The Poker Blog

In recent weeks, Full Tilt Poker have introduced some new features.

First is the Knockout Bounty tournaments where a portion of each prize pool is designated as a bounty on each player in the event. The more players you knock out of a tournament, the more bounties you’ll win.

They have also made it easier to find Pros in the game. Once players login and open a tournament lobby highlighted in red, the pros that are currently in that tournament will now be sorted at the top of the list of players.

Players can also:

• Decide if they want to show full tables for ring games
• Choose to see the main lobby pop up when they close a table
• Decide between three animation settings based on their computer’s performance to optimize their playing experience

This brand new tournament rewards our most loyal players by giving you the chance to win $20,000 every single month.

The rules are simple:

• The tournament will run once a month on every 2nd Saturday of the month
• Anyone who has played at Purple Lounge at real money tables within the previous month will automatically have a seat
• The more often you play at Purple Lounge in the previous month, the deeper your starting stack
• The deeper your starting stack, the more chance you have of winning $$$$

How do I get a deeper stack?

• Play between 1 and 5 days and start with 2000 chips
• Play between 6 and 10 days and start with 4000 chips
• Play between 11 and 20 days and start with 7000 chips
• Play more than 20 days will start the tournament with the maximum 10,000 chips

The tournament will run every 2nd Saturday of the month – you can find it in the lobby under FREEROLLS.

Good Luck!

Stuff your face with cash.

Feast your eyes on something incredible this Thanksgiving. Absolute Poker is giving away $5,000 cash and to get in on the gravy, all you have to do is hit the tables.

To grab your seat in the Turkey Bowl, just play in at least 3,000 raked hands between November 1st and 27th. That’s all there is to it.

We’ll reserve your seat at our post-Thanksgiving table for our first annual Turkey Bowl poker tourney. On the line? A $5,000 prize pool.

The Absolute Poker Turkey Bowl takes place on December 1st at 14:00 ET. Players who qualify by playing in at least 3,000 raked hands will be notified by email. Registration opens at 20:00 ET on Friday, November 30th. The tournament is capped at 2,000 players so secure your seat early.

By Tony Guerrera

You’re playing no-limit Texas Hold’em you need good poker strategy. The board is KD 5D 2H, and you have AD TD. Your opponent bets $20 into a $40 pot, and you call. The turn is the 6D. Your opponent checks, you bet $30 into the $80 pot with your nut flush, and your opponent folds.

You weren’t paid off, but don’t sulk too much. You just got some valuable information: your opponent seems apt to lay down hands against suspected made draws. When drawing against him, you’ll need to reduce your implied odds estimates. Drawing won’t be very profitable against him (if at all), but a little creativity will allow you to make substantial profits from him…

Represent!

If your opponent associates a third diamond falling with you having a flush and is willing to lay down his hand to a bet, does it matter if you actually have a flush? Doyle Brunson said it best: “Poker is a game of people played with cards.”

Poker is about much more than your own hole cards. It’s about what hole cards you put your opponents on, and it’s about your knowledge of what your opponents think of you. If you know that an opponent will lay down strong hands to a suspected flush whenever you bet after the third to a suit falls, then you don’t actually need to have the flush. No matter what your hole cards are, you can play the hand as if you have a flush draw…even if you don’t!

Cards that look to hit you hand (regardless of whether they actually do) are referred to as Phantom Outs (I don’t know the first person to have used this term, but I have a strong inkling that it’s my boy, John Vorhaus). Phantom out bluffs are an important part of any advanced player’s arsenal.

Wield Wisely, And Know When To Defend

After learning about advanced maneuvers such as phantom out bluffs, it’s enticing to try them in a wide situations…even those in which they won’t be profitable. The key to using phantom out bluffs profitably is to use them against opponents who are willing to fold. Those who respect aggression on the turn and the river are your primary targets.

Because phantom out bluffs can be highly lucrative, it’s important to know which of your opponents are capable of such trickery themselves. When holding hands like top-pair-top-kicker against tricky opponents capable of phantom out bluffs, adopt passive lines of play and allow your opponents to bluff themselves into oblivion.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com