PokerListings Blog

Want to get better at poker? Some very-skilled poker pros are giving tons of information completely free on services like Twitch.tv. The theory used to be that once you found a way to beat poker you kept everything you learned a secret. Giving away that information was giving away your edge. Well, an entirely new generation of poker player is taking a vastly different approach by live streaming themselves playing online poker. The following is a quick-start guide to getting started with poker livestreaming.

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When you first sit down at the poker table one of the greatest fears is getting cheated out of your money. Once you’ve played for awhile you tend to realize those concerns are usually unfounded as both casinos and online poker sites utilize a large assortment of security measures (depending on where you play of course!). Technology is always changing, however, and the latest device to come out of China has some players worried. The gadget in question is generally referred to as a “Poker Analyzer”. There are a few variants but the basic idea behind the Poker Analyzer is that it can tell you what cards are going to be dealt. In this article we’re going to take a closer look at how Poker Analyzers work and whether it's a legitimate danger at the tables.

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Is Apple set to change the game again? The imminent Apple Watch has financial analysts scratching their heads wondering if Apple might once again completely turn a market segment on its head. The big question that we care about, however, is whether the Apple Watch will have any applications for poker. We’ll take a close look at the upcoming watch in this article and project some of the possible uses for poker.

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It goes without saying that there are an almost limitless number of poker-related apps available for iOS or Android. The problem is that the vast majority of them are garbage. Fortunately we dug through a stack of them and found five apps that were fun, entertaining, informative or at least interesting. Keep in mind most of these games are free-to-play and do’t compare to the full real-money experiences that you’d get from legit poker companies like Full Tilt, Party Poker or 888poker. Instead these games are casual enough that you can play them while at a live poker table or if you’re on the bus and don’t feel like wagering actual money. Check below for five new poker apps that are actually worth downloading for your smartphone or tablet.

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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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Another week, another new Bitcoin poker site. Between Bryan Micon’s original SealsWithClubs, the new Michael Mizrachi-backed GetLuckyPoker and the old-school heavy Breakout Poker it’s getting pretty easy to get lost in the shuffle. So why should you care about Bitnplay? Well it remains to be seen if Bitnplay will find success (it hasn’t launched yet) but it offers a few unique features that you won’t find on the other sites. We’ll take a closer look at three of the major features in this article.

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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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With much fanfare and hype Apple announced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ in a high-profile keynote earlier today. While more and more poker players seem to be hopping on the Android train these days the iPhone remains one of the most popular handheld devices amongst poker players. There’s a good reason that most online poker sites have developed special apps just for iOS devices. Today’s announcement actually heralded a number of new features (including an entirely new design) that could potentially benefit poker players who use iPhones to play poker. Here’s a look at six ways the iPhone 6 will be a vastly superior way to play online poker than previous iterations:

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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. There are a couple features that are particularly important for online grinders. One is screen size (likewise resolution) because you’re going to want to multi-table and another is mobility because most poker players want to travel. Over the last five years there has been one significant upgrade that will help speed up your poker sessions. That’s the transition from old disk-based hard drives to flash-based solid state drives or SSDs. SSDs will help you load anything on your hard drive much faster and that includes your poker client. Is it necessary? Nope. Is it awesome? Yes. Some people will argue about the benefits of a beastly desktop computer brimming with scorchingly-fast silicon. It’s a good choice if you want to play 3D games at max settings but these days it’s hard to see them as anything more than overkill for online poker. Instead of buying a desktop just attach a couple high quality monitors to your laptop and you are good to go. Here’s a look at three great choices in 2014 (feel free to add your own in the comments!):

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Online poker can be overwhelming for someone just getting into it, but over the last five years the biggest poker sites have made some huge improvements aimed at helping newcomers to the game. Most recently, Party Poker introduced Casual Cash Game Tables for example. Players are only allowed to play one table at a time, which the site hopes will encourage new players to splash around chips without fear of running into serious grinders. The hardest part for online poker sites is to protect new players without hurting the hard-core grinders. It remains a tight-rope walk but here are five of the best features online poker sites have introduced over the last five years to help new players (feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments).

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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 Courcheval, 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? Poker has actually played a huge role in Sci Fi pop culture and nearly every series has some form of the game. It’s easy to see why as poker is a great plot device to develop characters that’s been used on everything from Friends to Training Day. But what are these poker-like games in the future? Well for one they seem to have a lot of suits. If there’s one thing to be learned from the various games featured on Sci Fi shows it’s that more suits = more futuristic. Here’s a look at the poker games played in the background of some of the most famous Sci Fi shows.

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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. Hearthstone, which was developed by gaming giant Blizzard, is shaking up the gaming status quo with its free-to-play model that’s already attracted tens of thousands of players. Incredibly Hearthstone is still in open beta and hasn’t even been officially launched. The designers of Magic: The Gathering are likely worried and they should be with Forbes publishing articles like “How Hearthstone Could Change the PC Gaming Landscape” and “Five Reasons Hearthstone is Better Than a Real Card Game.” Why does this matter to poker players? Hearthstone and online poker have nearly identical demographics. If a game like Hearthstone can generate huge player fields in a matter of months, there’s no reason online poker can’t do the same. Blizzard has stated their goal with Hearthstone is to simply make collectible card games accessible, describing the game as, “deceptively simple, yet insanely fun.” Online poker could learn a thing or two from that logic. Here are five elements that online poker should adapt from Hearthstone:

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Brain training software has never been more popular. Every day you see people using the programs on smart phones, tablets, laptops and video game consoles. In some ways they aren’t that far removed from multi-tabling online poker as both require critical thinking and dexterity with a mouse. Whether brain-training software actually increases your intelligence is an entirely different matter as numerous studies have shown the programs actually do very little. On the bright side the programs do allow users to brush up on their math fundamentals and quick reflexes. The inherent problem for poker players when it comes to mainstream brain-training software is that it teaches you to memorize certain numbers but they aren’t poker specific enough. Instead you’d probably be better served by something like PokerCruncher or DonkeyTest, which would at least build better muscle memory. All that said, brain training software likely won’t hurt your game so here’s a look at three of the most popular options:

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Cypto-currency Bitcoin remains an intriguing option for online poker players. We investigated the subject earlier this year in a Bitcoin feature we did on SealsWithClubs founder Brian Micon. We’re going one step farther today with a special Q&A by Nadia Hanna with Bitcoin experts John Light and Adam Sah. John Light is an entrepreneur with a professional background in business operations and online marketing. He discovered Bitcoin when researching alternative currencies and eventually decided to move to Silicon Valley to start a Bitcoin consulting business where individuals and companies can learn about the digital currency. Adam Sah opened an artisan food store, Buyers Best Friend, in 2012 and experienced the pain of handling cash, processing credit cards, costs and fees. They company designed their own Point of Sale (POS) system for processing bitcoins.

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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. The new custom deck, called Polaris, has a celestial theme with both solar and lunar editions. In addition the cards feature four colors, which makes spotting flushes easier for poker players. Polaris is off to a hot start on Kickstarter and has already raised over $10,000 of its $15,000 goal. PokerListings had the chance to chat with Goldklang and find out what it was like designing his own set of playing cards:

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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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After being absent from the poker world for over 16 months, Full Tilt Poker is scheduled to re-open in non-U.S. jurisdictions tomorrow. In the time since Full Tilt went offline we’ve seen the rise and fall of the Epic Poker Tour, Phil Hellmuth finish second in the WSOP POY race in back-to-back years and the migration of U.S. online poker players to countries where they can still play. In short: a lot has happened. It’s been so long and there’s been so much controversy it’s easy to forget what made Full Tilt Poker great in the first place.. Obviously the best thing about Full Tilt Poker’s return is that players (at least European ones) will finally be getting access to their account balances. Outside of that here are the seven items that have us excited about the Full Tilt Poker revival.

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