The Poker Guide...Read this first - Acroynms/Links/Good threads, etc.

CONTENTS
1. History/Where to Start/Online Play (below)
2. Playing Live
3. Links
4. Quality Threads
5. A Guide to Low Stakes (separate thread)
6. Bonus Whoring (separate thread)


Welcome to the Boards Poker Forum's Poker Guide. The guide has come out of older posts covering tips, links etc. and is intended to be a definitive guide on poker in general, in Ireland and on the interweb thingy. It is primarily made up of two older posts, Poker Links and Tips for the Fitzwilliam on Thursday. I will not be crediting individuals here but the links to the older posts contain the evidence of those who contributed.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE POKER FORUM

The Poker Forum was requested by me many moons ago (my claim to fame) and got plenty of support. In no time the powers that be provided us with our own little corner in Boardsdom. While online play was common among us all a good social circle grew around the infamous freeroll on Thursdays in the Fitzwilliam where I first heard the words "you wouldn't be Musician by any chance?" uttered to me over a poker table. A solid group of us formed Suited Aces (R.I.P), our aim to bring poker to the masses of players out there who wanted to play but did not want to break the bank. We held some very successfull and controversial tournaments over a series of months but sadly things didn't last and we have gone our own way since. The bright side is that most of us are still here on the forum, still meeting at tourneys online and offline and there are more of us now as the scene expands ever further. Other groups have taken poker to the masses, others still travel to foreign lands to report on Irish fortunes in big tournaments and the rise of Poker in Ireland seems to have, like our favourite game, no limit (sorry).

WHERE DO I START?

To my mind to get started in poker there are a few simple and perhaps obvious things you need to do.
1. Read books, online articles, hand discussions etc. i.e. Educate yourself.
2. Ask questions here or elsewhere.
3. Play some free games be it online play money or live freerolls but only to get used to the mechanics not to improve your skills. A free or play game will not be a test of nor a method to improve your skill.
Use the links at the end of the guide to find these books, articles etc.

THE GAMES

First off any game can be of certain limits.

Limit is a fixed structure that limits the betting to a certain amount and limits the raises to 4. The bet doubles from the turn on but the max raises remains the same.
Pot-Limit is what it says, the max bet is the pot.
No-Limit, the most famous, is as we know the game where you can bet everything you have.

Heres a quick run down of the types of games you might find yourself playing either online or off:-

Cash Games - Cash games are exactly what they say. You play for cash and you can sit down with as much as you wish (up to the max buy-in). Lose it all and you can put more on the table. Most of these games are 9 seats but these days 6 seats is quite popular too.
STT(Single Table Tourney)/Sit and Go - These are one table tournaments that can be 6,9 or even 10 seat games. The 6 seater games often pay the top 2 and the others pay top 3. These games kick off the minute they are filled, hence the name sit and go.
MTT(Multi-Table Tourney) - These are large tournamanets with a buy-in (often with rebuys) and multible players playing down to 1 winner often with good payouts to the top 18 or 27 depending on number of entrants. These are the games you see on TV for the most part.

PLAYING ONLINE

Playing online has a few simple requirements that may seem obvious but I'll mention them anyway.

A decent PC with a connection to the internet using dialup or broadband.
Visit the site of your chosen poker software, download and install it.
Once you are ready to play for real money you need a credit card or an internet bank account that is accepted by the site you want to play on, e.g. Neteller.

Playing the games is pretty straightforward and alot of the machinations are handled for you. Simply join a game for whatever price and then the only decisions you will be faced with are whether to fold, call or bet (and the amount to bet). Most of your decisions can be made at the click of a button and it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. As I said above you can use the free/play money games to become familiar with the working of the software but don't use it to improve your game. When it comes time for you to play for real money you need to be careful. Start small by playing micro-limit cash games or tourneys. These days it is harder to make money at low limits because the play will be quite loose but this is part of the challenge. If you intend taking the game more seriously then you need to consider your bankroll. It must be substantial and it must be able to withstand bad runs in the game.

One of the advantages of online play is that you can almost always find a game to suit your tastes at any time of the day and depending on the site there could be thousands online at any monent. Thanks to HJ I now have an answer to the rigged site claims and here it is. So as far as sites being rigged goes proove it or leave it.

Some things to look out for on a site are:-

Does it allow notes on players? - it's harder to read players online for obvious reasons but you can build a history on players you face regularly by taking notes on their play and keeping these notes up to date (after all your opponents can improve)

Does it offer protection in case of a disconnection? - the net is more reliable than it ever has been but you will still get disconnected from time to time. Alot of sites will protect your investment in a hand if this happens by treating it like you are all-in for whatever amount you had invested in the pot at the time of disconnection. Check the site for details on whether they have this protection and under what rules it operates.

Does it provide a hand history? - Having access to the detailed accounts of the hands you have played can be very useful for analysis by either software like Pokertracker or humans on discussion boards like this one.

How does the site facilitate cashing out? - It's vital to know how easy it will be to cash out those winnings so check the options and make sure you are happy with the setup.

Bonuses & Rakeback - when you're signing up at a site, make sure you're aware of any signup bonuses and the conditions attached to clearing the bonus. bonuswhores.com reviews the details of the bonuses available on most of the major sites.

If you can get rakeback on a site, it can do wonders for your hourly rate. Rakeback is a mechanism where the affiliate who gets a proportion of your rake from the site gives some of the rake back to you every month. The charter forbids starting threads requesting rakeback but check people's sigs for more information. It's a good idea to go to an affiliate who has been around for a while and is able to provide references of some kind from posters here or elsewhere.