colluders aren't too much of a problem when I play online.

I think most of you are missing the vast distinction between poker and blackjack/craps/slots ect. The primary difference is where your winnings come from. In the majority of gambling games if you hit it big the casino pays. In Poker all your winnings come from other players. You sit at a table and take their money.

Poker has nothing to do with beating the house. The house takes the rake regardless what you do. Poker has to doing better than the other players. This can be done, and be done consistently.

For example I play poker online all the time. In fact for a while now, my poker winnings have been my primary source of income. Although, after getting my B.S. in C.S. I should probally at least look for a job.

I usually play partypoker.com (signup/bonus code "join25"). To be fair I have played since I was like 17, and I am 22 now. But, as long as I've played I've cracked a profit. In fact my poker skill has bought me a few computers, paid my rent the past few months, paid for a few quarters of college, fixed my car, and bought me a burrito I ate this morning.

The house gets paid regardless, so you actually can win at the game. For example it would be like paying 10 dollars to play somebody chess and if you win you get 19 bucks (the person who owns the chess set rakes a dollar). Now if you were a chess grand master this situation would be great for you, and the chess set owner.

This is poker. All though chess is much more descrete, the better player almost always trounces the worse player. Poker is has a bit more luck involved (not nearly as much as you would think). But, this gives losing players the impression that they can win, and winning players something to chat about how bad they were 'bad beat' by some 'moron'.

The crux of it is. Poker is a game of skill. You pay the casino/online-site/back-room-operator for the honor of sitting at the table and being permitted to seperate suckers from their money.

Hey, PartyPoker has sharpened my poker skills too :)

The same way you bluff a human. Feign greater hand strength than you actually do, through betting and a good reading your opponent. I play poker online regularly at *Party Poker so I know from experience that seeing your opponent is not a required aspect of poker. As the article itself points out, the winner of the last World Series of Poker never played> a tournament in real life before winning the biggest poker tournament in the world. What that means is that there is definitely something to be said about analyzing the betting and behavior patterns of your opponents. On that level, the computer must have a betting and behavior pattern of it's own, as it must follow it's own programming rules put in place by the developers. Thus, when you then sense a weakness, you bet - and hope the computer folds to your bluff. Sure, trying to reverse engineer a poker AI on the fly probably isn't the easiest thing to do, but you didn't hear me complain when I learned my psychiatrist was a stinking robot! Now if you'll excuse me, I have the sudden urge to ask myself in endless loops why I wish to purchase death sticks.. (*Btw, if anyone is interested, they have a $25 bonus deposit going now if you use the code MAGIC when you sign up. Pretty nice deal)

Not a personal attack, but I'm assuming you are not a poker player.

At heart, poker is a human game where your ability in the mental martial arts dictate your ability to succeed. That being said however, this purity usually only shows at the highest levels of poker, heads-up (1v1) no limit poker; as showcased in the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

In the average poker game at the local casino or with your buddies on Thursday night, the 'mental game' usually falls along the wayside along with the beer bottles. A main caveat of playing perfect poker is to play as if you could see what everyone else at the table is holding. The better you are able to put a man to his hand (figure out what his/her cards are) the better your play becomes, theoretically speaking. I say theoretically because like it says in the article: "Game-theory models usually assume that every player uses the best possible strategy, something that rarely if ever happens with humans."

Many times, you can have a table filled with players who have no idea what they are doing and betting blindly with an ace high. In this scenario, against a good player holding ace high, you would know to re-raise him even if you were holding garbage, as ace high is not a strong enough hand to call with. Against a weak player, they may even re-raise you back not realizing that they are making a terrible play according to game theory, BUT, a play that happens to actually work in reality. Only in poker can you tell someone that the only reason they won was because they played terrible :)

Anyhow, my example was meant to illustrate that in poker, sometimes you play the person and other times you play for the best hand. Being able to do both and knowing when to mix it up is what separates a true professional from the average player.

Then again, talking is very theoretical too for that matter. But then you have to realize there are many people who make a profit playing online (myself included), so don't take my word for it, look at my stack of chips :grin:.

If anyone is interested, I play at Party Poker.

Good place for beginners and they'll add $25 to your account if you sign up with the code MAGIC.