PokerListings Blog

What’s the perfect game? Is it poker? Or maybe chess? Starcraft? Prismata is an upcoming strategy game that defies all attempts to define it by drawing on influences from an incredibly diverse cross-section of games. It’s quickly garnered the attention of famous poker players like Mike “Timex” McDonald as well as professional video game players like TrumpSC and Kripparian. We’re going to take a closer look at the game today and investigate why it could be the next big online game.

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The Internet Archive has now released more than 2,300 classic video games for free in-browser play including a handful of poker games. While most gamers are tickled at the thought of nostalgic favourites like Wolfenstein, Prince of Persia and Super Street Fighter II there are plenty of obscure games to be found when you comb through the massive free library. 

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Here’s a little secret for you: most online poker software is incredibly easy to run on almost any computer. Online poker sites have a serious incentive to make their software compatible with even the most antiquated laptops so they can increase their market share. In fact, we built a premium grinding station in 2009 and honestly it would still play every piece of poker software you could throw at it. That doesn’t mean, however, that the experience is the same on every computer.

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Could the new Oculus Rift virtual reality headset change the way we experience online poker? It’s not out of the question as the Rift represents perhaps the biggest leap in gaming since 3D characters were rendered for the first time in the 90s. Poker technology has remained relatively stagnant over the last five years with many clients that, at least visually, haven’t changed very much since the late 2000s. We’re going to take an in-depth look at the Oculus Rift and propose two unique ways the VR could be utilized in an online poker setting.

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Outside of the odd game of Open-Face Chinese or Courchevel, poker has remained relatively unchanged for decades. There’s something timeless about the game and there’s a good chance some form of Hold’em or Draw poker will be played 100 years from now. That said, what other poker-like games do you think will be played in the future?

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Over the last six months an online card game has taken the gaming world by storm and almost instantaneously created a massive online community with countless blogs dedicated to the game’s strategy and development. No we’re not talking about online poker.

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Taking photos of people playing a card game while trying to remain absolutely still in a controlled environment sounds like one heck of an easy photography gig.  And yet there are thousands of bad poker photos circulating the Internet. At PokerListings we’ve been photographing poker tournaments around the world for nearly 10 years now and we’ve taken hundreds of thousands of photos. Some of our photos are good, some are bad, but we like to think we’ve picked up a few tricks along the way. We thought it would be a good time to share some tips for anyone just getting into poker photography. This article assumes you already have a camera to work with but stay tuned for our next article about poker photography where we’ll get into the best starting equipment. An intro to poker photography awaits after the break.

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Poker bots. The very mention of poker-playing computer programs usually makes serious grinders cringe. In the past there have been black-hat programmers that developed teams of poker bots that would torment players in lower-stakes online poker games (especially in limit) and ultimately produce a significant profit for their creators. Online poker site security is a lot better these days and can usually spot rogue bots but it has still left a very bad taste in some poker players' mouths. Fortunately Neo Poker Laboratory has developed an A.I. they have no intention of ever using in real-money online poker games. Instead the recently-launched Neo Bot Poker is a free-to-play online poker site where poker fans can test their skills against an advanced opponent. It’s an interesting project and provides a glimpse into how an elite bot would act.

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These days it’s rare to see anything truly unique when it comes to poker equipment but that's exactly what David Goldklang has created with his Polaris cards. A graphic designer, David has been around cards his entire life and always wanted to take a stab at making his own. Earlier this year he finally made it happen. David collaborated with brother Jordan Goldklang to create a series of cards called Vända. The project, which was funded through Kickstarter, was wildly successful and easily raised enough money to produce the cards. Not content to rest on their laurels, the pair launched a new Kickstarter project late last month.

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There’s no denying that PokerStars makes one of the best online poker clients available with plenty of customization but there are always going to be people who want to take it one step farther.  Fortunately there are some extra steps you can take to give yourself a truly unique playing experience. The easiest way to completely overhaul the look of PokerStars is to just pick up a theme. Generally they cost money and they will change table, cards, card backs, chips and fonts. They are simple to use, as you just have to click the installation file. We won’t really be covering themes in this guide but there are great communities at tiltbuster.com and pokermods.eu where you can find themes for sale. Beware that the majority are Windows-only. This thread on TwoPlusTwo poker forum also offers a lot of information on modding PokerStars, provided you can get through the 500+ pages. If you’re willing to put in a bit of time and effort you can modify individual aspects of the PokerStars client such as backgrounds, chips and the front and back of cards. Check below for a breakdown of how to modify various features of PokerStars.

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Happy owners of the Xbox Kinect and poker enthusiasts, read the following.  This is a short tutorial that will allow you to play poker online using your Kinect. There's some set-up you'll need to do but for pros PCs like you it'll be child's play to adjust your motion controller and become the king of the green baize. Check out the following video to see how it'll look and read on for full instructions:

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No other form of poker has quite the “broad audience” of strip poker. This, of course, makes perfect sense. After all, procreation is fundamental. Even more so than money. Essentially as soon as man invented the binary number system he started drawing digital nude pictures. Early console-based strip poker games may seem awfully pixelated and unsophisticated but they were all necessary steps in the evolution of this important technology. Learn how to play strip poker yourself right here with our easy-to-follow rules and guide.

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If you’re a poker player into gaming or a gamer who dabbles in poker, Rockstar Games’ open-world Western, Red Dead Redemption, just got a lot more interesting for both of you.

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About five months ago we did a blog showing how to use your Rock Band guitar to play online poker. After it launched I got a lot of feedback and requests for a similar article using the drum kit. So, naturally, I did just that. The Rock Band (or Guitar Hero) instruments are basically just large controllers with unusual buttons. Instead of pressing the X button, you hit the big green drum. Since these controllers are conveniently compatible with your Windows PC, it's easy to use them for just about anything you want. Play Poker with Your Rock Band Drum Kit It's not hard to do and should take you less than 30 minutes from start to finish. If you just want to see how well it works and already know (or don't care) how to set it up, save yourself a couple of minutes and watch the video at the bottom of the blog.

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My father once taught me a very important lesson: Always use the proper tool for the job. If playing online poker is your job, or even your hobby, you're going to want the right PC. The first thing to know is that you don't have to buy the most expensive computer and accessories to get what you need. You just need to know what you're looking for. If you do it right, getting the optimal grinder's PC won't actually cost you all that much.

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When people talk about the first online poker room, they're usually referring to Planet Poker - the brainchild of Mike Caro and the site that dealt the first ever real-money online poker hand on Jan. 1, 1998. What most people don't know is the idea for online poker had been around and functioning for years before then.

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The thought came to me sort of like this: I'm lazy, and I like the idea of playing poker while sitting on my couch watching TV. Originally, I developed a system to play poker online using voice-control software, but this isn't very useful if you want to chat with your roommates or eat a BLT while you play. The next logical step would be using the wireless poker controller, but I just don't like the idea of paying for something I can build myself for free. The Rock Band (and Guitar Hero) instruments are, basically, wireless controllers. You hit a button on the guitar and it sends that button-press to its little receiver hanging from your Playstation's USB port. I saw no reason why I shouldn't be able to plug the instrument into my computer and use it as my very own wireless poker controller. And besides, playing poker by using a guitar … that's just rad.

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Have you ever been so lazy that having to use your mouse to play online poker was just too much work? Me neither. And when I first decided to put together a fully functional system for voice-controlled poker, I was doing it simply as a novelty. Surprisingly while testing it out, I found that voice-controlled poker can actually be pretty useful.

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Ever wondered how poker sites randomly shuffle the deck? Here's everything you need to know about RNGs, but were too afraid to ask. Before we get into the generators, the first step in understanding how a poker site shuffles its decks is to understand what the word random actually means. The actual definition of random is very simple: Random = impossible to be predicted.

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