The eCOGRA Safe and Fair seal has created credibility for many gambling operations, and their recent new accreditations enable this organization to meet new market demands. Italy is being seen as a tour-de-force for the opening up of the European gambling marketplace, and the fact that the 10th Annual EiG event is taking place in Milan this year, is testament to this fact. Highly technical staff are employed by eCOGRA to ensure that casino, sports-betting, bingo, poker and other pay-for-play gambling game sites meet these new market demands.

Betclic has become one of the most recent businesses to receive eCOGRA approval. They are suitably proud of the fact that they may now sport the Safe and Fair Seal. According to Andrew Beveridge – CEO of eCOGRA, this company demonstrated a practical commitment to fair gaming, integrity, customer service, and operational conduct. In fact to pass eCOGRA exacting demands, any website needs to achieve extremely high standards. All websites which go through the testing and compliance process and are deemed to be safe, may wear this badge of approval on their home page and they do – wear it like a badge of honour. Any player seeing the Safe and Fair seal at a site, will know their online gaming is indeed in very good hands.

After conducting an unrestricted and comprehensive review of Betclic for example, this site got the ok; this is no easy process. In fact according to the licensing and compliance director of Betclic – Lisa Lombardi – she said the accreditation initiative had been challenging as well as informative. She also said that going through the process was well worth the investment in time, money and challenge, because it also offered them the opportunity to review all of their own operating and other procedures. This in itself was of benefit from a purely practical aspect, and with expert input from eCOGRA staffers, every aspect of their business was put under the microscope. This is how much into detail this testing and compliance process goes.

The beauty of playing online at an eCOGRA certified site; is also that there is a dispute resolution system in place. This essentially means that online gamblers who are members of an eCOGRA Safe and Fair site, have the ability to appeal to the watchdog body, should they feel they have been treated unfairly. They perform a conciliation and sometimes, arbitration role also, in fact even member of non-eCOGRA certified sits, often turn to the organization for advice. An online casino can only benefit big time, from receiving this Safe and Fair seal.

This player maintains that when he first got into playing poker, he was not taking the game that seriously. He discovered it in the card rooms while playing blackjack in the Bay Area and jumped into some bigger games. He also says he should never have done this, because he got burned. It was then he decided to try and recoup his losses by going to Reno and playing blackjack – being the analytical type, he figured blackjack was more easily solvable; especially as he was card counting! While playing he had a really bad run and got caught counting and barred numerous times. It was then that he decided to take playing poker more seriously. He bought a whole bunch of poker books and read them while in Reno.

After studying the books for a week or two, he started playing poker, and started winning. He acknowledges that the first milestones of success in his poker game was definitely getting and studying the really good books. This was how he realised that poker is not totally solvable only in a mathematical way, although a mathematical understanding of the game always helps. Just like blackjack there is a correlation between winning and losing strategies. He recons if he were to start to play today, he would start playing poker online with small stakes and still read books on poker playing strategies. He also maintains the player has to study up in order to know the odds, and although he thought he was intelligent enough to, he realized he couldn’t only “outwit” his opponents to win.

In the beginning this player pushed himself hard, he believes he was chasing the dragon so to speak; but things are different now and he has learned a lot of important life lessons at the tables. One of the greatest gifts a poker player can have is the ability to make big decision based on small information and although he says it sounds trite – learning mental and emotional discipline, was one of the biggest lessons he learned. He stays healthy and positive; maintains a good balance, uses books to learn and takes on poker as well as other projects. He has had big swings, zero swings and believes that being focused only on poker does not make for a winning recipe in his case. Like Liv Boeree, this physicist who plays poker, appears to be much bigger than just the game.

Our established expert is making 11 predictions for 2011, so, let’s go along with them shall we?

The next biggest and most glamorous event is the PCA or PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. What a way to start the poker calendar, fun sun, sand and poker?! The prophecy is that an established poker professional will win, and as Poker Stars together with this Caribbean setting is offering a $100 000 nosebleed event we want it to be an old pro.

While we are looking forward to the airing of Viktor Blom – aka Isidur1, the newest Poker Star team player during the PCA; the second prediction is that it would be amusing if Isildur1 did not turn out to be Viktor Blom! However our mysterious poker predictor recons that the masked madman, who is apparently now un-masked will lose $2 million in 2011. This is small potatoes for the Swedish ascetic, who appears to lose all losing inhibitions when playing online poker and once lost $2.5 mil in one year!

Our poker prophet also says that they should sneak in at least three additional stops to the new NAPT and that Tom Dwan will finish and win both “durrrr Challenges”. These are taking place over 50 000 hands against both Patrik Antonius on which he is up approximately $2.5 mil, at around 39 000 hands, and is down $500,783 in 14,190 of 50,000 hands against Daniel “jungleman12” Cates.

UB is rebranding and attempting to overcome the superuser scandal. It has parted ways with their most famous poker pros, Annie Duke and Phil Helmuth to name two. The forecast is that Unibet continues to reinvent themselves. Hellmuth will go with WSOP.com, as the perfect online partner and will also win a 12th WSOP bracelet. Our poker divination expert also says that US online poker legislation will reach the floor for voting and that a woman will win a 2011 WSOP open event – it has been a two year break!

“Peter Eastgate will play in a major poker tournament”, I am not putting my money on that! I believe the Great Dane is out of the game for a while longer, before the poker itch becomes too bad for him to resist scratching. The 10^th prediction is that Michael “timex” McDonald will win over $1 million in live-tournament earnings this year, and last but not least; that Tom Marchese will win the WSOP or WPT Player of the Year title. What do you predict?

Bruno Fitoussi was an architect at the beginning of his life but he is still one. He is very famous sin France for having introduced poker in France through the aviation Club de France which decides to use the poker has a main card game for their association. This player is certainly a Omaha player but he prefers to play the cash poker instead of tournament poker. He is not very interested in WSOP tournament or different one. In 2009, he finished 10th at the WPT (world poker tour), 2nd at the H.O.R.S.E of the WSOP 2007. In 2004, He won the European tournament of the Hold’em. And in 2001, he won the World Heads-Up Poker Championship. This player is quite pretentious but it is normal for a French Player and this player has the particularity to think that he is the best player ever.

François Montmirel has already two titles of international tournament. This player is a passionate player. He started to like poker when he wrote a book called “poker” and after that he wanted to write a book too about it. He is also a poker teacher at the French poker school. Maths and gestural movement are the best things to studies about players and the way to win.

Patrick Bruel is probably the famous French poker player from France. He is a singer, actor, commentator and also a poker player. He became a poker champion in 1998 with the WSOP. Canal+, a French channel employed him as a poker commentator. He has created a famous DVD about how to play poker. He can be the surprise of the EPT tournament.

It is a real buzz to play poker online and it is a phenomenally fast game. This is the reason why so many people play. If you pull out of a losing play one day and into a winning streak the next, it makes the buzz of poker even sweeter. So when you are losing, never see red, just pull out of the game and don’t play.

The point of poker is to add to your bankroll on a continuous basis, if you lose your cool, you will lose your bankroll too. You don’t want this, you want to grow your bankroll so you can play in higher takes games without running out of money, so spending your time recouping losses is not ideal winning poker.

Online poker is played at such a fast pace that it can become addictive and you lose track of the fact why you are playing in the first place. Getting lost in a game could see you looking at the clock and find you have lost four or five hours. Some online poker players even brag about getting caught up in 12 or 24 hour sessions of this game and this is quite frankly; plain stupid!

Long sessions of poker are not the way to play, unless it is a tournament and you are well on your way to the final table. Even so these extended periods of play have to be properly planned for. Always set time goals for yourself and this will help you keep your cool, online poker will always be there, no matter what time of the day or night, it is not going anywhere.

You could plan to play until you have added 10% to your bankroll, or say for one Multi Table Tournament. Or you could give yourself a time limit, say two hours. But don’t get caught up in saying, just another half hour, or just another hour, this is justification and you will set a trap for yourself. You must be in control of the game, not allow it to be in control of you!

No poker player ever plays an “A” game when they play for over-extended periods of time, if anything this is fuel for the fire for playing badly. Poker is a stylish, strategic game of skill; it is not about tilting at windmills so you need a game plan. Stick to your game plan and your poker playing will be pleasurable, not something that bugs you makes you see red and lose your cool.    
 

If the result of hard work outside poker is luck, then the result of hard work in poker will also be good luck. However some poker experts believe that if you experience pure luck when you play poker, your game will actually suffer. You won’t learn to improve your game because winning just comes too easy. 

If you think that Chris Moneyemaker has a masters degree in accounting and he went on to challenge the system by getting into the WSOP for the first time ever, by playing online poker. You better believe that he deliberately planned, worked hard to achieve this goal, and he did have luck – yes. But only because of his hard work and deliberate planning! He stuck to it and managed to turn $39 into $2.5 million and he is a not a stupid man. They are right about poker being a thinking man’s game. 

On the other side of the coin too much luck for a good player can have the effect of turning them into a bad player, because of it being too easy to win, they just stop learning. Bad poker players really do try to get lucky and good players try to avoid this by playing by design. 

An opponent “Player A” who throws in his hand may do so because they say to themselves, “this guy ‘Player B’ is always so lucky – I’m folding”. In the meantime player B raised so that player A would believe he was getting lucky again. The raise was not as a result of luck, it was by design, he intended for player A to fold to deliberately get him out of the game. A play of the poker hand needs to be designed to get another player to give in extra bets first, it is not luck which extracts these extra bets from the player, this is poker playing skill. 

It takes years of practice to read tells, and get opponents to bluff into you, as well as all the other skills required by a good player so that his opponent thinks he is lucky. This game is not only about having a hand full of winning cards, each betting round, each draw, each deal and combination – every nuance of the game counts, and understanding how it works to change the game is a skill! 

If you have been playing for years and are still kicking yourself that you don’t get lucky, you are probably playing poker right. Beware if too much luck comes your way and this is not part of your deliberate design, because you could be in for a hard knock sometime in the very near future. 
  

One of the most costly mistakes to make when playing poker is discomfort playing and this can be avoided. Never play poker for money if you are ill, hungry, depressed or angry. This is the quickest and most harmful way to prevent a player from winning.
Profitable poker is the only poker to play, it is a game of skill and if your decision making processes are compromised, it is highly unlikely you will win.

While playing against stronger players is a good way to test your skills and improve your game, it is also the skill of your opponent which makes up one of the main components of your ability to win.

You don’t necessarily know if another player or players are stronger than you until you have played them, so this is a difficult mistake to avoid. However, if you are of intermediate skill, you should play in this level, why play in high stakes games against a table of semi-professionals if you aren’t in their league. Not all of us is a Chris Moneymaker, these kinds of players are few and far between.

Always be prepared… may be the Boy Scouts motto, but it applies to playing poker too. Poker is a game of strategy and skill and if you don’t know the rules of a particular game, or if you have something on your mind distracting you, don’t play.

Remember your money goes where your mind is! Study the rules of the games you are playing there are many variations of poker and each has its own winning strategy.

Tells are not only something you need to learn to read in your opponents, you may also be providing your opponents with tells of your own.

Don’t for a moment believe that playing online poker dismisses you from tells, there are many of these in online poker too. Don’t give away anything to your opponent and concentrate on your game, displaying tells will allow your opponents to know the kind of hand you hold.

Don’t be afraid to play, your opponents can smell fear from a mile away, don’t be too relaxed either, just be alert. Learn when aggressive play is required and how to go about this – find out as much as you can about aggressive and timid playing strategies.

Playing marathon sessions of poker may be good practice for the professional, but they are not good for the amateur. Take regular breaks, or limit the duration of your play so that you are still fresh enough to be able to look at your game at the end of it and break it down to see how you played.

Winning poker players always keep records of their games, to see how they can improve on them in future. Limiting play to specific timed sessions helps measure one session of play against another in terms of winning.