Online gaming sites are always changing — upgrading software, improving features and functionality, getting rid of bugs and bad ideas, inventing new offerings, etc. — all in a furious effort to remain competitive. A consistent leader of the online gambling pack, Party Poker, is often at the cutting edge of these new and improved releases. Not only has Party Poker done it again with their latest upgrade, but with the elimination of one of their programs (skins), and brand new partnerships with other leading edge online casinos and online poker rooms.

The first thing to be aware of with Party Pokers new upgrade is that all the bugs may not yet have been completely ironed out (which simply means updates to the upgrades will be forthcoming). There have been some reports that uninstalling earlier versions of the Party Poker software after installing the new upgrade could lead to problems, so we would hold off on that uninstall if we were you. Of course, now that we said that, some of you may be wondering why you would even bother downloading the upgrade. Heres why:

re: Lobby
- Games are listed by blinds rather than maximum buy-in
- Hands per Hour are included amongst the lobby stats
- Cash games are divided into Limit, No Limit, and Pot Limit
- More limits added to Cash Games
- Players available cash and Party Points are prominently displayed
- Filters are given to help narrow down your selection of tablesgames
- Tables are given names rather than numbers
- The news ticker has been made more prominent
- Tournaments are divided into groups for easier searching

re: Tournaments
- Tournament buy-ins now include entry fees
- Tournament players start with more chips (Sit-and-Gos: 2,000, Multi-Table: 3,000, Events: 5,000)
- Theres a new tournament blind structure
- More buy-ins available for Sit-and-Gos
- Sit-and-Go levels have changed so that now they are based on time rather than hands played
- The payout structure is flatter

re: Party Poker Accounts
- Players can easily switch between Party Poker and Party Casino all from one place
- The Account Page has been streamlined for greater efficiency and ease of use

re: Miscellaneous features
- Players can shrink windows for multi-tabling
- Optional automatic window tiling and cascading

As you may know, a skin is an independent site that uses another sites software (in this case Party Pokers) in exchange for a percentage of revenues. PartyGaming, parent company of Party Poker as well as host of Party Casino and Party Bingo has decided to terminate its skins, instead purchasing those sites as secondary PartyGaming sites (and presumably raking in 100% of the revenues).

In place of their newly defunct skins, Party Poker is now joined by the following new members of the PartyGaming family: IntertopsPoker, MultiPoker, PlanetLuck Casino, PokerNow, and Starluck Casino Online. Party Pokers most recent acquisition, as of February 2006, was former Party Poker skin Empire Poker, which they purchased for 250 million. Those Party Poker folks are building quite the Empire (some bad puns just beg to be voiced).

Party Poker, who according to Reuters signed up a record number of new players last year, is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange.

There are many times of poker tournaments, but the most popular and typical tournament type is the freezeout, meaning that once someone lost all chips he is eliminated. This tournaments structure is quite simple: you place the buy-in, you start with the same amount as others, then the blinds begin to increase slowly and players get eliminated as they lose all their chips. The prices are given to the top winners, that means to less than 10% of the players in happy cases (sometimes it doesnt even mean 1%).

But aside this type of tournaments you can also find tournaments that allow further re-buys or add-ons. In these tournaments if you lose all your chips then you can re-buy, paying the same amount you paid initially and receiving the same amount of chips as you did first. Usually the re-buy can be made for a certain period of time after the tournament began. After this period has passed, you cannot re-buy, so if you lose all your chips you will be eliminated. But you can pay to add a certain amount of chips to your stack whenever you feel it is necessary.

There also are the turbo tournaments that basically increase the blinds every five or even two minutes. If you are entering a turbo tournament you have to take into consideration the fact that luck is the most crucial factor here. These tournaments happen fast because all the action is located on the pre flop, player going all-in most of the times.

The satellite tournaments mean that they are not offering cash prices but a “ticket” of entrance to a bigger tournament, like the WSOP. The prices offered are usually relative to the number of people that get into the tournament. But the percent is low, so these tournaments require an aggressive approach.

The steps tournaments mean that you are taking part in more than one tournament. There are a series of satellite tournaments that allow player to gradually qualify for the following step and into the final step the cash prices, collected from all the buy-ins are offered to the best few. The first prize will get the biggest share of the money amount gathered, and then place from 2 to 5 usually receive the rest, a decent prize.

The shootouts are tournaments in which you have to play may single table tournaments one after the other. They are similar to steps tournaments. Players either advance after a table has been finish or are eliminated. The prize will be divided within almost every player at the final table, so the prizes are more but lower than in steps tournaments.

And finally there are the winner takes all tournaments. This are single table usually, and they require an aggressive strategy, as you have to be the first or you lose all anyway. The best example are home games that are usually played this way, mostly to avoid problems. People put an amount in first, and then, after one remains, he will take home all the buy-ins.

When I first started playing poker it wasn’t the rules that freaked me out; I’m pretty smart, how hard can they be, I figured. Neither was it the strategy; I reckoned that I’d loose a bit, and before I knew it I’d be up to speed and on the ball. No, it was the terminology that got me; I had images of coming to the table and everyone immediately knowing that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and feeling like an absolute idiot. For that reason, I want to briefly explain some of the most common terminology used in the game; so that no-one else will have to feel the way I did and won’t be held back by it.

Antes: An ante is used in all table games and is the money that each player must put into the pot in order to buy into the game. The ante is a set amount for the table and this will not change. The money is paid before the first cards are dealt; anyone who does not pay the ante will not be dealt in.

Big blinds and little blinds: Tournaments don’t have antes per se because everyone has already bought into the hand, so to speak, by buying into the tournament. The buy in of a tournament negates the need for an ante as the pot is already set. The big blind and little blind therefore is an alternative to the ante and involves one player on the table paying a sum equal to the minimum bet and another paying a smaller sum equal to half the minimum bet. The big blind is paid by the person in the second seats to the left of the dealer and the little blind is paid by the person sat directly to the left of the dealer. When there are 2 players left the dealer is the little blind.

Board: This refers to the community cards, the cards that all can see and use. There will not be a board in all games, only in Hold’em games such as

Flop: This is the name given to the first three community cards. These cards are turned all at one go.

Turn: This is the fourth community card. The Turn is flipped by itself and is followed by a betting round. This card is sometimes also referred to as the ‘fourth street’.

River: The River is the fifth, and final of the community cards to be flipped over. Once the River is flipped there is only one more betting round.

Showdown: This is the show and tell of the Caribbean Hold’em game. Following the final betting round after the River, all active players must show their hands; the best hand out of the 5 community cards and the 2 personal cards takes the pot.

These are just the very basics of Caribbean Hold’em terminology; you will find that once you are familiar with a few terms you will see them cropping up in other games too. One step at a time and you will be speaking the lingo before you know it.

Whenever players are ahead in a hand, they think that its their right to win. After a session, theyll often report their results as follows: I was down 200, but I really should be up 500 because of the bad beats I took. Unfortunately, this thinking is misleading, because it fails to take into account the very real probability of losing the hand. Remember, poker is a game of giving yourself in edges, and very rarely are those edges absolutes. (But as long as you are actually giving yourself edges, you will come out ahead in the proverbial long-run)

What is Pot Equity?

Pot equity is the percentage of the pot you expect to win in the long run. If you subtract your investment in a pot from your pot equity, then pot equity becomes just another way of expressing expected value. But having many ways of thinking about expected value is helpful both for understanding it and calculating it easily.

Suppose youre playing in a no-limit holdem game with blinds of 1 and 2. One opponent limps, you raise to 10 with AA, and someone behind you goes all-in to 50. The blinds fold as well as the initial preflop limper. You call, and you find that your A♥A♦ is facing K♦K♠ for a 105 pot (lets assume 2 rake, meaning that the pot is actually 103). Youll win about 81.71% of the time and tie about .46% of the time. Your equity is (.8194)(103) = 83.90. The percentage, .8194, is obtained by taking your winning percentage and adding half of your tying percentage (because when you tie, you only get half of the pot).

Short Term Variance; Long-Term Results

Your goal is poker is to make decisions yielding a positive expected value. Another way of saying this is that you need to think of the process rather than the results, and you need to think of the process in an honest light.

If you think of your results in terms of should haves, youre in the habit of overestimating your expected profit, and if you overestimate your profit, youll seldom reach your expectations every session, meaning that poker will be a very frustrating experience for youone of the worst feelings in life is repeatedly failing to match expectations. Instead of thinking in terms of should haves, begin thinking about your poker in terms of pot equity. At the end of the day, youll be a much more sane, and a much more happier player, and a much more analytic player. Poker is supposed to be fun, so respect and enjoy the process!

If you want to experience live poker action at the gambling Mecca of the world, here is a guide to the top poker rooms in Las Vegas. You can read here updated info on each of the recommended Las Vegas poker rooms including their game variety, limits and tournaments.

1) Bellagio Casino and Hotel
If you want to experience Las Vegas poker action and hang out with pros, the Bellagio is the casino for you. It is one of the classiest poker rooms available in Las Vegas. It is so popular that you might find yourself spending over an hour at the waiting list and then find yourself stuck with a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs.

The games offered are Texas Holdem, Omaha and stud games, and you can also join one of the tournaments, but note that this involves playing No Limit Holdem. As for the table limits for the regular games, these are as follows:
a) Limit Holdem: 48, 816, 1530, 3060, 60120, 75150 pounds and up.
b) No Limit Holdem: 200 pounds buy ins with 25 pounds blinds.
c) Omaha: 612, 1530, 2040, 3060, 50100 pounds and up.
d) Stud Poker: 15, 48, 816, 3060, 75150 pounds and up.

2) Mirage Las Vegas
If you are tired of waiting for a table at Bellagio, the poker rooms at the Mirage can be an acceptable alternative. It resembles Bellagio’s with its luxurious atmosphere, variety of games and its huge popularity among pros as well as tourists.

The games offered are Texas Holdem and Omaha, Stud and as the Bellagio, playing in a tournament means getting involved with No Limit Texas Holdem. As for the limits of each table in a regular game, they are:
a) Limit Holdem: 36, 612, 1020, 2040, 4080 pounds.
b) No Limit Holdem: between 100 and 500 pounds buy ins with 25 pounds blinds.
c) Omaha: 510 pounds.
d) Stud Poker: 15, 510.

3) Excalibur Las Vegas
If you want to play in a less stressful environment, check out the poker room at the Excalibur casino. You can play spread limit Holdem with the lowest limits available on the Strip and enjoy beginners friendly rules such as limitation on three raises. The room has been renovated recently and the poker tables and seats are very comfortable.

At the Excalibur, you can play Texas Holdem or 7 Card Stud, and the limits are slightly lower:
a) Limit Holdem: 13, 26 pounds.
b) No Limit Holdem: 100 pounds buy ins with 13 pounds blinds.
c) 7 Card Stud: 15 pounds and up.

4) Binions’ Horseshoe Hotel and Casino
If you want to play at the same room where the first WSOP took place, you must visit Binions’ poker room. Although the www.gambling-portal.comcasino has been renovated and went through many changes since the days of Nick the Greek, the ghosts of the past still haunt the place, but in a good way.

Here too you can play Texas Holdem, No Limit Holdem in their own tournament, Omaha and Stud games for the following limits:
a) Limit Holdem: 24, 48, 1020 pounds.
b) No Limit Holdem: 100 pounds minimum buy ins with 12 pounds blinds.
c) Omaha: 48 pounds.
d) Stud Poker: 15.

5) Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino
If you want to follow in the steps of the 2006 WSOP champions, check out the Rio poker room. You might be surprised from the size and the small variety of games, but the thought of sharing the same location with contemporary gaming legends adds a certain appeal to it.

Other than taking part in the tournament where you can participate in some No Limit Holdem, you can pick from Texas Holdem, 7 Card Stud, Omaha or a few other variations according to what players request. The limits are as follows:
a) Limit Holdem: 24, 36, 48 pounds.
b) No Limit Holdem: 100 pounds minimum buy ins with 25 pounds blinds.