Huge WSOP numbers and Ultimate Bet .com $650 Bonus

I went down to the Rio for the beginning of the WSOP 2006. There were massive crowds and tons of poker players at the side games and satellites. I didn't think it would be a problem to wait and register for event #2 $1500 NL, but by the morning of the tournament it was sold out and they were taking alternates. I have never played in the WSOP before and I didn't want to start by coming into the tournament 1-2 hours late. I was disappointed that I didn't play, but had a great time watching some of the tops pros and online players.

Poker Fish Tracker is being updated and Ultimate Bet was just added to the list of online poker rooms. Ultimate Bet is a respectable online poker room that has been around since 2001. Ultimate Bet is offering a 100% bonus up to $650 new player signup bonus which is pretty sweet. Check out the review of Ultimate Bet at the Poker Fish Tracker main website.

WSOP is Coming!

At the end of this month will bring the start of the WSOP 2006. The first of many tournaments will start on June 26 which will lead to the Main Event on July 28. Right now one of the best online poker sites to offer satellites is Poker Stars. Poker Stars runs satellites many times each day and also give away tons of free WSOP packages to its players.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 9376529

Party Poker has also started running their own $1 million guarantee tournament each sunday that is a $215 buy in. Last week over 5,000 players played in the tournament and the winner took home over $200,000! This is one of the largest first prizes for a regular online poker tournament. Also, Party Poker has started running free roll tournaments every hour with $200-$500 prize pools. Their is no entry fee into these tournaments and anyone with a Party Poker account can play for free.

Poker is Funny

I had been raising a lot and had won about 2-3 buy-ins against the same person. The thing is that he was real friendly and we were chatting the whole time. Then this hand came up.

I raise with A10 and he calls from the big blind. He has $70 and I have about $350 at a .50/$1 NL table. The flop brings KQJ off so I have the nuts. He checks and I bet 1/2 the pot and he calls. Then the next card came a 10. Now any Ace will have a straight. Before he acts he types "I have the 9, do you have an Ace?" I said "No". He then checked and this time I bet the pot. He types again "I have the 9 do you have the Ace???" I said "No" again and he calls.

The river brings a blank so still any Ace is the nuts. He types that he has the 9 one more time then checks again. I then went all in for his last $43. He then asks again and I reply that I dont have the Ace. He then calls all of his money with the 9 and I won the pot. I couldn't stop laughing after that. :D

WSOP, WSOP, and more WSOP

Recently every single poker room is going crazy with all of their WSOP Giveaways. I mean Poker Stars is giving away $5 million in FREE WSOP seats, along with the hundreds of cash satellite winners. Full Tilt Poker is giving away 100 seats free, and Party Poker is giving away 20 seats a week free up until the start of the WSOP.

I personally have not played in any WSOP yet but I was there last year for the first week and I was amazed by how awesome it was. There were thousands of poker players all over the place, and it was cool to see the likes of Greg Raymer, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Helmuth. All of these players took time to talk to the fans and really enjoyed playing the game of poker. I mean it is a pretty cool job to play poker all day and win tons of money, right?

All I can say as this years WSOP is going to be bigger and better. Players are getting better, the fields are getting larger, and the tournaments should be a blast. I can't wait for the end of June when this year's WSOP starts up again.

Good Luck to everyone who has won the WSOP main event seat already. I hope to see you soon in Las Vegas!

Playing Online Poker - Miles Apart

I have recently been playing at over 15 online poker rooms trying to find which ones are the best, and which ones people need to stay away from. I have seen it all, from thousands of players playing a single tournament, and other rooms with only a small number of players online. Some of the poker rooms have very high limits up to $500-$1000, while others have micro limits as low as .01/.02! With literally hundreds of hours logged playing different online poker rooms, I have compiled a list of the best features and worst features out there.

Best Features
1. Poker Stars - Almost 90,000 players online lately at peak times, Huge range of limits and tables available, and tons of tournaments running all the time makes Poker Stars #1.

2. Noble Poker - Best bonus offer with an extra $50 bonus for just making a $20 deposit? Got a total of $62 in free bonus money just for depositing $24 (50% match + $50 extra). Very smooth gameplay and also nice number of players in the daily free rolls offered to real money players.

3. Party Poker - Poker room totally redone with tons of new features added. Easier navigation and new table resizing (my personal favorite upgrade).

4. Titan Poker - Cant beat the tons of free rolls. Also the $1000 depositor's free roll is really awesome. Instant cash outs at Titan is the best in the industry along with excellent support.

5. Paradise Poker - Just announced they are giving away $1 million in WSOP main event seats. They are really going to be at the top with Party and Poker Stars with 100 free seats this year. Also, one of the only major online poker rooms already running satellites to the main event.

Worst Features
1. Full Tilt Poker - Terrible customer service and way too difficult to cash your money out and make transfers. Great promotions but really need to fix some of these issues.

2. Poker Room - They really need a software and graphics update. The fact that they have a no download poker room doesn’t make them one of the best rooms in my book.

3. Empire Poker - They just sold all of their assets to PartyGaming.com. Who knows what is going to happen with them now. Not good for affiliates who had existing players on the old Empire.

4. Party Poker - Many people had problems with uninstalling the software. Some reported that it would erase all of the image files in their program file directory. If you upgraded Party Poker DONT uninstall until this is cleared.

5. Stacks Poker - Very disappointing with the delays for the launch and beta. Open beta was supposed to start on Feb 19, and they barely have even started giving out the initial invites. They need to get their act together if they expect to compete against the big boys.

Change of Setting: Playing Small Fields

I noticed that all of the online poker rooms that are tracked on PFT are the "big boys" in the online poker world. These poker rooms have a ton of traffic, a lot of fish, and have many huge tournament fields. This can be really fun, but at the same time sometimes be overwhelming. Yes, you can play in a $10 poker tournament on Poker Stars and win $15K, but you also have to fight through 2000 players to do so! If you haven’t noticed, playing these huge tournaments can be very grueling and you can play hours on end without even placing in the money.

I have started to forget what it was like playing in smaller tournaments with 400-800 people. Online poker has gotten so huge that it is almost impossible to play in one of these tournaments on the big online poker sites. I have now decided to start searching for quality poker rooms that have the whole package: customer service, nice bonuses, smaller traffic, and security.

From my recent experiences, the best poker rooms right now for the whole package are Titan Poker and Noble Poker. At peak times they have around 3000 total players, so there is definitely a lot of action at the tables. Also, you don’t have to battle it out with 5000 players to win some money in the free rolls. Large online poker rooms offer nice free rolls, but allow a million people to enter. This dilutes the prize pool, and makes the free rolls almost not worth playing. This is not the case at smaller rooms like Titan and Noble. They are offering daily $200 free roll tournaments or so and only get a few hundreds entries in them. This makes it a lot easier to win money, which is good if you like winning money.

You might want to play at Party Poker or Poker Stars because you see an old lady with a bad poker face on T.V., or you see Joe Hachem hugging Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker, but that does not mean that they are the best poker rooms. If you are just starting out playing poker than it is best to gradually work you way into the poker scene. Playing smaller tournaments and sit-n-go's will help build up your experience and confidence. Those two attributes are the key to becoming a successful poker player.

tke1600

Next PFT FreeRoll and PFT Poker League #2!

The new PokerFishTracker.com tournaments are now registering in the Titan Poker lobby.





The "PFT Free Roll" is on February 20 at 9 pm est. Details on how to play in the free roll and the new PFT Exclusive Player Package are at the Titan Poker page of the website. The password will be given out to all new players who sign up using the bonus code PFT and to all "loyal" forum members.

The "PFT Poker League #2" is on February 27 at 9pm est. This is the 2nd tournament out of 6 awarding prize money and points to the winners. The tournament is again a $2 buy-in. The Poker League page has details on how to win cool prizes like a brand new video iPod.

All passwords will be sent via private message to quailified players the day of the scheduled tournament.

tke1600

Stacks Poker Beta Testing

After a long wait StacksPoker.com is now starting to send out invitations to download and play the new 3D software. Stacks Poker is going to be the coolest poker room and will be a very new poker experience all together. Stacks hasn't yet realeased all of the features for the poker room but they already have some neat features.






Here is what kind of actions can be made at the poker table:

ARG = Arggh!
VNH = Very Nice Hand
NH = Nice Hand
TY = Thank You
SI = Ship it!
RV = Rivered me!
WTF = What the F@#$
FW = Phew!