SITES REVIEW- POKER SITES

BLUE SQUARE POKER - play poker online.

Blue Square poker is the latest addition to the Blue Square family of Sports Bookmaker,casino,and games.A relative newcomer to the UK gaming industry in 1999 Blue Square are now one of the largest and most respected gaming sites online.Now part of the huge Rank Leisure Company,this trusted gaming site has a customer base approaching almost 1 million !.

As you would expect from Blue Square the new poker site has a modern,stylish and easy to use procedure.

Customers are always first in their considerations,and poker players deposit and maintain their account in many currencies,but tables are all played with the dollar currency.The latest anti collusion software is in use at all times to secure a safe poker table for you to play.

If you like to play multiple tables at one time - no problem at Blue Square Poker as you can play up to 8 tables at any one time.Chat at some sites can be a nuisance and downright offensive at times,however Blue Square poker promise zero tolerance of any players who abuse the chat facility.

Sign up bonus is good at up to $500.They release the bonus in blocks as you play,so you start to get the dividend fairly quickly,unlike some poker sites where the bonus never actually becomes available.Please see site for full details.

Blue Square have always been imaginative with their promotions on all gaming platforms,and the poker site is no different.Too many to list here,and they refresh regularly,but hand of the month,special freerolls,loyalty schemes,vip bonuses,and their poker tournament league table are all worth checking out.

The onsite poker school is useful for novice player as well as the skilled poker player.For instance a great article currently on site about "Changing Gears" when playing tournament poker - see below.

CHANGING GEARS AT TOURNAMENT POKER.

Any good poker player you come across who has had success at the tables will tell you how important changing gears is when playing no-limit Hold’em tournaments or cash games. There are many reasons for wanting to change gears and in this article I am going to discuss some of these reasons and also methods you can try to improve your ability to go through the gears during a the game.

For those of you who are new to poker, changing gears is the phrase we use when talking about playing different styles within the same tournament or cash game. These styles could range from playing very tight and being very selective about our starting hands to playing very loose almost like a crazy maniac playing any 2 cards from any position. In order to be the very best, you should be able to switch between both these styles with ease, (ok maybe you don’t have to play like a crazy maniac!) playing both tight and loose and also be able to play all the gears in between.

There are many reasons for wanting to change gears and one of the main reasons is to adapt to how people are playing around you. At any one time there can be a certain dynamic at the poker table, there may be a few players who are playing very loose or there maybe no action at all and being able to adapt to this situation will be crucial if you are wanting to maximise your profit at the tables. Lets say for example it is a very aggressive table and there are many loose players around, here would be an ideal time to move into a lower gear, play tighter and wait for a good hand as you will probably get paid if you get one and you don’t really want to get into a big pot here without much of a hand as you will probably get looked up! The opposite applies to when the table is playing very tight, it would be a good time to move into a higher gear here and take advantage of the situation, raise , bet and steal as much as possible as you are likely to get away with it in this spot.

During tournaments generally speaking the tables go through different phases and if you are able to switch up gears as and when necessary, it will make life a lot easier and lead to increased levels of success for sure. Early on in multi table tournaments, especially online, there are plenty of bad players around, here you will come across all types of players from those who have no idea what the hell is going on to those who are there just for the action. It therefore makes sense to play a lower gear during these stages, play tight and don’t get involved in a big pot without a big hand, sometimes even playing just AA, KK, QQ and AK is not a bad idea until later on. Hopefully you will be able to play a big pot with one of these loons and you are likely to have the best of it and as time goes on and the numbers fall, the level of play will get better and you can then start to open up your game a little and begin to play poker. You have changed into a different gear and hopefully your play will be good enough to maximise this new situation and stage of the tournament, this is one of my favourite parts of the game as you can now start to bluff at a few more pots and go about building a stack.

Towards the bubble part of the tournament my advice is to move up a gear again, people will now be trying to hang onto make the money or the final table or whatever they are trying to hang around for but we know the key is not to worry about making the cash but to focus on building a big stack for the final table. My feeling at this stage is to raise and reraise as many pots as possible if you have above average chips, take advantage of tentative players and if you can show some heart and courage at this stage, you will reap the benefits later. Steal as many blinds as possible, if you are called, bet the flop with whatever you are holding, steal as much as you can get away with and even if you feel you maybe shouldn’t steal the next pot, do it anyway! If you come up against resistance, be prepared to back down, the idea is to steal the pots people don’t want to fight for but make sure you don’t go bust risking your whole stack! These concepts may feel a bit extreme and many players feel they have come a long way to make it this far and don’t want to risk there stack with such aggression, and yes you might go out pulling some of these moves on the bubble, but cashing twenty times may not make up for winning one of the tournaments so this is our aim every time no matter what your experience level is.

When footballers are playing in a match and have to change position because the way the game is going they have to spend ages in training practicing playing in these different positions to get it right with ease during the game. It used to be the same with poker, it used to take players ages to be able to change a playing style but I think this has become much easier now with the aid of playing online poker. I mentioned earlier I will give you some advice on how to do this and its not as difficult as you might think.

The internet provides 100's of tournament every day for us to play and making use of them to practice changing gears is something I have done before and will really improve your game. Blue square runs lots of tournaments every night and some of them are cheap enough to be able to practice these different playing styles without blowing up your bankroll in the process! Make a plan to play one of these tournaments every night for a week, on Monday play the whole tournament in gear 1, play extremely tight throughout the whole thing, no matter how your table is playing or what stage you are at in the tournament, this is just practice. Tuesday we do the same thing again, remember only aces, kings, queens and AK if you have to. Wednesday practice playing some poker, play a few more hands, suited connectors, pocket pairs and use your position to play and have a bit more fun. Thursday we do the same if you go out early on either of these days don’t worry too much but remember try not to risk your whole stack unless you have to. Friday and Saturday is where you can get real stuck in, go crazy, raise everything from late position, bet at every flop, reraise weak players and those who are trying to steal too many pots. Obviously it is likely you might go out early playing this gear so maybe play another one of these on either of the days if you feel like you didn’t get much time at the table.

Now if you’ve followed this plan for a week so far, we have finally approached the big day, Sunday! No, today were not going to church in the morning and then roast chicken with dodgy gravy at your grans, today's the day were gonna try and get very, very rich! There are a few bigger tournaments on today we can look at, try entering the $50,000 guaranteed on blue square and playing the whole thing in the different gears we talked about. Bring in all the styles you have practiced during the different phases, players will be dropping out very quick and if you stick to the game plan you never know what can happen! You might end up making the final table and then you will be able to adjust to how your table is playing and react using the ideas we’ve talked about so far. Remember to be brave and always look at wanting to win a tournament and not settle for just making the money, this is part of what makes the difference between the top players and the rest of the field.

All that is left is to wish you the very best of luck from myself and all at blue square and I'll see you at the tables soon...

HOME PAGE