Poker Kiwi

In terms of first time deposits, www.pokerheaven.com offers it’s players a 200% bonus which is amongst the best offers you will find on any poker room around. There is a very good loyalty points system in place too with merchandise available for purchase, as well as seats in specific tournaments onsite.

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The game variety onsite is more than enough for most players I feel, with Texas Holdem, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, and Five Card Draw all being on offer. There is even a news section on the homepage which keeps players up to date with all the latest news both at pokerheaven.com, and in the poker world as a whole.
There is a Sit n Go league ongoing here also, with large scale gauranteed tournaments for those with deeper pockets, or those with the skill to win a seat through satellites.

Refer a friend bonuses stand at 50 Euros for each friend at Poker heaven, which is quite a nice bonus for those who know fellow poker players wishing to find an online site.
In terms of help and support there are several options available, but the live chat option is in my opinion the best of these. Jackpot Sit n Go’s give the opporunity for the best players onsite to scoop themselves a very big payday, and for the most part, I struggle to find fault with Pokerheaven. In terms of graphics, the site looks good, and transaction security is excellent. Overall, I think this poker room has all the makings of a great place to play online poker.

bluesquarepoker.co.uk - Yesterday was an extremely happy day for me, the reason being that after 12 weeks or so of going along to my local three table MTT game, I am pleased to say that I have finally won it. For a while now I have been beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with my short handed play because I’d had 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th places, but hadn’t broken into the top two yet. All that changed last night after a successful past week for me in general actually.

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Despite not being particularly high on the leaderboard for our local league, I started out playing well in the final big game. During the middle phase after I had moved tables, things began to change, but I soon decided if I was going to make the money I had to just get stuck in with some hands and gamble a little. Luckily this paid off and I eventually finished 4th place for £130.

The money wasn’t the main point though, most importantly, I’d really played a great game at the final table and felt very much on form coming into last nights game. Despite finding myself short stacked with seven players to go, I refused to allow myself to get so low that I wouldn’t have a chance of winning, and after picking up some blinds with (3,3) on two occasions, I soon doubled up with (K,K). I kept the momentum going to get to the final three, and was lucky enough to find another (K,K) when the small stack shoved preflop wth (A,Q).

It was all over the very next hand when I called an all in raise preflop with (Qd,Jd) against (Qs,10s). Needless to say I have got my confidence back now, and will go along to Saturday nights game with high hopes.

www.pkr.com - There are some players who will quote this hand as being the hand that has lost them the most money, and the reason for this is that the hand is strong enough to make you not want to put it down preflop, but vulnerable enough to get you into big trouble.

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If the you raise the pot preflop, and the flop comes with an overcard, which is quite possible, it becomes difficult to know where you stand. I would of course advocate a tester bet to get a feel for the relative strength of your hand, but if you are flat called, you have a similar predicament on the turn. Generally speaking, a strong raise preflop with (J,J) should give you an idea of where you are. Personally, I raise big preflop, and if I am called, then I will bet out heavily on a flop with no overcards to my Jack. If there is an overcard, I will bet smaller, and if I am reraised, fold the hand. If someone pushes all in after my strong raise before the flop, then this creates a dilemma.

Factor in the type of player your opponent is, how many chips they have left, and trust your judgement. Generally though, I will fold if someone pushes all in over the top of my strong bet preflop. The reason is, most players would not move all in over the top with a weaker hand than (J,J), and at best you are probably racing against two overcards. If you are happy to gamble your remaining chips on a probable coin flip because you are short stacked, then fair enough, but for the most part, I like to get my chips in with at least 60% to win the pot, when at all possible.

www.pokerheaven.com - I think the first thing I should mention about pokerheaven.com is the excellent promotinal first time deposit bonus of 200%. Well above the industry average, this bonus is available up to an amount of 1,000 Euros.

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Another exciting prospect at the moment is a 1 million Euro guaranteed tournament scheduled for December. Satellites are already running to give a possible path to this tournament for those who do not wish to pay the full buy in.

For those who cannot wait that long, there is a 250,000 Euro guaranteed coming up on November 2nd, which has the possibility of a seat being won for free.

The promotional tournaments do not end there either, with a ‘freeroll series’ currently running whereby seats can be won for free, to the final freeroll with a 100,000 Euro prize pool.

Other promotional offers include the Jackpot SitnGo’s which pay out at 10,000 Euros if you can win 6 in a row.
Refer a friend bonuses are also in operation here, with a bonus payment of 50 Euros for each friend you invite.

Promotions at www.pokerheaven.com seem very much based around special tournaments I feel, and this is exciting for those who play lots of tournaments, including myself. I would however, like to see some more varied types of promotional offers and ideas in the future though, despite the current ones being to my particular taste.

www.pokerheaven.com - Accumulating a nice amount of chips and giving yourself the comfort that comes with it, is no easy task. When you reach this position, it is sometimes difficult to know when to push on and use your stack to your advantage, and when to sit back and take stock of your position for a while.

Personally I like to gather my thoughts for a little while after winning a good pot, as it alway hurts having to give back chips after a rash decision, when you have won them only moments before.

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You cannot be too rigid in this of course, and as ever, you must play your strong hands when you are dealt them. If you are not finding any hands for a short while after, you might feel like getting involved with something more marginal to keep the momentum going, but timing is very important in these situations.
On the one hand, your opponents might not wish to get involved in a big pot with a player who seems to be finding good cards and stacking up chips.

You can use this for leverage of course, provided that you are careful. On the other hand, if you walk straight into an opponent with a hand, you will always be left wondering why you didn’t tighten up your play when you had a big stack of chips.

It’s about finding the balance and not letting your excitement go to your head.
My feeling is that applying pressure is good, but you must still be ready to let a hand go. Because if your oponent is willing to call a reasonable bet on the flop in Holdem, against a big stack who has been playing aggressively, you must feel that they are likely to expect, and call, a continuation bet on the turn.

The bottom line is that you should use your chips to your advantage, but do not go overboard and end up losing that same concentration and reading that got you those chips in the first place.

www.pkr.com - Personally, I think that the experience of playing at this particular site can never be anything but joyous, as there has been so much work put into making it so. There is one type of tournament which does stand out for me though. Bounty tournaments have been around on most sites for a while now, but the way in which they are played has evolved somewhat too. www.pkr.com has it’s own variety of such tournaments, known as ‘Terminator’ tournaments.

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Each player that starts the tournament will begin with a bounty on their head, and this will subsequently grow with each player that player eliminates. The prize on the opponents head will be partly awarded to the eliminating players prize money, with the rest being added to the bounty on his head. In this way, you will find that some players are more likely to call a player with a big bounty than a small one. This opens the door for skilled players to use their bounty status to their advantage.

I have had some good results with this type of tournament, and I like the way that your good play can be rewarded with cash for each player you take out, and it doesn’t matter quite so much if you are the victim of a bad beat and knocked out early, because your previous good play has already been rewarded to an extent.
This is not the only type of enjoyable game at pkr.com however, there are many cash games, gauranteed tournaments, satellites and freerolls. All of which keep the players coming back to the tables, but for the most part, the best games at any site, will be down to personal preference.

The way poker is understood by the masses is something which has been changing in recent years, as the game spent much of it’s early days being frowned upon and considered immoral. The reasonings behind this were partly due to the notoriety the game developed as being a game for cheaters and gambling addicts. It was not just poker that fell into this category I might add, but gambling as a whole.

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In the earlier days of poker when it was played on the Mississippi riverboats, we can imagine that it may well have been rife with cheating, and this is documented as having been the case. Despite this, the game began to flourish in the past twenty years, at an unprecedented rate, and this for me, shows the beauty and allure of the game itself.

Even though films and people unfamiliar with the game portrayed it in a bad light, still it grew. With the game beginning to become more widely televised in the earlier part of this decade, it has broken free from it’s prison of prejudgment. With the average person who may have been curious about the game beforehand, seeing it played, enjoyed, and kept free of cheating in designated tournament venues, the surge in players was never likely to abate thereafter, I feel.

As we can see from the fact that poker has spread around the world like wildfire in the past few years, you can never keep such a great game down forever. In it’s beginnings, all the game really needed was fairness and guidance as opposed to ill sentiment in the eyes of the people. But no matter how dark a picture was painted of poker (justifiably or not), the simple, exquisite beauty of what the game is all about, could not be forever constrained.

coral pocker - Many poker rooms which are branches of larger betting companies are the type which are extremely reliable in terms of transactions, and Coral is a site which certainly seems to fall into this category. They have a monthly reload bonus of $100, and a first time deposit bonus which is calculated by how much money you wager on their site in the first 30-45 days. If you are wagering lots of money it is possible that you could trigger a bonus of up to $600.

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Although this sounds good, I personally prefer instant bonuses at set amounts, which do not favour the big money players over those with smaller bankrolls.

Also on offer at www.coralpocker.com is a $750,000 gauranteed tournament each month to give their players a chance at an excellent prize. Help and Support onsite are of a very high standard with help being available to player round the clock on any given day.

In terms of graphics, I would say that the site is decent enough and functional, although isn’t anything really special, not that this matters too much. Player traffic is at a good level here as you would expect from a poker room run by a betting company, and all in all I think the site is a good one. I think coralpocker.com could better themselves with a greater variety of promotions, but for the most part, they are a good site to play poker on.

www.pkr.com - If my latest tournament showed me anything, it is that even when you are dangerously low on chips, you should never give up, and that there is always a chance while you remain in a tournament. With the blinds at 200/400 in my Wednesday night live tournament, I had slipped right back to 1,400 chips and was looking like being one of the first few players out. After biding my time as long as I could, I found pocket kings with the big blind about to go through me on the following hand.

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The hand stood up to triple my stack, and after getting creative with a (Q,9) suited, in the small blind a few hands later, I was lucky to double up against a (K,J) who decided to call, after I hit the queen and nine on the flop. I should have perhaps heeded this as a warning.

After only an hour and a halfs play, I had managed to expand my 1,400 chips into a comfortable stack of 28,500, and was looking good for a top three finish with five players left.

Unfortunately however, a lapse in concentration saw me slide back to 20,000, and as a foolish reflex reaction, I pushed all in from the button to try and pick up the blinds with (J,10) suited. This is a prime example of how sitting back and composing yourself after taking a hit can be important. I didn’t have to attempt this dangerous move, and although hindsight knows everything, it was poor play with two players behind me to act. I can certainly say I was unfortunate to see the big blind wake up with pocket aces, but I freely admit that I brought it on myself.

So the lesson to be learned is that, if you manage to come back from being down to a few chips, try to disengage yourself from the mindset of making dangerous plays to pick up chips, once you have got a comfortable stack. More importantly, I feel you should always sit back and reassess your position for a few hands, after you have taken a hit.

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There are several promising things that immediately strike me about Coral Poker, I like the way that the company has sought to offer a good variety of games, with 5 Card Draw, Omaha, Holdem, and Stud games available. As well as this, coral pocker offer the option to play an instant version of their games, or to download the software from the site in it’s entirety.

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www.coralpocker.com as a company, are a large betting company with many different branches of their operations, and as such, aspects such as transaction security, and customer support are of the highest quality. Support is available in multi languages twenty four hours a day seven days a week. This is certainly another of Coral Pokers strong points I feel. Loyalty bonuses, and good first time deposit offers also help Coral to be the high quality poker room that it is, but on a personal level, I feel the graphics and avatars are dated, and they should look to upgrade this soon.

Overall however, I am a fan of coralpocker.com and the effort they have put into creating their poker room and making it of a very good standard. There are numerous gauranteed tournaments, freerolls and other tournaments on the schedules at Coral, and I feel that if they continue to provide an excellent service, their following should grow.

I have no doubt that their top standard customer support, game variety, and other qualities will aid them in this regard, and their only real flaw that I can see, is one shared by many sites. The fact that technology is available to create a far more enjoyable interactive experience for players, but very few sites offer this type of game.