Don't Treat Your Bankroll like a Poker Tournament Buy-in

Typical poker tournaments continue until one player has all the poker chips and everyone else goes broke. But if the stakes just stayed the same, a tournament might last many years. It would be very hard to eliminate poker players. So, in tournaments, the stakes keep getting larger and larger periodically, until all but one player is gone.

But you know what? If you only have a small bankroll, you can make your own tournament any day. Buy into a small poker game and keep moving to a bigger limit every hour until you either go broke or win at the $5000/$10,000 limit or larger. You see what I am getting at, right? You are almost certain to go broke, but you might get extremely lucky and increase your bankroll hundreds of times. Most likely, you are going to end up miserable.

You did be surprised how many otherwise skillful poker players fail at poker, simply because they treat their bankrolls like poker tournament buy-ins. Sure, they don't do it all in one day, as in the exaggerated example I provided. But they keep promoting themselves to higher and higher levels that the size of their bankrolls can't justify. Almost all of them go broke, despite their poker skills. Please don't do that.

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Which Poker game do you prefer Speed Hold‘em or Texas Hold‘em?

Speed Hold‘em is a kind of variant of Texas Hold‘em, whose difference lies in whether betting time is limited or not. Which one do you prefer Speed Hold‘em and Texas Hold‘em?

Speed Holdem is actually a very fast poker game as compared to Texas holdem. But there are few advantages too. You don’t have to wait for long time for the other player to respond. Plus! When players are asked to play poker quickly, the weak poker players will make mistakes. Poker is like a society if you don`t trust, it don`t even think about staying in it.

Many sites offer Speed Hold’em as a flash game which you can play for around 5 – 10 mins. However the poker game I am talking about is actually same like the Texas Holdem. This Speed Hold'em game you can actually play on one of the sites called www.enteratlantis.com. The game can be played with as little as two players ("heads up"), up to a max of five players. There is a ten-second clock to speed up the action. Regular poker hand rankings apply to this game.

Here is how you play the poker game online. Preflop! Starting with the dealer button, each person is dealt two poker cards face down (the hole cards). After everyone receives their hole cards, then betting round occurs. Flop! The dealer turns over three cards in the middle of the poker table. These are community cards that each player can use to create the best poker hand possible out of. Once again there is a betting round starting from the first poker player after the "button" clockwise.

Turn! The dealer turns over another card making four community cards. This fourth poker card is called "the turn". Betting round occurs again. River! The dealer turns over the fifth community card. This is called "the river". Betting round occurs for the last time. Showdown! The remaining players in the poker hand show their cards in order from the person who bet first. Each player uses his two cards, and the five community cards to create the best poker hand (five cards total out of the seven). When all five of the cards in the community make the best hand then everyone splits the pot.

Also note that in any time during the poker game a player can fold and get out of the hand. All bets will be lost at that point. So guys, what you say with this new form of poker game introduced by enteratlantis. I think you should visit it and check out for yourself.

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Play Badugi & check out the Badugi Poker Hand Rankings

Badugi is a new online poker craze. This form poker game originated in Korea and is now rapidly becoming popular in North America. As I discussed in my earlier articles, the game is a triple draw, four card low-hand wins poker game. The best low hand is comprised of four cards, with none of the same suit, and none of the same rank: i.e. ace, two, three, four all of different suits is the best possible poker hand. When you find yourself holding 4 cards of different rank and suit then you are holding a Badugi!

In the game of Badugi, each player gets 4 cards in a clockwise direction starting from the player on the Small Blind. The cards are dealt to each player one card at a time. When everyone has their 4 cards the action begins with the player to the left of the Big Blind and continues around the poker table in a clockwise direction. Badugi can be played as Limit, Pot Limit or even a Half Pot Limit game. Whatever level of action mixed with skill that suits you there is a Badugi game for you.

After the final betting, remaining badugi players will show their poker hand to see who won. The winning badugi player will scoop the pot. The showdown rules follow that of Texas Hold'em, the poker player whose last bet is called, if there is one, shows cards first. If there is no last aggressor, showdown begins from the first participant holding cards, clockwise from the dealer button. As poker hands are shown, players with losing hands may muck or show, similar to Texas Hold'em options.

Here are some top 20 poker hands in Badugi. All badugi hands are to be considered "rainbow" hands.

1. 432A
2. 532A
3. 542A
4. 543A
5. 5432
6. 632A
7. 642A
8. 643A
9. 6432
10. 652A
11. 653A
12. 6532
13. 654A
14. 6542
15. 6543
16. 732A
17. 742A
18. 743A
19. 7432
20. 752A

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What you already have invested in the poker pot... doesn't matter

In order to be successful at poker, you must understand this. Always while playing online poker, make your decision about weather to call, fold, check or raise in accordance with how much money is in the pot, weighed against what it will cost you to wager. That decision should be the same whether the poker pot is provided as a promotion by the casino or you somehow put the entire sum in yourself.

Once you put money in the poker pot, it's up for grabs and is no longer yours, any more than it is anyone else's. For that reason, you should never consider how much you personally have invested in a pot in evaluating a poker decision. The same concept governs your everyday life. Let's suppose you fancy yourself a world-renowned collector of antique radiator caps, as many of us dreamed of being when we were kids. Two years ago you were able to acquire a radiator cap signed by Edward Jones, a respected local automobile mechanic for $300,000. Two years later, an appriasal places the true value at a disappointing $75000.

Then a fellow collector offers you $150,000. Okay, now you have a choice. You can say, "Don't be ridiculous! I already have $300,000 invested in this radiator cap". Or you can correctly reason: What I personally have invested doesn't matter. The only thing I should consider is whether the $150,000 is a good price for my radiator cap. If you opt for the second choice and pocket the $150,000, you have learned a key secreat in life and poker. What you personally have invested never matters.

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Tips while playing Internet Poker

"IN THE BEGINNING..... everything was even money."

I know what you are thinking. That's a strange way to begin a chapter targeted to readers who seek to play poker seriously. I read your mind, right? Get used to it. You are looking at my most famous quote, so let me explain why it is an important starting point.

The main skill that successful people possess is the ability to closely estimate their chances in life. The main skill that winning poker players possess is the ability to closely estimate their chances of winning a poker hand or making a profit in a poker game. How do you closely estimate your chances? It's a matter of observing what goes on around you and determining how likely events are to affect you. Easier said than done, right? Right! And you will never get anywhere near perfect when it comes to estimating your chances. But the closer you come, the more likely you are to conquer opponents at life and at poker.

But here's what you need to understand. If you don't know how to estimate chances or you don't have any information at all about a situation, then that event appears to be an even money situation. Experience tells us that some things are not even money. If you leap from a twenty-story building, you probably won't land safely. But, wait! You might land safely. You might have your fall broken by a giant pile of feather pillows. Of course, you and I know it's not an even-money proposition that this will happen. We know that leap probably isn't going to end pretty.

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Points to Remember while playing poker game

1. Never compliment weak opponents for good plays. It makes them proud and motivates them to play better poker.

2. Never discuss poker strategy around weak opponents. It makes them aware there is strategy worth discussing!

3. Players who just sat down or just got even…. are easier to bluff and less likely to play weak poker hands.

4. Players complaining about their bad luck seldom bluff. So, seldom call.

5. Opponents find it inspirational…. when you complain about your bad beats.

6. Your opponents have a “calling reflex”…. and they’ll call anything that moves in a poker game!

7. Players staring away…. are almost always more dangerous than players staring at you!

8. A suddenly shaking hand….. almost never indicates a bluff!

9. A player who isn’t breathing…. is probably bluffing!

10. Listen carefully when an opponent says the word “bet”. If it sounds sad or reluctant, you’re facing a strong poker hand.

11. Fumbled poker bets…. usually mean weakness, when the fumble is corrected and usually mean strength otherwise.

12. Don’t watch the flop…… watch your opponents watch the flop.

13. Opponents are more likely to fold if they are: looking at poker chips, reaching toward chips, staring at poker cards or conspicuously staring at you.

14. Opponents are more likely to bet or raise if they are: ignoring chips, ignoring cards, staring away or especially quiet or still.

15. A tell is just another factor to consider….and it needs to be weighed along with all other factors.

16. When you intend to call reluctantly….. don’t discourage the bet.

17. How to make any poker bully beg for mercy : call more often, raise less often, seldom value bet.

18. On the final betting round, you need a much stronger poker hand to overcall…. than to call.

19. When a frequent bluffer checks to you….. don’t bluff.

20. When deceptive players check to you….. bet less often.

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High Percentage of Real-World Poker Tournament Players who Qualified playing Online

Yes, I was skeptical of the value of online poker a few years ago. So were many of the people who managed real-world poker card rooms. They were afraid that online poker would siphon off their business more than it would help bring in new players to their physical cardrooms.

That argument has been resolved. Today, it's hard to find anyone in the industry who doesn't realize that online poker games have helped in the resurgence of real-world poker. I meet players everyday at the Commerce, Casinos and elsewhere who began by playing poker online. And the one thing that proves the point most convincingly is the number of players at the major tournaments who qualified online. For some, these real-world poker tournaments constitute their first exposure to casino poker. They like the adventure of playing against live opponents they actually can shake hands with and speak to at the tables. And they enjoy trying to read them and spot tells - something that isn't possible online.

Count the new players pouring into casino poker tournaments through online channels and you will be as convinced as I am that online poker has helped greatly to bring our game into the public spotlight, giving it the respect it always deserved, but never had.

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What Adjustments will you need to make in Online Poker Game

Finally, I will give you some basic advice about how to win online poker. Almost everything in these articles applies. Online poker is real poker. Keep in mind how I advise playing against bad players, because you can just assume most of the players you will confront in online poker are bad. Or at the very least, you will find yourself up against more unsophisticated and too-loose players than you will in real-world casinos.

The trick to beating games against that type of player is to seldom do anything fancy. You don't need to. Most of your profit will come from choosing to do the obviously correct thing. Raise when your logical first choice is raising. Fold when your poker hands are weak. Bluff sparingly in limit games. Against the type of player you meet poker online, you should try a lot less tricks than you would in the real world poker.

Use all the professional techniques you have learned from the articles, but keep it simple whenever possible. That's the purest path to online poker profit.

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Reason#10 : Small-Limit Poker Games That Are Un-Economical in the Real World Poker

In my mind, this is online poker's greatest contribution to our poker game. Most professionals don't think of $2 and $4 poker games as meaningful limits. But when you are just starting out and on a small bankroll, even the difference between a $50 win and a $50 loss can be important. Those small limits can be uncomfortable for players just learning the poker game.

I will bet it's occurred to everyone who plays poker seriously that it would be a great idea to have formal games for beginners where you could bet just 10 cents. Those would be the training ground for those neophytes who are too timid to risk meaningful money at poker. You did let new players get comfortable with the game, players who would otherwise never experience the thrill of poker in a casino.

As I pointed out earlier, real-world casinos can't afford to do this, because of the costs involved in providing physical poker tables and paying human dealers. But online poker rooms can and do make this great contribution to our poker game.

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Reason#8: The Shuffle and Rakes in online poker game

Some players doubt whether the shuffle in online poker is as random as in real-world games. In fact, online shuffles are instant and more random than real-world shuffles. That's because any competent online poker room knows the right formulas to put into the software. They tell me that the science of simulating random events, including poker card distribution, is very mature.

I guess that means that a lot of research has gone into it and it's impossible for a human dealer to even come close in dealing poker cards with the same efficiency or unpredictability. Another impressive thing about computerized shuffling and dealing is that you won't have any misdeals. And you will never encounter one of the common irritations of real-world poker, because no cards will be inadvertently flashed.

Reason#9 can be about rakes which are actually less in poker online. At the higher limits I play, pots are seldom raked. Instead there's an hourly seat rental. But most everyday limits, $10/$20 and often higher, are raked. If you are looking for a bargain, you will find that those rakes are a little less in online poker.

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Reason#7 : Play Two or More Poker Games at Once

You see some pretty weird things at poker. I have been seen players hold seats at adjoining tables and scurry back and forth, trying to play both games for short periods of times. This usually happens when the player has free poker hands remaining before the blind at one game and has been called to a seat from the waiting list for another poker game.

Needless to say, playing two games at once in the real world does not work well. It’s physically impractical and you are almost certain to rudely delay the play of a hand at one poker table, while completing action at another. But online poker, it’s much simpler. You just click to enter a second, third or even more games. When it’s your turn to act, the software notifies you and you simply click on your decision to fold, call, check or raise. Since you don’t have to get out of your seat and physically move to the other poker table, multiple game play becomes practical in internt poker games.

Does this mean more profit for you? It can-if you are good enough. Try to remember, though, that you won’t be able to focus as closely as you would on a single game. You will miss some of the nuances and won’t be able to track your opponent’s tendencies as readily. That means your average earnings per poker game are sure to suffer when you play more than one. But when you add those slightly diminished profits from multiple games together, you will probably find that you will earn more total profit. Whether you do depends on your skills.

I recommend that you stick to just one game at first, because it can be quite hectic concentrating on two or more at once. But as you get accustomed to playing multiple games, you might find it exciting and rewarding. Certainly, there is no equivalent in real-world poker.

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More poker hands per hour while playing internet poker game

Reason#5 for why online poker is better, here you go. When online poker first debuted in the late nineties, poker rooms actually built in a delay to simulate the time it took to deal cards in the real world. Boy, was that a mistake.

It quickly became apparent that players didn’t want the delays. The faster their cards arrived, happier they were. That’s why most of the online poker rooms have taken all the air out of dealing and shuffling. There is no delay. You can play many more poker hands per hour online, about twice as many as you would play in the real world. That means you can make more money faster. Each poker hand you play is worth money when you are playing the way I advise in my articles, twice the hands can mean up to twice the profit.

No need to Dress up or groom, you can count this as the reason #6. The truth is, though, if it weren’t for how others might view me, I’d rather not bother about how I look when I play poker. And online poker gives me the opportunity to dress however I like. As many have noted, you can play poker online in your pajamas and no one will care. Now that’s definitely a bonus you get only when playing poker by computer.

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Internet poker – You can have a quick five minute break between the poker hands

Reason#3: Take a Quick Five-Minute Break while playing online poker. Often you only have a half-hour or less to spare, sometimes as little as five minutes. If you had the urge to play poker prior to online play, there wasn’t anything you could do about it. There certainly wouldn’t be time to sit down and be dealt in. Now that’s all changed.

Sometimes, I will log into a poker game when I have just a few minutes to spare. I might only play half a dozen poker hands at $100/$200 limit, but so what? Usually, I would not play that small, because for me it’s not worth the effort. But those are hefty limits by online poker standards, where the majority of people play $15/$30 limits and often much smaller. So, I play those few hands, and I can do the same thing again on my next break. Those poker hands all add up and so does the profit.

Reason#4 : Great practice for those new to poker. I am sure one of the reasons that players didn’t flock to the poker rooms in years past is that they just didn’t know what to expect when they got there. That can be intimidating, stepping into a real world game for the first time and not knowing how you will be accepted by the other players. And for beginners the anonymity of online play gives timid people the courage to dive into the poker pond, whereas, if it were a face-to-face game, they did just never go near the water.

I believe many players will learn to excel at poker who might otherwise never have played the game. It’s all because of the online poker opportunity.

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Online Poker ~ The World’s common language in Gaming Industry

The Internet has made the world so much smaller. It might not look like it now, with all the political flare-ups and regional wars in the news. But I believe that encountering people from far away places and striking up instant friendships is bound to make the world more civic eventually.

Reason#2- Internet poker is all about playing against opponents you did seldom or never meet in person. You read about Internet romances that lead to marriage. Business associations are formed that would have been physically improbable. It’s a good thing. And one of the best effects of the Internet is what’s happening to poker. Bit by bit, poker game is becoming the world’s common language of gaming. In a real sense, online poker is doing it’s part to make the world better, as well as helping to showcase the game.

I feel a main virtue of internet poker is that it makes games possible among eager players who live so far apart that they did seldom have a chance to sit down together at a real-world poker table.

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Reasons why Online Poker is Better

There are great number of ways in which online poker actually exceeds. Each player has his own favorite reasons why he thinks online poker is in some way superior to real-world poker. In the next few articles coming up, I will write my own reasons, so Stay tuned….!!!

Reason#1- It’s always a Game. Online poker makes mockery out of how people went about finding good poker games when they traveled the poker circuit throughout Texas and the South in the 1960s and early 1970s. For example, sometimes you did drive all day only to find that the lucrative oil well you were hoping to drill had just dried up an hour before you got there. Then you had to swallow the disappointment and plan your next move in accordance with how much it would cost to travel. Was the game you did heard about, far down the road, worth the hassle and the expense?

Then came casino poker. That helped, because there was often a choice of games in town. But many nights there was only one poker game of interest and some nights there weren’t any. So, imagine how you feel, having expended most of your effort finding the right games, rather than enjoying them or being able to sit down at your computer on a sleepless night and find the best poker game in the world after a few mouse clicks.

What’s even greater is that Online Poker never sleeps. It’s always prime time for poker somewhere in the world and you can join those games, even if nobody else is awake in your neighborhood.

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Difference between Online Poker & Real-world Poker

When you play real-world poker games, you have to travel from one casino to another to find the right games. When you play poker online, however, you are instantly within reach of any poker table. A few clicks of your mouse and you are at another poker table, maybe at the same online casino, maybe at another.

Just how many poker tables are we talking about? You will often find over 7,000 real-money online poker tables going on at the same time, some tournament tables, some regular ring games. Most days there will be over 50,000 real-money players that you can choose to play against in minutes, without leaving your home. And then there are the free poker games to practice and I did hesitate to count how many players and tables there are of those. Between the sudden surge of televised poker and online poker, more new players have been exposed to this poker game than ever before in history. And it helps everyone. The real-world casinos are flooded with new players. Did you ever think poker would get this hot? I didn’t. It’s a fantasy come true.

I believe many potential players, who otherwise would feel too embarrassed to walk through the front doors of a public casino to play poker against more-experienced opponents will find that courage now that they can play their first hands on the Internet Poker. So let’s see how poker is played online.

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Online Poker – A Tornado

Yes you guess right, this is one of the continuations of my earlier articles. So, unexpected and out of nowhere, online poker blew onto the scene. It was like a tornado sweeping down the Texas Panhandle. You could now put poker into two main categories: online poker and real-world poker.

Notice that I am saying “real-world” poker, not “real” poker. That’s because online poker is real poker. It is certainly real for the hundreds of thousands of new players around the world who are playing for real money! In fact, what is there about internet poker that makes it unreal? Not much, and that’s why I think most of us have started differentiating poker by just these two terms; online poker and real-world poker. And real-world poker, the kind you sit down and play with physical cards at a real table against opponents you can reach across the table and shake hands with, can itself be divided into subcategories. For instance, we could talk about home poker and casino poker. Each offers a slightly different flavor. That’s the same with basketball, you know. There is basketball played outdoors on concrete slabs, high school basketball, college basketball, NBA basketball and international basketball that you saw in the Olympics. But it’s all basketball.

And I am here to tell you that online or real world, poker is poker. It’s all poker. There’s hardly any advice on these pages that won’t help you become a much better online player simply because it will help you to become a much better poker player, period.

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A preface to Online Poker

Technology surrounds us. Things change. And the swiftness of change today is unparalleled in history. Nothing make poker players more aware of this change than the advent of online poker. Computers changed everything – from productivity, to research, to games. Poker too.

You see, along came the Internet and suddenly you could find almost any answer in seconds, be anywhere in the world, instantly – not physically, of course, but we learned we didn’t need to be physically present to be there. And so we could play poker without being physically present. We could be at the table. Instantly. I remember the first time I played poker online was in 1999. I think it was a tiny $3 limit game, and I was used to watch my father playing $2000 limit and higher games where you could win or lose upwards of $1 million without leaving your seat. I was curious because Mike Caro had endorsed an online poker site, and it was a kind of strange, considering he had previously written a column warning of the pitfalls of online play
.

When I was playing the internet poker on the screen with opponents seated inches away, but knowing they weren’t actually inches away. They were in England and Germany and Hong Kong. Everywhere. I was playing poker in a game that could never have been possible before.

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Final edition of the History of Texas Hold’em Poker Game

The excitement generated by new poker rooms on the Strip and the World Series of Poker fueled Texas Hold’em’s meteoric rise in nationwide popularity. These prosperous days lasted until about the middle eighties. By that time, satellites had become so popular that they were running twenty-four hours a day and were occupying more and more of the limited floor space in the Horseshoe.

Today, the game of no-limit Texas hold’em that we introduced to Nevada so many years ago has been transformed, thanks to its entertainment value, to television audiences. Ever increasing participation in major freeze-out tournaments (more than 2,500 players in the 2004 World Series of Poker) have forced tournament hosts to impose rapidly increasing ante and blind structures in order to keep the tournament times manageable. With certain notable exceptions, the game of no-limit Texas hold’em is a game designed to be played after the flop. That’s when the real play is supposed to begin. However, many hands seen at televised events today are played before the flop, when the players have received only their holecards. This style of play, sometimes referred to as “catch an ace and take a race,” re-introduces a substantial amount of luck into a poker game that had always favored the best player over the best card catcher.

And for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of players now active on the online poker sites around the world, surely the time has come. Looking into the future, it’s not hard to imagine the creation of a professional poker league, with several teams selected by some sort of draft. In fact, just such a league is in an early investigative stage today. The creation of new opportunities to exploit the poker phenomenon is limited only by the imagination.

So now you know the history of no-limit Texas hold’em – the story of a small band of Texas gamblers who changed the game of poker forever and of how the modern poker tournaments are descendants of an illegal high stakes game in San Antonio that gypsied to Reno, then blossomed into the World Series of Poker, the progenitor of every poker tournament played and televised today.

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Simplicity

In the maddening world of online poker, with too many frills, scams, attention hogging, limelight seeking what offers a respite/ an oasis to the players? A genuine poker site! The first word that comes across when one accesses www.raidbet.com is : SIMPLE. Its rarely that this happens in a world of glitz and glamour and the works; something simple, precise and customized comes up and steals the show.

New online poker room, Raidbet.com does just that!

Launched in mid 2008 Owned by AWW Ltd., Raidbet.com Poker operates with a regular license issued according to the new regulations on online gaming of the Republic of Malta and is committed to delivering a premium online poker room for players looking for authentic real time action. A risk free fraud free game environment: Gaming for the love of it!

A credible site for credible players; Everyone from first time players to professionals can enjoy a wide selection of poker games such as Texas Hold 'Em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo and 7 Card Stud, with 'no limit', 'pot limit' and 'limit betting' all within a superior environment.

A fine Deposit bonus of 100% up to $500 PLUS a Refer a Friend promotion are part and parcel of any poker website. The Xtra factor is the catch. Raidbet is running free-roll poker tournaments three times daily. The prize funds are small but there is no entry fee! These free-roll poker tournaments are to help to grow their traffic numbers - and its working. Trend of increasing player numbers is no surprise free-rolls fill up fast.

The software and graphics are quite nice, but thankfully not at the expense of functionality - the site was developed exclusively for simple understanding for once! The robust and scalable software offers basically everything most poker players need - table stats, quick play and lots more great support features.

Personalized customer care just adds that finesse to the package.

With such a good product served on the platter, it’s certain its raining bets at Raidbet.com

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Poker Enthusiast.

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