If you start with a high number of players, or indeed any number of players bigger than two, the game will lose one of them at a time as they run out of chips until you are left with the final pairing - the heads-up.

Now heads-up poker is different from the rest of the tournament and requires a different mindset in order to be successful. Nowhere is the contrast more stark than in online Texas Holdem poker play and if you’ve never made it to the final of a Hold ‘em tournament you are in for a rollercoaster ride when you do!

The pace is extremely fast and furious with little or no time to think, you are relying mostly on your experience and quick thinking to pull you through. But the number one strategy you need to adopt when playing heads-up poker online is to be aggressive. It is a ruthless winner-takes-all situation and if you don’t show enough determination and aggression, your opponent almost certainly will and you will quickly wilt under the onslaught.

You need to call almost every hand, after all you’re paying for the blinds so if you don’t call it your opponent gets to keep the blinds for free. Remember also that when it gets to this stage, the blinds are at their highest so every hand is important to win. You can’t afford to let one go for free unless you feel you have absolutely no chance of winning the hand.

Of course a Holdem hand that you would probably fold in a ten player situation is often one that you can go all-in with at heads-up poker. Any Ace at all is certainly worth raising and re-raising, the chances are your opponent is adopting a similar strategy to you and he may be going in with a King or Queen along with a lower card.

Say for example you are dealt King-Eight. Now at a ten player poker tournament you would most probably fold this hand in early position, but call or possibly even raise in late position. In a heads-up situation you would be perfectly entitled to go all-in with a reasonable expectation of winning the hand if it got played out.

Vary your play and if you find yourself in front in chips, be even more aggressive! Don’t be afraid to put in a big raise with no hand, your opponent will most likely back down unless he has a big hand.

The bottom line is this for heads-up poker - attack or be attacked! www.flingcom

Why people play bingo is a question with many answers. Bingo to start with is probably the most socially acceptable of all methods of gambling. This probably stems from the fact that so many churches and charitable organizations have used bingo for fundraising for years, using the money they raised for good causes such as helping orphans or the homeless or widows. Bingo has had a positive influence on society in many countries for many years.

Add to that the excitement that comes from watching your numbers as they are being called, the rush of adrenaline and the pounding of blood in the heart. Bingo is, without doubt, an exciting game for the players. Playing bingo online as an option in the Internet age has given new life to this great old game. Now more people than ever are engaged in play online and finding it to be a great and truly rewarding way of spending time. And this can be quality time spent alone if a person doesn’t feel like communicating with fellow players, or it can be quality time engaged in chat, online conversation with other players in the game. And when not playing a game, being able to go to a forum on one of the online bingo community web sites allows a person to make friends with others who share the common interest in bingo. You’ll be able to spend hours in conversation over bingo if you wish, or can just take a few minutes to chat when taking a break from work.

When on these websites if you were to take a survey you’d find school teachers, students, executives, lawyers, doctors, housewives, athletes, almost any type of person you can think of and almost any occupation. The reason is simple: bingo is everyone’s game.

There are two variations of bingo game; the 75 ball bingo that is played mostly in US and the 90 ball bingo that is played mostly in the UK and parts of Australasia and Europe. When playing both forms of bingo you have to buy bingo cards or tickets that have pre-selected numbers on them. It is up to you to mark the numbers as they are called by the computer. Once you find that the called numbers match the numbers on your card, you win the bingo. If you manage to match all the numbers within the preset numbers that are displayed for each game, you win the jackpot. If there is more than one winner for the game, the prize or jackpot is shared amongst the winners.

In the 75 ball bingo game, altogether 75 numbers are called in five columns of 15 numbers each. Each of these five columns represents the five letters of bingo. These five letters of bingo are found at the top of the ticket. In the 75 ball game, the cards usually have 25 squares with five squares found across and five down. The card is full of numbers that have been randomly selected from 1 to 75. Each individual card has its own identifying code that is used for support purposes.

As in all bingo games, the objective of the game is to match the numbers called with the numbers on your card of ticket with the pattern for that game. These patterns are usually static wherein you have to shade the pattern on each card as the game proceeds. Sometimes, the patterns can also be animated so that bingo is achieved on any pattern that is used in the game. You can find over 6000 pattern combinations in the game of 75 ball bingo that vary from a simple 4 corners to a blackout pattern.

The person who first achieves the pattern gets the game prize in 75 ball bingo. Besides the pattern, each game also has a number called the balls to jackpot number. And if the winner gets the pattern within the number of balls stipulated in this number, the winner gets the jackpot which is usually a progressive prize.

In the game 90 ball bingo, the cards used for the game are called tickets and each of these tickets have three rows and nine columns. These tickets are sold in cards that have six tickets. And each of these cards has 90 numbers that are distributed in the six tickets. Of the nine squares found in each row, five of them have numbers that range from 1 to 90 while the others remain blank. Once a card is played, all the possible numbers from one to 90 are called and at each bingo call, a number is daubed.

Each game of 90 ball bingo has three winning patterns which provide three chances of winning; through a single, two or three horizontal lines. Three horizontal lines bring a full house and each of these winning patterns has separate prizes. Once the first line is won, the game continues till a player gets two lines and then three lines for the major prize. Players who achieve the Full House within the balls to jackpot number also get the jackpot prize.

The difference between the two is that the 90 ball bingo is not letter specified and has three winners in a single game. Another benefit with the 90 ball bingo is that you can choose to buy a single ticket or a strip of six tickets that have all the 90 numbers represented on it. So experts predict that the 90 ball game is the future of online bingo as it leads to bigger prizes. Each game gives away three prizes and the full prize lasts longer with more money to give a larger, final prize amount.

In a real-life game at a poker table there are many tells that you can use to try and read what cards your opponents have. Eye movements are probably the biggest giveaway of all, that’s why a lot of amateur and even professional poker players wear sunglasses at the table.
There are other signs peculiar to individual players, some may have a twitch or even sweat when they are in a spot. If you put a top class professional poker player at a table of amateurs, the pro player would be able to read the cards by the players’ tells, almost as if the cards were sitting face up.

Playing poker online however is a completely different matter - there is no way to see your opponents so the normal poker tells are lost.
However there are a few things you can watch for in the other players that might just give you a read on what they have.

1. Speed of response,  an amatuer mistake. This is the main tell you have on your opposition when playing poker online. In particular look for players who take a while to check, this is seen as a weak play and indicates that the player does not have a good hand.
You should beware of this in your own play - if you are going to check with a poor hand, don’t hesitate before you do.

2. Chatting. This is the other big online poker tell. If someone is constantly chatting at the table it shows weakness. These players normally come along and tell you why they folded or tell you their hand after they’ve mucked it, basically copying what they’ve seen the pros do on the TV. These players normally don’t do very well, there’s not a great deal of time when you’re playing poker online and if they are typing out chat then they aren’t concentrating on the game.

3. Maniacs. These are players who live on a do-or-die basis and often go all-in with almost every hand, especially in the early stages of a tournament. They are of course very easy to spot, and equally easy to stop. All you need to do is wait for a good hand and call their all-in, you will probably find yourself very strong favorite to knock the maniac out. If however the maniac is left unchecked to do his work, he can turn very dangerous as he will have built up a leading chip stack by being unopposed and can then sit back and play only good hands.

4. The Limper. This player is the opposite of the maniac. He will try and see every hand for free but will fold as soon as the betting starts - unless he has a really good hand. This is another very good tell you can use, just simply fold if the Limper starts to bet, unless of course you have a really good hand too.

These four online poker tells should stand you in good stead and you will now be able to sort out the wheat from the chaff among your opponents.

Rather than stick to his normal game plan, the player on tilt does things that he wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. He starts to make over-aggressive bets, stays in the betting for too long when he should be getting out and totally loses his discipline and self-control.

So how does it happen? Why does a poker player go on tilt?

The main reason, in fact the reason in the overwhelming amount of times a poker player goes on tilt, is that he has just suffered a bad loss when he had expected to win the hand, in other words a “bad beat”.

This causes a massive surge in emotion in the poker player which cannot be controlled by the average person. Emotions are far more powerful than our powers of reasoning and logic, they will always win the battle of thought processes.

In his mind the player sees all his patient poker stategy that he’s used to build up his chip stack being blown away in an instant, and the natural response is to try and recover the deficit just as quickly. The brain is trying to win back all that lost money as fast as possible resulting in the poker player playing hands he would not normally play and calling bets he would fold nine times out of ten.

Can “tilt” be avoided?

In a word yes. It requires discipline and the ability to stick to an emergency exit plan but it can be done. Some people, even poker professionals, mistakenly believe that tilt can be avoided by pausing for a few moments to collect your thoughts and “counting to ten”.

This simply won’t do it.

The only real way to avoid going on tilt is to get yourself away from the poker table altogether for a few hands. If you’re in a casino, stand up and walk away. Get a coffee or just take a walk. If you’re playing on the internet click on the “Sit Out” button and walk away from your computer for a while.

Most importantly, you need to do it immediately after you lose the big hand, as soon as the hand is over you get out of there. Don’t be tempted to just play the next one I case your luck changes, that’s a recipe for disaster.

How long do you take a break for? As long as it takes. You need to get yourself back into the right frame of mind and start playing your poker strategy again like you did before the bad beat. Get emotion out of the equation, it’s not anybody’s “fault”, it just happened. Switch back into logical mode and get on with the game.

The reason that poker professionals don’t go on tilt is that they are used to it. They have played so much poker that they know it’s inevitable there will be hands they thought they were winning only to suffer a bad loss. It’s part of the game and they just get on with it.

In the end good poker strategy will always beat emotion, calculation will win over instinct and experience will triumph against almost anything.

You will often hear the words “basic strategy” when you read about blackjack. This is an important term to take note of…and an important guide to follow. When you follow basic strategy, you follow where the hard science of mathematics points. Following basic strategy, the house edge can shrink to 0.5%. Reckless players will see the house edge notch up to somewhere between 3% to 5%. That means they are wasting the opportunities they have to win at
blackjack.

Keep in mind several things when considering blackjack odds and basic strategy. First, keep in mind the number of decks being used, as well as whether the dealer hits on a Soft-17. Basically, the fewer decks, the easier it is to tell which card might next come up. Also, dealers who stand on the Soft-17 are better for you.

Second, figure out the rules on doubling down. Do not play at a table where doubling down is not allowed. Double anytime the charts call for it. Find out whether you can double on a split, or whether you can surrender. You want to have these options, which help your payout odds.

Third, remember to keep a handle on your bankroll. If you win early, pocket most of your winnings. That way, you either walk out with big winnings, or have minimal losses. If you lose early, make it a hard-and-fast rule that you don¹t bet again when you get past your limit.

Generally, it is wise not to double bets when you are on a losing streak. This might not be conventionally sound, but it keeps you from doubling your bets to recover from your losses quickly. It is when you aren¹t thinking clearly that you can hurt yourself in a casino.

The blackjack mistake I’m most guilty of is sitting down and trying to play at a higher limit table than I have a bankroll for. It probably happens consistently all night long that players sit down and try to make $5 or $20 bets at a $100 minimum table. The dealers and other players get understandably frustrated when this happens. The solution to preventing this mistake? Just have a look at the little sign on each table stating the table limits, and make sure it’s the right stakes table before you sit down.

Another common mistake is throwing chips haphazardly into the betting circle. Your chips should always be in a single stack, so the dealer doesn’t have to get confused about whether or not you’ve doubled down. Related to this mistake is handling your bet after you’ve placed it. Dealers will snap at you over touching your bet, because they need to make sure you’re not adding chips to your bet when you have a good hand, or removing bets when you’ve got a bad hand.

Don’t touch the cards in a face up blackjack game. Cheaters will often try to mark the cards with a sharp fingernail, and the rule for not touching the cards prevents this. Be careful when handling the cards in a face down game too, because if you’re careless with the cards, you can expect correction from the dealer rather quickly.

Playing live blackjack is a lot of fun, but it’s a lot more fun when you avoid these common and sometimes embarassing rookie blackjack mistakes.

Most card counters keep track of the ratio of high cards, or 10’s, by counting them as a +1 or a -1, and then gives the opposite +1 or -1 to the low cards in the deck. Some systems use a balanced count where the number of low cards is the same as the number of 10’s.

But the most interesting card to me, mathematically, is the 5. There were card counting systems back in the day that involved doing nothing more than counting the number of fives that had left the deck, and when the 5’s were gone, the player had a big advantage and would raise his bets.

A good basic strategy player is getting a 99.5% payback percentage from the casino. Every 5 that’s come out of the deck adds 0.67% to the player’s expected return. (In a single deck game, anyway.) That means that, all other things being equal, having one 5 gone from the deck gives a player a small advantage over the house.

Having two or three 5’s gone from the deck will actually give the player a pretty significant edge over the casino, and this is when a card counter will usually raise his bet. The problem with counting 5’s and nothing else is that a deck low in 5’s happens pretty rarely, so gaining a big advantage and making a profit from that situation only comes on rare occasions.

Any card between 2 and 8 that comes out of the deck increases the player’s expectation. And all 9’s. 10’s, and aces increase the casino’s expectation. But 8’s and 9’s have very small effects on the outcome. (An 8 only adds 0.01% to the player’s expectation, so it’s generally not even counted. A 9 only has 0.15% affect in the other direction, so it’s not counted either.)

Understanding the effects the low and high cards have on your expected return on a bet is the first step in learning to count cards and play blackjack as a winner.