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Great hand I’m about to cover here from a high stakes poker tournament.

The action starts with Gus Hansen sitting on pocket fives pre-flop at our absolute poker download table. Daniel Negreanu does him one better with pocket sixes. Hansen gets the pot growing with a $2,000 raise. Negreanu bumps it to $5K, and the games begin. A third player wisely realizes he’s out of position against two greats and folds his Ace, Queen. Hansen calls and the flop is out.

9, 6, 5. Ohhh, sweet. Two sets made from the flop. Negreanu holds a comfortable 80 percent advantage, and after Hansen checks (presumably to set a trap), Negreanu bets like it with an $8,000 raise. Hansen plays with his chips a bit, trying to give off a “I’m thinking about limping along” vibe, and then raises to $26K. Will Negreanu think he’s bluffing? Probably not, but it does give him something to think about. So far, two big-timers playing their hands perfectly.

Negreanu just calls, and the pot grows to more than $63K. The river is, wait for it, the last 5. Hansen makes quads, and you couldn’t tell from his face whether he’d won the lottery or his mother just died. He’s exhibiting great control. My blood pressure probably would’ve flushed my face redder than a raspberry.

Hansen comes out with just $24K. As the commentators note, you know Negreanu is putting him on at least a set of fives, but nothing more, possibly not even a boat, and he’s trying to think how he can pull the most chips into the pot as possible. He just calls, another ploy that will horribly backfire on him and he doesn’t even know it yet. Gotta love this game.

Hansen know, showing patience and control like nothing I’ve ever witnessed on TV or in person, checks his quads. He lays the trap, and Negreanu comes right in with a $65K bet. Hansen goes all-in, and before Negreanu of absolutepoker.com even calls or folds, at $408K they’ve created the biggest pot in the history of high stakes poker.

Negreanu calls the $167K raise and quickly realizes he’s been beat. But as he is Daniel Negreanu, he takes it politely, and he shrugs his shoulders like only man who just lost $300K could.

Flush draws. They can drive a player crazy when facing off against someone else who’s on one. And there will be times when you think you’re getting beaten by nothing but flushes.

So how do you get somebody off a flush draw, what’s the best strategy? Lord knows, you can keep going on having your set or top two-pair crushed on the river by a lucky heart.

Well, one thing most internet poker players would try as the obvious method of attack is to trap the flush right away, bet small enough to keep them hunting but big enough to make it worth your while to stay in the game. This is a fine strategy, but I know many players will tell you during a bad run of beats, you feel like the trapped instead of the trapper.

Another, less profitable but usually more successful approach is to take ‘em out as soon as possible. If you see a flush draw right after the flop, bet big to get them out. I like this approach if you can stand behind your bet, but unfortunately in a world of less-than-knowledgeable poker players, you’ll find it a futile attempt to put them off their draw. Why? Because they don’t know the odds anyway, and getting them to fold their flush draw is one of the hardest things to do in the game. They think they’re sitting on a powerhouse and have a skewed view of the realities of their hand.

Ultimately, if that’s the case when you play poker online, you want to take advantage of their ignorance. (It’s either that or hope you’re betting high enough for them eventually to “get it” and fold.)

Bet small, keep them in the game. If you know you’re winning the percentages game the whole way through the hand, milk them out for what you can without investing yourself in the game too much in case they do catch their flush. Mathematically, you’ll take the pot more often than not, and hopefully teach these guys to do their homework instead of getting wide-eyed over the possibility of a upper-middle strength hand in the game. What this also will do is allow you to control the pot size while at the same time giving your opponent the illusion that their adding to the pot. If they’re calling, they must be certain they’re going to get the flush, so play off this to your advantage as much as possible.

Online poker has expanded a lot over the past decade and one thing they always seem to do is find new tournament structures to offer players. The competition is stiff in online poker so online poker rooms are always trying to look for new ways to draw in players and one of those ways has been through offering new and unique tournaments for players to try out.

Single Table Tournament

A single table tournament at download pokerstars.net is when nine or ten players compete on one table where generally the top three players will win money. This is the most commonly played tournament structure online.

Multi-Table Tournament

Multi-table tournaments range from 18 players all the way up to thousands of players. These tournaments take more time to play obviously, but the rewards are also a lot greater if you win.

Short Handed Tournaments

Short handed tournaments are when you play in a six player tournament where only the top two players will win money. These are quick to play and you can play a lot of them in one session of poker.

Heads-Up Tournaments

A heads-up tournament at www.PokerStars.net is when you play against only one opponent and the winner wins the prize pool. They are great for players who like playing a lot of hands and can adapt to opponent’s strategies.

Double-Up Tournaments

Double-up tournaments are typically ten player tournaments where five players double there money minus the fee for the event. It’s a slower method of building your bankroll, but you have the best chance at winning money in these tournaments.

Winner Takes All Tournaments

Winner takes all tournaments can range in the amount of players who participate, but the one thing that is common between all of these tournaments is that the winner wins the entire prize pool. You don’t need to be very consistent in these to make money, but if you can’t win any events then you’ll be in trouble.

Bounty Tournaments

Bounty tournaments have been popping up everywhere lately and they offer two unique tournament structures. The first type of bounty tournament is where 50% of the buy-in goes to the prize pool and the other 50% goes on the bounty of that player. The second type of tournament is where the entire 100% of the buy-in goes towards the bounty of the player. If you knock out an opponent in a bounty tournament then you get the bounty of that player instantly deposited into your account. This is an excellent way at making more money in every tournament you play, especially if you typically knock out a couple opponents every tournament you play in.

As you can see there are plenty of different tournament structures out there for online poker players. Every poker room isn’t going to offer you these options which are important to remember so you’ll need to be willing to try out a new poker room for some of the more unique structures. Most of the newer structures are very fun to play and you can make more money in them generally as well.

Texas Holdem cash games are being played everyday around the world and many people are leaving there jobs to play poker full-time. Not everyone is going to become a professional cash game poker player, but there is definitely a good chance you can make some money on the weekends in your spare time. Today we’re going to go through some Full Tilt Poker tips that you can use to help improve your game. Most of these tips are geared towards players who are just starting to play Texas Holdem, but it’s still a good read for anyone.

• One of the most important things you need to do when you’re playing poker is focus and stay concentrated on winning. If you’re distracted easily by things then you’re likely to make mistakes which you shouldn’t be making if you were focused.

• In cash games you need to be willing to steal the blinds from the table every once in awhile even if you don’t have a good hand. Since you need to pay blinds every time around the table you need to steal the blinds roughly once every five times around the table on a full table to break even on your blinds.

• When you finally get a good hand such as high pocket pairs or high suited connectors then you need to be careful about raising the pot to much and making everyone fold. Nothing is worse then only winning $3 in blinds when you have pocket aces so make sure you don’t overdo the raise pre-flop.

• When you have a good download full tilt poker hand which is most likely winning after the flop such as two pairs or high pair and good kicker then you need to throw out a bet to try and take the pot down. If you slow play these types of hands then you run into the problem where players will hit straights or flushes on the turn or river and outdraw your hand.

• You shouldn’t talk when you’re not playing the hand and never expose your cards or anything like that when you’re folding. There are about a dozen rules which players follow and having proper etiquette at the tables is important especially at cash games. You need to be able to win graciously and lose graciously when you’re a poker player.

• Don’t make a habit of bluffing your opponents too often because you’ll quickly become a target. Players notice when someone is stealing pots and things like this and you don’t want to have that label because it makes it much more likely that opponents will start calling your hands. Bluffing only pays off when you do it once or twice per session in big situations when it counts.

• If you are winning in live cash games then try to tip the dealer every couple pots because they rely on tips. You’ll notice that every other player will tip as well so if you’re playing a live cash game for the first time in the casino you want to make sure you tip the dealer.