PokerListings Blog

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

In our ninth article we’re looking at a most unsavory topic, cheaters at your home game.

It’s important to accept that the possibility of cheating always exists, even if you’re not playing for money.

Some people are just wired to cheat and do it regardless of the cash, others are simply trying to exploit you for financial gain.

As the stakes get bigger and your familiarity with the players go down, the more you need to be on the lookout for would-be charlatans.

The good news is the people you’re looking for will rarely be accomplished card mechanics, and there are a few easy things you can do to seriously limit their opportunities to cheat.

Follow these steps to protect yourself and the players in your game.

There have never been more ways to play poker and this week’s Positively Nerd Street takes a look at three new ways to get your fix.

Feel free to give us suggestions for future nerdy pieces in the comments.

In today’s Positively Nerd Street we’re going to review three separate poker video games that represent a shift from the traditional online poker model popularized by the likes of PokerStars and PartyPoker.

We’ve got one of the first reviews of the official World Series of Poker app by EA games (one of the first reviews of the newly launched game), Zynga Poker-competitor Pokerist and finally the casual-style Full House Poker on Xbox 360.

There's more to fitting in at a poker game than fancy chip tricks and an encyclopedic knowledge of WSOP history. You have to know the ins and outs of poker etiquette.

Enter the latest PokerListings infographic, explaining the top 12 worst possible etiquette mistakes you can make at the poker table.

Stalling, hygeine, acting and talking out of turn, collusion, physical violence and being a bad winner or a bad loser are just some of the essential tips we cover in this poker infographic.

Click here or the image below to see it in full size.

If you want to embed this on your site, get the html code at the bottom of the post page.

Embed this infographic on your site with the code below!

I was glad when May started because a new month always seems like a fresh start. I played just over 1,200 SnGs in April and ended up losing the most money I’ve ever lost in a single month of playing poker.

This seems strange considering I used to play MTTs and you would think that I would have had my biggest losses back then. It also seems strange because I moved to SnGs to avoid big downswings, and now I’ve lost more money than ever before!

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

In our ninth article we’re looking at how to actually beat your friends, and how to do it diplomatically enough so that they don’t boycott your game for good.

We’ll look at a number of typical home-game player types and the best strategies to use to separate them from their stack.

We’ll include a ton of links to the essential strategy content and tell you where and when it’s appropriate to use it.

And above all we’ll teach you the subtle art of getting someone to hand over their money, and do it with a smile on their face.

We've been taking pictures of Phil Ivey for seven years and we've cobbled together the 88 best into one super massive collage of awesomeness.

Click to get the full-size high definition version for your desktop wallpaper.

Having the right HUD (heads up display) setup and exercising good table selection are two of the most fundamental keys to success in online poker regardless of the stakes.

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

For our eighth article we’re looking at poker home game etiquette.

We’re going to give you nine poker etiquette rules and while we can’t guarantee your friends won’t resort to childish name-calling, we can promise you’ll finish the game with your honor in one piece.

Etiquette is all about respect, and it’s what separates the civilized world from the animal kingdom, and Atlantic City.

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

For our seventh article we’re going to take a look who you actually want to invite to your game and what you can expect from each demographic.

These are a few of the basic groups that you can choose, or choose not, to invite to your home game.

So … about that “Running Hotter than the Sun” entry. I think I might have jinxed myself!

It appears that $8k downswings at the stakes I’m playing are quite standard as I’m in the middle of another one. Unfortunately it means that I am losing quite a bit this month so far, as I’m currently running at around -2.5% ROI over ~1k games.

I will probably only play a couple hundred more SnGs this month, so chances are pretty much zero that I’ll end up positive for the month.

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

Our six article is another special one as John Donohue of Stay at Stove Dad has provided a meal plan for your epic evening of card playing.

Donohue is 42-year-old journalist and father of two who started the Stay at Stove Dad as a way of chronicling his effort’s to feed himself and his family. He’s since edited a book called Man with a Pan that features 21 writers and chefs discussing cooking.

If you like what you see here we highly recommend you check out his excellent Stay at Stove Dad blog.

Bon appetite!

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

Our fifth article is a special one as Christopher Null of Drinkhacker.com fame has provided a fantastic selection of potential adult beverages to serve at your next poker game.

If you like this piece, be sure to head over to Drinkhacker.com where you’ll find a plethora of recipes, reviews and all-around knowledge for the discriminating drinker.

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

For our fourth article in the series we’re going to take a look at the basic set-up for your home game including how much money to put in the game, how many chips you’ll need and whether to host a small tournament or a cash game.

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

For our third article we’re going to take a look at how a Texas Hold’em game works at its most basic level and some simple strategy.

The first thing you need to learn is poker hand rankings (which you’ll find in the previous article) but from there it’s time to learn how to determine the winning hand in a game.

The majority of poker hands are fairly easy to determine a winner (a pair of aces beats a pair of kings) but there are some trouble spots.

Here are three very good points to keep in mind when playing poker:

• You must make the best hand possible using exactly five cards
• No cards outside of the best five have any bearing on the strength of the hand
• All five cards are used in deciding the strength of the hand

In a Texas Hold’em you're allowed to use any combination of the cards in your hand and the cards on the board.

April 15, 2011 has become one of the “where were you when” moments of poker.

Seemingly just another day, players instead woke up to DOJ seizure notices on the big three websites available to US players – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute/UB.

Panic immediately took hold with players scrambling for information.

Shortly after a statement was released explaining that 11 defendants had been charged with band fraud and money laundering including PokerStars' Isai Scheinberg, Fill Tilt Poker's Ray Bitar and Absolute Poker's Scott Tom:

"As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

"Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud.

"Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from their profits.”

Suddenly PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute/UB were cut off from the massive U.S. online poker market.

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.

We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.

In our second part we’re going to be taking a look at the basic rules of Texas Hold’em (the most popular game of poker) and the hand rankings. This is the first step in understanding the Cadillac of poker.

We’ll start with hand rankings and then move on to how the game progresses.

When George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into law in 2006 he sent a message to online poker rooms: Stop offering online poker to the American market.

Some, like Party Poker and 888.com’s Pacific Poker, decided to heed that warning and pull out of the US despite losing the majority of their customer base.

Others like PokerStars, Full Tilt and UB/AP adopted a different interpretation of the new legislation and ramped up their US-facing marketing campaigns.

When the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act hit in 2006 many online poker sites, including industry-leading PartyPoker, decided to vacate the U.S. market as a precautionary measure.

And when those online gaming giants pulled out, it left the door open for sites like PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute/UB Poker to dominate.

And dominate they did.

In the years following UIGEA, PokerStars, Full Tilt and the CEREUS Poker network sucked up over 60% of the online poker market share and brought in hundreds of millions in profit.

Here is a closer look at the so-called big three in their prime from 2006-2011:

I definitely have some catching up to do in this blog, so I thought I’d write a post to update my progress for the year so far.

It’s Tuesday night and I should be grinding, but games are dead so I have some extra time.

One vague statement tacked on to an unrelated Ports Security Bill.

If you want to get down to the nitty gritty of the Black Friday indictments, that's what it comes down to - A loosely defined statement rushed through on the last day before Congress adjourned for the 2006 elections.

Called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the UIGEA, in short, “prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that involves the use of the Internet and that is unlawful under any federal or state law.”

What that sentence means is still, over five years later, open to legal interpretation. But has nonetheless resulted in the indictments of over a dozen industry figures, numerous arrests, millions of dollars in seized funds and the virtual crippling of a multi-biliion dollar industry in the United States.

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