Everyone and their mother has an opinion on showing cards. If you bluff you way to a pot, do you show your hand to rub it in or do you just slide your cards to the middle of the table and stack your chips? If you fold a hand in a big pot is it ok to show what you mucked?

Personally I don’t like to show my cards under any circumstances, but there are times when showing your cards may help set a trap for a future hand. With that theory in mind, I’ve come up with my own compromise: Just show one card. Whoever said that if you’re going to show your hole cards, you have to show both? Showing one card can make your hand even more mysterious than not showing at all. I generally do this at least once at a table or tournament to throw off other players. I never knew its impact until I did it one night by “accident” in Atlantic City.

I was playing in a low limit $2 / $4 hold em game. I was at the table for about an hour or so and was doing fairly well. I was up about $100. There was another player at the table who had to criticize other players when they won a hand on the river or didn’t play up his level. We’ll call him “Fred.” I think we’ve all encountered this type of player before. I immediately didn’t like Fred when he criticized me when I won my first pot. I was holding 6-7 of hearts and I flopped a straight. To make a long story short I won the pot with my straight, but the there were 3 spades on the board along with a pair of nines. I couldn’t raise my straight with the possible flush and full house out there. When I showed my straight Fred shouted across the table to me “Why didn’t you raise?!” I told him why (trying to be the gentleman), but Fred told me I played it wrong.

So you have a poker system in place? You feel that it will be able to help you win more times than not, right? If so, you are just like most other advanced poker players in the world today. But what will happen to you if the unthinkable pops up and starts to rear its ugly head? That is right, what will you be able to do if your poker system begins to fail you game in and game out. This is a harsh reality that a lot of people have to deal with time and time again. When it comes down to it you will probably not be able to use the same exact poker system throughout your entire career. There are times when you will need to make changes if you ever want to move to the top of the industry.

The first thing that you should do if your poker system fails you is to get an idea as to what is going wrong. Is there something major that is not allowing you to win? Or is it simply something that you can fix within a matter of minutes? The fact of the matter is that if you want to fix your problem you are going to have to first identify it. This may take you a bit of time, but all in all it is quite important.

After you know what the problem is, the next step is to decide on how you are going to deal with it. For most people, the best way to deal with a system failure is to swap out the idea that is going wrong. For example, if you have found that you are having a hard time with your aggressive play, you may be able to tone it back a bit in order to get yourself back on the right track. Just remember, when you are toying with your poker system you should never change more than one thing at the same time. Instead, you should use a process of elimination in order to get a good idea as to what is going on with your game.

Finally, if you make changes to your poker system and you find out that you are worse off than you were to start, simply go back to the way that you used to do things. This is the great part about playing around with your poker system. You can make changes, and if they do not suit your needs you can simply go back to the way that things were and start over at point a.

As you can see, there are going to be times when your poker system does not work out to your advantage. But as long as you are willing to look into the changes that you can make you should be alright. Remember, you may see change as a bad thing but this is not necessarily true. If you want to be the best of the best you cannot be afraid to change the way that you play, and also try new things. Who knows, by trying out a new system you may find the key to success!

Whenever you sign up for a rakeback deal, there are a few factors that you need to assess in order to determine the true value of the deal. While there are countless articles out there about how to assess sign-up bonuses, the same cannot be said about rakeback deals. Not all rakeback deals are the same. The same deal will yield very nice revenue for one type of player, and not be nearly as profitable for another guy.

A rakeback deal’s value should always be sought in the way the poker room in question calculates rakeback. Sure, whether or not the sign-up bonus is subtracted from rakeback also matters, but in the long run, the method used to calculate rakeback is much more important. Here are the different types of methods used by poker rooms to determine a player’s Monthly Gross Revenue or MGR (rakeback is directly dependent on MGR, so rakeback will be calculated in the same way as MGR – depending on which deal you chose).

The dealt rake method takes the total value of the rake taken off a given pot and distributes it equally among all those players who have been dealt into the hand. This way, you’ll be amassing MGR and you’ll be earning rakeback even on hands that you do not generate rake on. This method offers a quaint advantage to tight-passive players who do not like putting money into the pot, while it seriously undermines the efforts of a loose-aggressive, action junkie who ends up generating rakeback revenue for his/her opponents.

The contributed rake method is a little more accurate in determining exactly who contributes money to the pot. The rake is still divided equally, this time however only those who have actively played the hand (put money into the pot) will be eligible for MGR allotment. This rake calculation method eliminates the advantages the dealt method provided for “rocks”. Loose aggressive players will still end up generating MGR for others though.

The weighted contributed rake method is the only one which is truly “fair”. It only allots rake contribution to those who put money into the pot, and it considers how much money each of these guys actually drop. If they put more money into the pot they’ll get more MGR, if they do not put money into the pot, they get zilch. This way, loose aggressive players will only generate MGR for themselves, the same way everyone will be fully responsible for their own MGR.

Of course, the rakeback percentage offered is also important in the assessment of a deal, but make sure you check the rake calculation method and hold it more important because you may get a nice percentage on a deal which you just cannot get rolling.

Ultra-high rakeback percentages usually come with poker prop deals, but these carry far more obligations for a player than any regular rakeback deal.

The World Series of Poker, the first major poker tournament, is the highest profile poker tournament in the world. With a buy-in fee of $10,000, the World Series of Poker attracts the finest players in the game.

From Small Beginnings…

The World Series of Poker was started by Benny Binion in 1970 as a small, invitation-only tournament. The first world champion was Johnny Moss, who was awarded a silver cup for his achievement. The subsequent year, a cash prize was instated, and again Johnny Moss was the victor. Throughout the 1970s, the World Series of Poker continued to grow in size, with many additions and changes to the games being played.

…To the Largest Poker Tournament on the Planet

In 2004, World Poker champion Greg Raymer took home $5 million as his prize. The number of participants has continued to double year after year; it is expected that many players will compete in 2014. The main event in the World Series of Poker tournament is a $10,000 buy-in game of Texas Hold `Em, at no limit. The total prize money for the 2014 tournament is expected to be more than $10 million. In addition to the monetary prize, winners are awarded a gold bracelet, and their picture is placed on the Gallery of Champions in the Horseshoe Casino.

For years, the championship was played at Binion’s Horseshoe, but in 2004, Binion was bought out by Harrah’s Entertainment. The 2005 championships will be divided between Harrah’s Rio Casino, just off the Vegas Strip, and with the final two days at the Horseshoe.