The Gaming Commission has states however, that it will block all access to unauthorized domains to ensure that Belgian players use only authorized online gambling services. According to the 2011 Gaming Ac, operators from EU member states would have to relocate their servers to Belgium if they wanted to obtain a license. Hence only the online gambling sites operating within Belgium would be authorized to offer their services to players located in Belgium.

The approval of the three poker sites is good news of the gambling enthusiast in the country. Belgium is one of the three EU countries, along with Denmark and Spain, that will be busy regulating its new online gambling industry in the year 2012.

Spain, has however delayed implementing its online gambling reforms by six months in order to give regulators more time to review the license applications. It looks like online gamblers in Spain will have to wait at least till June to see some online gambling action.

“Oh, my god! They’re naked!” One shocked passer-by exclaimed. The show was certainly quite a spectacle, with a number of viewers inadvertently walking into oncoming traffic, transfixed on the exhibit. Some particularly interested parties even secured prime viewing positions, watching the action slowly unfold for hours at a time.

This reaction was all down to a performance piece directed by Zefrey Throwell. The piece, which lasted for seven full days, involved lengthy games of publically visible strip poker in a shop window on the corner of Cortlandt Alley and Walker Street.

Hosted at the same time as the much publicized “Occupy Wall Street”, Throwell’s intended expressing was of a political nature. Players were informed they could turn up with as many layers of clothes as they wished, and would be treating them as capital during the game. The concept was to echo the artist’s perspective of the discrepancy between winners and losers within the American economic system.

As you would imagine, all the players lost in the end - to the delight of those pressed up against the shop windows. Even those within crowds who did not understand the conveyed sociopolitical message were kept entertained; inspired to discuss the work they had been craning their necks to catch a glimpse of.

Two onlookers Carmen and Miriam were overheard discussing the exhibit they spent their lunch hour watching. They had heard about the event from the poker forums they often frequented. Wedged in between a sea of peeping toms, the two were heard excitedly discussing what they were seeing.

“I have never seen anything like this. Never,” said Miriam.

“They call it art,” Carmen noted.

“It is art,” Miriam agreed. “They’re being creative. They have no shame about what they’re doing, and they shouldn’t either.”

“Would you do it?” Miriam questioned.

“May if I was a James Bond girl!” Carmen laughed.

The curator and programs manager for the gallery, Courtenay Finn, was routinely spotted mingling amongst the audience, handing out programs with information regarding the show. She said it was great to see such a high number of people drawn to the gallery, despite the fact she spent much of her time there stopping distracted onlookers from standing in oncoming traffic.

New players will receive a 200% bonus up to £1,250 when they sign up. Bet365 Poker is offering players with helpful accessories like the innovative poker toolbox which includes bankroll management facilities, stats, and poker tips. There is a poker school for beginners and a great VIP program. 888Poker 3D platform is made even better with all the mega prizes and generous bonuses. There is a special PokerCam that allows players to enjoy live streaming poker games. As for Cool Hand Poker, they are offering Turbo Bounties, Turbo Rebuys, and lots more. There is a fantastic poker school for players and a €4,300 package to the European Championships of Single Table Tournaments (ECOSTT) event.

The license was granted to Full Tilt Poker’s operating company in Kolympa. The decision by Kahnawake to renew the license truly comes as a surprise to everyone. However, Full Tilt will not be able to resume operations just yet. They must be granted their primary license first as Kahnawake’s Secondary license requires one. Full Tilt is not offering any poker games to its players at present.

Another chapter to the long Full Tilt Poker saga has just been added, and this time the chapter is all about the battle that sparked by Full Tilt Poker’s legal team when they just decided to abruptly interrupt the proceedings of the Alderney Gambling Control Commission which started in July 2011. What the legal team wanted was a bit of privacy with regards to the proceedings of the case. According to Martin Heslop who is representing the law firm of Jeffrey Green Russell airing the proceedings in public was not in the best interests of justice. He stated that there was a real risk that it may be damaging to ‘these interests and highly prejudicial to this decision.’ His statement came as a response to the possibility that sensitive information will be revealed by the hearings. However Full Tilt will have to just suck it up and get on with it as the Aldernet Gaming Control Commission denied the formal request.

Reality Television Meets Poker

Williams is a known poker buff, and his calling attention to the industry through the new television series is yet another reminder of how online gambling regulations are needed in the US.

“I love poker. It’s a game that has everything. It crosses boundaries and borders. It is truly international, and the time is right for the International Team Poker League to take poker to a new level and a wider audience,” said Williams.

Williams acknowledges that his series was made possible through the advancement of poker on the Internet. Part of Williams’ new show will take place on the Internet. Tournaments will be held online and at land based casinos for the poker series. The show will run much like a conventional talent show. Once the satellite tournaments are complete, all of the winners will be brought to a Las Vegas casino and placed on different teams. Those teams will then play one battle royal type final table to become the ITPL champions for this year.

Latest Poker News

The next element of the PokerStars-sponsored series of worldwide, regionally themed poker tours has been announced with the creation of the Russian Poker Tour (RPT). PokerStars, in association with the Russian Poker Tour, has announced the first two venues servicing one of poker’s fastest-growing markets.

The inaugural RPT event will be held January 25 - February 1, 2009 in St. Petersburg, and will carry a $5,000 buy-in. The Moscow stop has also been announced, which will be held February 22-28, 2009 and boasts a $10,000 buy-in.Two emerging Russian superstars have already become members of the vaunted Team PokerStars Pro after.

PokerStars

Experiencing success on the international poker stage. Alex Kravchenko claimed a bracelet in the 2007 WSOP and nearly took down another in that year’s Main Event, while Ivan Demidov fell just short of an unimagined double, finishing third in the 2008 WSOP-Europe Main Event after qualifying for the delayed final table of the 2008 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, where he eventually finished as the runner-up. Both Russian stars are expected to be on hand for the RPT stops, highlighting a strong international field.

PokerStars is already running satellites for the RPT St. Petersburg stop, priced as low as $2.22 or 111 Frequent Player Points (FPPs). These satellites will be available until December 30, 2008. Final winners will receive a prize package valued at $8,000, which includes the tournament buy-in, accommodations and an expense allowance.

By Sage Kalmus

Poker Reports

This article discusses online poker and bluffing strategy, including the 3 main types of bluffs. Ah, bluffing. When you get it right, you feel like a master strategist; when you get it wrong, you feel like a doofus. Bluffing is lying, to put it plainly.

To be more specific, bluffing is lying about the strength or weakness of your hand. There is a common school of poker strategy that teaches to play every good hand as if it were a bad one and every bad hand as if it were a good one. Now while that may be a bit too simplistic to be applied across the board, it speaks to a sound underlying principle — you can win with a good hand and you can win with a bad one; it’s all in how you play.

If you’re playing No Limit poker especially you’re going to need to know how to bluff (and as a bonus consequence, how to tell when others are bluffing). Bluffing is generally more effective in No Limit poker than in Limit poker because in Limit poker, you can only raise so much at once, and you can only raise so many times in each round of betting.

A player in a Limit poker game is much more inclined to call a bet or a raise with a mediocre hand than a player in a No Limit game, and the main reason why is the size of the bet or raise. In No Limit poker, you can call “All In” at any of your turns and set the whole table on tilt. There’s just no equivalent in Limit play.

Now to extend the conversation on bluffing to the online poker arena, there are far fewer methods of bluffing online than there are offline. The main way to bluff online is to place a humongous bet or raise (when your hand doesn’t merit it, of course). You can try a bit of “coffeehousing” or blustering over the chat window, but if your opponents aren’t reading the chat window (or have that feature turned off) you’re wasting your time.

One way to heighten the impact of a bluff is to do it quickly and confidently. Though they can’t see your face while you’re doing it, like they could if you really were sitting across the table from them, but they can gauge how long it took you to come up with this maneuver based on how look it took you to execute it.
You’ll find 3 basic types of bluffs at the poker table, online or off:

The Stone Cold Bluff: Betting a huge amount right away with lousy cards; the choicest time to pull this is when you’re the last player to act in that round of betting and not much action has happened yet;

The Semi-Bluff: Betting on a potentially winning hand that for now is worthless (such as four cards to a straight or a flush); it’s considered a bluff because it’s currently a garbage hand, but since it could turn into “the nuts” or the best hand possible at that time, it’s considered to be only a semi-bluff;

Representing the Flop: Bluffing in two parts - first, raise a small amount in the initial round of betting, making folks think you have the beginnings of an excellent hand, though it seems clear you need to pull something useful on the flop to make it happen; in this round, you raise just enough to get the majority of players at the table to fold. After the flop, then, go ahead and bet a ton (maybe even going so far as to go All-In) suggesting that you just pulled whatever cards you needed on the flop.

It takes nerves of steel to pull off a good bluff, but it takes even more than that to fold when you believe your opponent is bluffing. If your hand is weak, especially, then no matter how convinced you are that your opponent is trying to pull one over on you, you still want to walk away and save your chips for anotherhand. If you don’t think you can win this round with the cards you’ve got, then by all means you can try bluffing. But if you sense you’re being bluffed, make sure you can beat it before you go ahead and call it.

By Dennis B.

Online Poker News

This series of guides aim to let you in on the real value of online poker tools. When should you use them and which ones to choose. The short answer is “Yes” but it will probably be easier and more profitable to use the best poker tools to help you along.

There are many different kinds of Poker Tools available today: some are just plain fun to use, some are pretty worthless and a small number of quality tools are really worth your attention.

The house rules of your local online poker room are significant. Just as most land based casinos doesn’t allow card counting in Black Jack or the use of electronic devices in the casino many online poker rooms are selective when it comes to the use of poker tools.

Pokerstars probably has the most restrictive policy in the business with a long list of banned poker software tools and programs. This article will give you a good idea of the characteristics that are typical for banned software types but to make sure please check the rules of your local poker room.

If you are a fairly inexperienced poker player don’t be too quick in starting to invest time and money in the different poker tools - start out by reading a few good poker books (David Sklansky: “The Theory of Poker” and Ian Taylor + Matthew Hilger: “The Poker Mindset” are good for starters after those pick one specific to your preferred poker variation) and play a lot of free or low stakes poker. Once you have mastered the basics of the game you can start to think about moving on to thinking about which online poker tools are best for you.

This is the first in a series of articles meant to explain the different poker tool types, their unique value in specific situations and teach you how to select the tools that will help you improve the most. This article supplies an introduction to poker tools and categorizes the different tool types. Later articles will give more detailed info on specific tools and how to extract the most value from them.

If you expect to buy a couple of poker tools, install them and then start playing (and winning) much better poker than you are now, you will be disappointed. The best poker tools all demand that you put in the time to learn how to use and understand them. This can be many hours but the better poker tools are definitely worth your time, as you will improve over time.

Once you have read this guide (hopefully all the articles) please don’t rush out and buy 2-3 or more poker tools. The best approach is to focus on one tool at a time - spend some time deciding which tool type you stand to benefit the most from and invest in the specific tool you find most promising. Then concentrate on really getting to know this tool and once you have gotten most of the benefits the tool can offer move on to the next tool.

The single most important reason to use online poker tools is to improve your skills and thus win more. The good news is that this is entirely possible to achieve the “bad” part is that is takes time. Now please move on to the next part in which you will learn which poker tool type is best for you: Trackers, HUD’s, Online Databases, Calculators, Charts or Poker Robots.

The author is an experienced Webmaster, IT Professional and seasoned poker player, currently working with SEO and webmaster of the poker information site, Cool Poker Guide - the high quality free online poker guide.

Online Poker Awards

They’ve been around only a few years, but Full Tilt Poker has some of the best action going. We give them this award, not because they have the most active players, but because they have the best action of all the great poker rooms.

There are rooms that have more players, but none of those rooms come close to the combination of a classy room, great customer service, excellent graphics, and many players at all levels.

Best Poker Book (General): Super System by Doyle Brunson

This classic book is considered by the pros to be the best book ever written on poker! Jam-packed with advanced strategies, theories, and tactics and money-making techniques - no serious new online poker player can afford to be without this hard-hitting information.

Includes fifty pages of the most precise poker statistics ever published. Features chapters written by poker’s biggest superstars, such as Dave Sklansky, Mike Caro, Chip Reese, Bobby Baldwin, and Doyle - two world champions and three master theorists.

Best Online Poker Education: Poker School Online

Once again, this is an easy award to give out for two reasons. First and most important, Poker School Online is a high quality, professional, economical, and well-respected online school for poker players of varied skill levels.

Second, no other similar school even comes close to providing what Poker School Online does.

Best Online Poker Room and Sportsbook: Bodog

Bodog Poker has one thing the other winners this year do not - an online sportsbook. With one account you can use your money to play poker as well as bet on a game, horse, or any of the weird-ass propositions going.

Best Online Poker Room: Absolute Poker

Absolute Poker is this year’s winner of the of the best online poker room. Absolute Poker features all of the standard ring tables and tournaments. Ring game tables range from micro limits ($0.02/$0.04) on up to high limit tables.

The graphics and user interface are excellent. Beyond the tables, Absolute Poker features their Player’s Lounge where users can read poker articles and information as well a view multimedia material.

Best Online Poker Software: Poker Office

Poker Office comes with a Live Advisor Window that displays real time opponent modeling of the players you are currently facing, real time probabilities of future hands, hand rankings, pot odds and live graphs and statistics.

Poker Office tracks all of your opponents actions as well as your own game. It stores all of the collected data and brings you summarized statistical reports, spreadsheets and graphs of your own and your opponents play. Need we say more on poker awards?

Winning Omaha/8 Poker by Mark Tenner, Lou Krieger

This excellent book from two top Omaha players is top notch. Mark Tenner has been playing and winning on a regular basis for 40 years, and can generally be found playing in the highest limit games. For the last several years, Mark has played Omaha/8 almost exclusively.

His peers consider him one of the finest minds in the game because of his almost uncanny feel for how Omaha/8 should be played. It is this special gift, along with general expertise, that Mark Tenner brings to this book.

Because he is also a skilled communicator, he succeeds in imparting not only tips and techniques but his unique process of analysis and thinking.