Athletes and Poker: A Love Story

What compels us to play sports? For most of us, it’s the competition, the physical and mental exercise, and/or the opportunity to socialize. But for professional athletes, it’s all of the above – plus the money. Lots and lots of money if they’re really good at it.

No wonder athletes can’t get enough poker. Once the spirit of competition gets into your blood, it stays there, even after the final whistle blows and everyone’s gone home. Good thing there’s always a poker game somewhere. Now, if only we could get some of these guys to make better choices about where they play.

Alex Rodriguez could certainly benefit from playing online at Bovada Poker. Not only would A-Rod be anonymous, he’d also avoid getting into trouble at those sketchy high-stakes underground games. Back in 2011, Star magazine did a piece on some of the games Rodriguez played in. It read like something from Rounders. Drugs, fighting, hired muscle… all that was missing were the bad Russian accents.

Of course, Major League Baseball wasn’t too happy when this story broke. They were reportedly trying to keep A-Rod away from underground games since as far back as 2005. No professional sports league wants its employees associated with shady figures. MLB officials are especially picky about this, given baseball’s long and checkered past with gambling and corruption.

Compare and contrast Rodriguez with former Cy Young winner Orel Hershiser. He did his poker right, starting in 2006 with the low-limit cash tables at the Red Rock in Summerlin, Nev. Two years later, Hershiser played in the World Series of Poker main event, and even reached the quarterfinals of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
Now it’s commonplace to see athletes take to the felt for major tournaments. This year’s WSOP main event featured Paul Pierce, the former Boston Celtics great who recently signed with the Washington Wizards. Joining him was seven-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Richard Seymour, alongside FC Barcelona center-back Gerard Piqué and UFC welterweight contender Martin Kampmann.

Of all the professional sports outside of poker, hockey might have the biggest obsession when it comes to cards. By the time players reach the NHL, they’ve already spent thousands of hours riding the bus from small town to small town, wearing out countless decks of cards along the way. Then they reach the big leagues and keep playing poker on the plane.
In fact, if you could pick the perfect athlete to make the transition to poker, it might be a hockey goalie. More often than not, these guys are cerebral players with colorful personalities who look like they belong right next to Daniel Negreanu – himself an avid hockey fan. When Roberto Luongo isn’t busy stopping pucks for the Florida Panthers, you can find him at the tables, including his own charity tournament. Luongo even finished in the money at the 2012 WSOP Main Event. A-Rod, this could be you.

Free Online Poker Vs Real-Money Play

Free online poker can be very tempting and it's easy to understand why so many people play it. When there's no money being wagered, people that enjoy poker as a purely recreational activity can pass the time effortlessly, and that means that free games are frequently packed. They're a great way to learn the rules of any particular poker game, and I always recommend that new players start with them, but after a while, you're going to need to improve your game, and that's something free play can't do.Sign up to play free online poker at Bovada!

Free poker games are very limited in how much they can teach a player beyond the basics and the ins and outs of any given online poker site's software. With no money on the line, free players tend to play every hand they're dealt. After all, there's no real consequence if they lose a batch of "play money" because there's always more there for the clicking.

This is a marked contrast to real-money games where people are much more interested in getting the most out of good hands. When you play in real-money games, it's rare that you're holding a good hand and a board that matches up and someone goes buck wild and bets heavy with their off-suit low-ended connectors. That situation, though, happens constantly in free games.

I've been at free poker tables where I was holding Dad with a board reading JdQd7d and some click-heavy fish kept ignoring the fact that I was raising before rage-quitting when the river hit. People in real-money poker games aren't this silly: they want to make more money, so they reserve their aggression for times when they're holding good cards or they have position and psychology on their side to get the most out of a drawing hand.It's fairly easy to be a successful play-money player.

You focus on being lose in the pre-flop stage where your passable hand might become truly great and if the flop doesn't hit, you fold. This tightening up after the flop is actually quite different from how great real-money players approach the game, where they'll only play premium hands and then use the flop as a place to be aggressive and wean out the rest of the pack.Ready to try real money poker?

Check out Bovada’s excellent online poker deposit program, where you can get up to $1100 extra in your bankroll!Being good at free-money games does not mean that you're a good poker player, any more than playing a game like Modern Warfare will mean you're ready to hit the ground in Afghanistan. Players that use free games only to learn the very basics and then move into lower-stakes cash games to improve their skill set are going to be much more prepared to win.

Australia Gambling Obsession in Depressing Chart

Australians love a punt. And since the first rule of gambling is that the house always wins, this is really another way of saying, Australians love losing money.

Which might be part of the reason the Federal government is apparently going to review gambling laws. As Fairfax Media's Perry Williams revealed first on Tuesday, Social Services Minister Scott Morrison is going to review the Interactive Gambling Act, amid industry tension over new digital technologies, and offshore players ability to circumvent existing laws.

Basically, some offshore outlets such as William Hill are offering Australian customers the ability to bet on live sports via their smart phones. Strictly speaking, 'In-play' betting is outlawed on online platforms, including smartphones.

Data from H2 Gambling Capital, a London based industry researcher, obtained by Fairfax Media last month, shows that Australians lose more money per adult on gambling than every other developed country.
Back in 2010, the Productivity Commission actually estimated the average loss for each Australian that gambled at $1,500.

For what its worth, that review found there was an overall net benefit (through taxes and enjoyment) to the economy from gambling of between $3.7 billion and $11.1 billion), but the costs to problem gamblers were substantial and devastating, ranging from $4.7 billion to $8.4 billion
That aside, what is clear is that Australians are leading the developed world on gambling losses. Whether a review of online sports gambling laws, and potentially, advertising of gambling during sports matches, does anything to curtail this, remains to be seen.

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Birds of Fury Highlights New Slots Action at Bovada Casino

The Bovada Casino is the place to be for the best slots action online. The casino continues to offer slots players new games with heavy bonuses as well as fun themes. With over 120 online slot options now available at Bovada, there’s a game for everyone’s taste and level. Some of the new slot games added to the Bovada Casino lineup include Hercules the Immortal, Queen of Kings, and Birds of Fury. Like every slot game at the Bovada Casino the new games are fully outlined and explained on the site so you can understand the rules and features before you take your first spin.

Birds of Fury arrives at Bovada Casino
The newest slot game at Bovada Casino is Birds of Fury. It has the usual progressive jackpot and the random wild feature, but what really makes Birds of Fury a great slot game is the Birds of Fury Multiplier - it can be triggered at the beginning of any spin and will apply to any wins.
Another aspect of the game is the Birds of Fury Pick feature, which can also occur randomly after any spin. Three Blue Eggs will appear on the screen and the player selects one of them to reveal their prize. Three or more scatter symbols will trigger the Birds of Fury free spin bonus where the player is awarded 10 free spins as well as doubled payouts.

Hercules the Immortal offers wild action
With the mighty Greek god as a game theme Hercules the Immortal is a 25-line slot with a random symbol wild and a progressive jackpot that is open to players of every stakes level. When a random symbol is chosen to be wild every instance of the chosen symbol on the reel window is changed into a wild. Any wilds on the screen grow to fill the entire reel they are in, and all wins are multiplied by two. Each position on that reel is considered wild, and wilds are also randomly added to the reel window.
Up to 15 wilds can be added, and all scatter wins are paid even if replaced with a wild. Players can also trigger Hercules Free Spins. New feature spins are added to free spin totals and lines played. The bet multiplier is the same as in the game that won the Hercules free spins.

Trigger Golden Scarab in Queen of Kings
The Queen of Kings is a Cleopatra-themed 25-line slot game that uses three or more scatter symbols to trigger the Golden Scarab free spin bonus. Players are awarded 10 free spins and each free spin might have a Golden Scarab that will affect the reels.
A random symbol is also chosen to become wild and every instance of the chosen symbol on the reel window is changed into a wild. Like with most Bovada Casino slot games, Queen of Kings has a progressive jackpot that is open to all players regardless of stakes level. Line bets can range from $0.01 to $5 in the Queen of Kings.

Blackjack Betting | History of 21

 The game of blackjack has moved from land-based casinos to the online world, so now everyone can play the game of 21 online. But what’s the history of everyone’s favorite casino game?
The actual game predates casinos by a wide, wide margin…like hundreds of years. Blackjack has been played in some form or another since the very early 1600s and possibly even before then. It continues to grow as it could be the most popular game you will find in your online casino.

The great Miguel Cervantes is well known as the author of the classic Don Quixote, but he was also a serious gambler and he wrote a story around 1601 or 1602 about a man that would attempt to cheat at a game called “ventiuna”, which is the Spanish word for twenty-one. The general rules for this game was that you had to get to twenty-one without going over that total, so you would have to think that Cervantes had heard or played the game before he wrote the story, which was called Rinconete y Cortadillo, from his book of short stories, Novelas Ejemplares. Some also say that the game was started by the French, who had a game called “vingt en un”, which is the French phrase for twenty-one.
The game was then brought over to North American in the early 1900’s and early places where you could play it would offer bonuses for certain hands. One was when you received an ace of spades and a jack of either spades or clubs, which would make it a black jack and that is where the name that we know came from. Since the game was brought to America, there have been many different ways created to play the game, but at its core, the objective of the game is still the same: get to twenty-one without going over the total, while managing to best the dealer or the house. Its simplicity makes it a game that anyone of any age can play, which is why it is so popular at only casinos.
Of course, it is a card game and that means players have been trying to beat the system for hundreds of years, going back to Cervantes’ story. Card-counting has been attempted at many casinos to varying degrees of success, but those have been able to do it well have written books about it and the entire goal is to minimize the house edge, which increases with the amount of decks you add to the game. However, if you try to do it at a land-based casino, you may be greeted with resistance (and that is putting it nicely), and to try to do it online would be extremely difficult because of the technological advances, unless you can write a program that does it.
Expect the history of blackjack to go forward as it moves deeper into the online era and players try new ways to beat the house, or you could sit back and enjoy the fun of one of the oldest (if not the oldest) card game out there.

Reasons Why Online Roulette Is Better | Daily Telegraph

One of the best parts of having regular internet access is that you no longer need to leave the comforts of your own house to enjoy the entertainment (and potential earnings) of casino games. And if you’re a huge roulette fan, you can ride the wheel to glory right from home. That’s right: no more driving for hours to some dark, shady and smoky land-based casino. It’s all right at the tip of your fingertips. Here are three reasons why staying home to bet on roulette can give you an edge and help you win at Roulette: Check out all of the casino game rules before you play at Bovada and stay ahead of the pack.

Keep Your Strategy Near By
We’ve all seen the old gangster movies, where someone gets caught counting cards or getting some sort of outside assistance, and it costs them a finger…or a hand…or worse. Whether or not that actually happened (shhhhhhhh), now you can receive all the help you need and more if you stay home to play roulette. You can find new strategies right at your fingertips on the same computer you are playing the game on and no one will shake you up. You can have all the friends you want on hand to help you out as well. The more that play, the merrier.

Who Likes A Noisy Crowd?
Consider this a house edge – in your house! Want a quiet place to play your roulette? You can do exactly that at your house…because it’s your house! It can be difficult to concentrate at a casino where there is a lot going on such are hundreds of different games with all sorts of sounds ringing constantly and people talking (most of whom are usually intoxicated and not giving a consideration as to your game). At home, there’s no people are trying to small talk you while you’re plotting your next move. Just focus on the game and make some money.

More Convenient Than A 7/11
And that ties in with the final and perhaps most important point: convenience. You don’t have to wait for drinks or food, you can keep the crowd you want and you can smoke in your house if you see if and it calms you down while you’re playing the game. At home, the drinks aren’t watered down and you can have as many as you want; no one is going to cut you off or show you the door. If you have a laptop to play music or surf the web, at home that’s fine because you don’t have to sit or stand at a table to wait your turn. Simply sit in your favorite chair in a robe and slippers while the game is on the big-screen television and relax. It’s all about convenience and the ability to play roulette at your own home is a prime of example of this. When people are comfortable, they tend to perform better and that should lead to a happy, healthy betting account with lots of winnings. Play online casino games at Bovada from anywhere!

Best Starting Hand In Pot Limit Omaha

Find out why and how you should play double-suited AAKK in Pot Limit Omaha. We've talked about and listed great Omaha poker starting hands before, but the fact is that unlike No Limit Hold 'Em, the answer isn't as simple as "Ace King, Double Suited," even if that's what is always at the top of the lists. The best starting hand in Omaha is the most floppable (for lack of a better adjective.) and AAKK suits that idea perfectly as it opens up the best possible draws to the nuts and, (say it with me) Omaha is a game of the nuts. You might make the mistake of looking at AAKK as two pair, but what AAKK really represents is the hand that can be built into the best possible combinations. Let's look at three flop combinations that could get real money when you've been dealt AAKK. (In his scenario, we'll say it's AsAdKsKd.)

Flop 1: 2sJsQcThis gives you to overpairs, a draw to the nut flush and a straight. This gives you a board that's going to be very good for you and even if you're playing against QQXX, the odds say it's roughly 50/50 on who's going to walk away a winner. The nut flush draw is extremely important in scenarios like this because you'll usually be betting against someone who's got something like 89TJ with the same flush and you're a 75% favorite to win the pot - that's a massive number for PLO! If you were holding AA52 in a number of different suits, you'd be an underdog with only a 29% chance to win!

Flop 2: 4d8dQc Again, you've got the overpaid and the nut flush draw thanks to the K and A on your side. If you do get bet into, it's likely to be someone holding Q875, thinking he's got the top two pair and you're a favorite to win.

Flop 3: Ah8c7c That's top set and if you can get others in on the hand you're very likely to win, especially if you manage to make a full house on the turn or river. I'm always aggressive when I hit a set on the flop as above that line, the air gets much more stratified. Play pot limit Omaha poker online and enjoy other games at Bovada today!It's more than just the pairs that make AAKK so valuable: it's the connectiveness it offers to other hands. A hand like AA82 is still valuable, but in a deep stack cash game, it's going to be almost impossible to play. Just look at the above scenarios and see how little you get beyond the top set on Flop 3.