One of the advantages of holdem poker is that you can make strategic moves against your opponents much like in other skillful games such as chess. Oftentimes, you can represent your hand as strong or weak, depending on your position and your opponent’s aggression.

Setting Up a Check Raise

The beginning of a successful check raise is determined pre-flop, what that means is you want to make your decision to check raise, long before the flop comes out. Making decisions preflop when you play Texas holdem is more advantageous than waiting till the moment you have to act to make your decision.

Four important factors need to be present should you decide to make a check raise play. They are:

• The strength of your hand
• Your table image
• The table attitude
• Your position

It is vital in Texas holdem to consider all four of these factors to successfully pull off a check raise that nets you a maximum win.

Hand Strength

The stronger your hand is pre-flop in Texas holdem, the better chance you have of pulling off a profitable check raise by concealing that strength. In other words if you have Ace King suited and limp, it is very difficult for your opponents to figure you are playing a strong hand, especially if your ace comes on the flop.

The fact that you did not play it strong pre-flop, will make others believe you are trying to steal the pot or you are on a draw when your ace hits. On the other hand, if you limp in with small suited connectors and hit a big flush or straight draw on the flop, this is less likely to induce much action from your opponents because those draws are more visible and more believable.

Therefore, concealing a strong hand pre-flop is the best method for setting up a check raise when you hit the board.

Table Image

Your table image is important as well; table image is the way in which your opponents perceive you as a player. They may label you as a tight player who plays few hands, an aggressive player that bets and pushes, or a passive player that folds to strong moves.

If your opponents know that you are a tight player and you check, they may bet out thinking you will fold because of your tight image. On the other hand, if you are aggressive, and you check they may not bet, robbing you of opportunities to check raise.

Table Attitude

This is another important aspect when executing a check raise. Table attitude in Texas Holdem is the general environment of the players at the table. If the majority of your table is comprised of calling stations or ultra-aggressive players, a check raise may not get the desired results, as players tend to call from behind and do not respect the raise.

Alternatively, a check raise when the table attitude is tight, usually gets people to fold and allows you to take down a pot without contention. In Texas Holdem, table attitude should be the determining factor in how much to check raise. In other words, a check raise at an aggressive or calling station table is still a good play, however, you want to make sure that your raise is sufficient to make people fold, instead of calling to suck out on you.

Position

In order to pull off a successful check raise in Texas Holdem, position plays a very important part. If you are early to act in a hand, checking to allow someone else the opportunity to bet is the basis of the check raise. However, if you are in late position with a tight player behind you, you will likely miss an opportunity to check raise.

Be aware that, as in most Texas Holdem hands, position can dictate what actions you should or should not make. Using your position to determine beforehand whether you should plan a check raise is very important to succeeding.

A check raise in Texas Hold em poker can be used for a variety of reasons. Squeeze the maximum number of chips out of your opponents; find out if your hand is stronger than your opponents, or to take down a pot to avoid anyone drawing out on you. Use the factors of hand strength, table image, table attitude, and position to give you the maximum advantage in the skillful art of check raising in your next Texas holdem game.

The most important consideration when using a bluff in a Texas holdem tournament is to ensure that you are doing it at the right time, for the right reason, and with the right price. Failure to follow the best poker strategy when bluffing could easily result in disaster to your chip stack.

The Right Time

In no limit Texas hold em poker, especially online poker tournaments, timing is very important. Your bluff must be executed with the utmost care to protect you from losing and quickly being recognized as a bluffer. If others at the table witness your bluff, there is a very good chance that when you have a good hand, they may call you down, believing you are bluffing again and possibly suck out on you at the river.

Therefore, a bluff is likely to work when you have the right position in no limit Texas hold em poker, usually, last to act. If the board is practically a blank, with no draws and the action is checked to you, this is a good time to pull off a bluff. However, you must ensure that the players in the hand are not inclined to trap! If a player is known to be a trapper or check raiser, you may want to wait to make your move.

The Right Reason

The right reason to bluff in a Texas holdem tournament is crucial. Are you bluffing just because everyone checked to you, or are you bluffing because you KNOW your opponents will fold? Choosing to bluff when there are calling stations in the hand could be dangerous!

Make sure the reason you are bluffing (whether in an online poker tournament or live poker game) is because you know your opponents will fold. Keep mental notes (or live notes in an online poker tournament) on who is a calling station and who is a strong player that will fold to a bet. Having that little bit of information about your opponents can help you win plenty of pots and get you deeper in your Texas holdem tournament.

The Right Price

No limit Texas hold em poker is all about getting the right price. Remember that the game is about investing your chips to win more chips, and getting the proper return on your investment (ROI). Texas holdem tournaments are especially dependent on your ROI and the right price strategy.

If your bluff is going to put too much of your chips at risk, you need to reconsider if this time is the right time to make your move. In addition, in an online poker tournament as well as a cash game, many weaker players with shortstacks are apt to call in hopes of drawing out.

In a Texas holdem tournament, you must pay close attention to the chip stack of your opponent and know that if they have less than your bluff bet amount, they may call anyway out of desperation to win. On the other hand, if you have a big stack in the hand, he may call your bluff just because he has enough chips to do so.

Carefully plan out your bluff as you progress through your Texas holdem tournaments. The use of bluffing as a tool in your poker strategy arsenal should be used with care to protect your image and your chip stack. Make sure you use the right timing, the right reason to steal the pot, and that you are getting the right price with the minimal risk.

To learn more tips, browse my blog, and if you want to win online poker, go to The PokerStars Code to discover online techniques beating the software!

So, after 6 years of playing and trying to find all the leaks in my poker game, I finally decided to do some research and discover myself, what am I doing wrong and why can’t I win online poker? The startling answer and revelation I discovered, changed my whole way of playing poker online.

My solution to winning at online poker?
Simply, I CHEAT at poker! That’s right, I am ready to admit it that I am an online poker cheater and I am telling my story:

In searching for the answer as to why too many poker bad beats and why I can’t win, I discovered something disturbing, the online poker sites are filled with poker algorithms that are trying to do exactly what I always suspected.  Catch poker cheats.  Sites such as Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars readily admit to using poker algorithms that detect cheaters and attempt to stop them.

Poker HUDS?
One of the biggest things that these poker sites are doing is finding players who use programs such as HUD’s (heads up displays) and datamining software that gives them an edge against other players. The HUDS simply reveal to the player, every poker hand that you have played, how you played it and your style as well as actions during the hand.

Some of the more advanced HUDS will give a variety of statistical analysis to give you enough information about your opponent that you can actually ascertain his potential poker hand based on his actions. This type of knowledge and information is, in the eyes of poker integrity, cheating! As such, most major pokersites do NOT allow users to use poker HUDs or data mining poker hands of their opponents.

The reason is simple, if you have never played against a particular opponent, why should you know his hand history, his style (aggressive, passive, rock, etc.) and how he plays? It is not fair if you have this information as it is the same as if someone were sitting with you and telling you how your opponents play and what their possible poker hand is. That simply violates the integrity of the game, specifically the one player to a hand rule (OPTAH).

Because a player would have the advantage of knowing their opponents complete hand history, you could easily beat him as you would know when he was bluffing, when he had a strong hand or when he was on a draw, based on his previous hand histories.

Poker Algorithms

This information led me deeper into learning what the online poker sites were doing to stop such actions. The most progressive action that Pokerstars and Full Tilt has taken is to ban the use of HUDS and datamining hand history software while playing on their site, and then warn, punish or restrict players who violated this condition of their terms.

However, this is not enough, as they are not able to detect every known HUD program. Therefore the poker sites had to find an alternative way to stop and punish players they suspected of using such poker cheat software.

Proof Online Poker Is Rigged

Their answer was to install and implement poker algorithms (Tom Goldstein, representing Pokerstars, called them ‘massive algorithms’) that would essentially put a stop to potential poker cheats through the use of characteristic behaviors of poker cheats. In other words, if you were winning a lot of hands and dominating a poker table, it is assumed that you are using some kind of poker cheat software as your percentage of winning hands would be outside the normalized odds of winning.

And That is HOW the basic concept of poker algorithms work, to detect those who are cheating. However, is there a method by which we as poker players can overcome those poker algorithms and stop the pokersites from delivering bad beats simply because they THINK we are cheating, when in reality we are REALLY good at the game or we have monster poker hands?

This led me to the discovery of how to circumvent the poker algorithms and further eliminate the rigged pokersites attempt to prevent me from winning with my good hands. The proof that online poker is rigged is easily found in the fact that they use poker algorithms, which they should NOT be using. The attempt to level the playing field by not allowing a single player to dominate a table is totally against the true skill in poker.

So to summarize on how I cheat at poker, I simply learned how the algorithms work and then use that information against the poker site itself. The information I learned was written by Paul Westin in a book entitled The Online Poker Code Crack. In his book, he reveals how the poker algorithms work, how the RNG works and how any player using the online poker code strategy can succeed in winning.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to believe that online poker is attempting to make the game fair by eliminating some of the skill factors involved through the use of poker algorithms. However, it is unfair to allow and pre-determine winning hands based on any mathematical function of what the poker site believes should be the odds of winning.

I consider the use of poker algorithms to be unfair to quality and experienced players and gives an added advantage to less skilled players. Therefore, the online poker sites are cheating ME out of my years of skill and knowledge by giving an equal advantage to those of less skill. Discover the proof that online poker is rigged and read Paul Westin’s book, it can be downloaded at the Online Poker Code Crack website.