H.O.R.S.E. Poker Tournaments

H.O.R.S.E. is a form of poker commonly played at the high stakes tables of casinos. H.O.R.S.E. is a collection of limit poker varieties.

Rounds of play in H.O.R.S.E. cycles among the following poker varieties: Texas Hold 'em, Omaha eight or better, Razz, Seven card Stud, and Seven card stud Eight or better.

- Texas Hold 'em is one of the simplest and most popular community poker variant. Hold'em players can use any combination of the five community cards and their own two hole cards to make a poker hand. Players start with only two cards and the remaining cards are shared. Hold'em is the perfect for strategic analysis. The objective is not winning every individual hand, but maximize long-term winnings by making correct decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold.

- During Omaha Eight or Better, each player makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card ace-to-five low hand (eight-high or lower to qualify). The pot is split between the high and low - which may incidentally be the same player. To qualify for low, a player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 or lower

- Razz is a form of low ball stud poker, normally played for ace-to-five low. The object is to make the lowest five-card possible hand from the seven cards the player gets. Straights and flushes do not count and the ace always plays low.

- In Stud Poker, each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round (it is usually the player whose face-up cards make the best hand for the game being played). The cards dealt face down to each individual player are called hole cards. Until the recent increase in popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most popular poker variant

- Seven card stud Eight or better: played as seven-card stud, but the pot is split between the player with the highest hand and the player with the lowest hand (using the ace-to-five low values). An 8-high hand or lower is required to win low.

Bluffs and Tells In Poker

Ask any poker fanatic and they will tell you that Poker is definitely not just a game of chance, but of strategy and skill.

No matter what kind of level you are on, professional or amateur, poker players need to practice their skills in order to win instead of risking it all. Don't limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about poker. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what's important. If you're seriously interested in online video poker, you need to think beyond the basics. This informative article takes a closer look at things you need to know about bluffing.

A common mistake amateur players make is that they often think that bluffing is necessary to win. There might see spectacular bluffs on TV, but these could well be the edited highlights of the whole event.

Let's not forget that it is also important to know how to bluff properly. There's no point in bluffing when your opponent can spot it instantly and makes you lose the hand. There are unintentional signs you might give away during a game, called tells. There are some of them that you can actually control, for example acting uninterested in a hand while still in it, staring down at others, glancing at the chips, taking a long time before calling a bet and so on. Most of the tells are unconscious physiological signals, like rapid breathing, shaking hands, sweating, shighing, holding breath.

If you are a beginner online poker player, it is better to play your cards well rather than trying to bluff your opponents out of hands. You might try the occasional bluffs here and there, but the real art of knowing when to bluff comes from knowledge and practice that can only be achieved with long hours of hard work.