Carbon Poker runs one of the best multi-table tournament promotions for online poker players in the industry. Every month the poker room hosts a monthly Tourney King leaderboard promotion where everyone will have a chance to win cash. Carbon Poker will track your monthly MTT play and if you finish in the top 250 on one of the two leaderboards you’ll earn a seat in the monthly Tourney King tournament.
Each month Carbon Poker tracks two leaderboards for low limit players and high limit players. If you play a variety of MTT’s you can earn a seat in both of the monthly Tourney King tournaments if you finish in the top 250 on both leaderboards. The 1st leaderboard for low limit players is for MTT’s with a buy-in of $0 – $19.99 while the high limit leaderboard is for MTT’s with a buy-in of $20+. The leaderboards are tracked by Carbon Poker every month and you can see how you’re doing by viewing the leaderboard.
If you finish in the top 250 on either leaderboard you’ll receive entry into the Grand Final that month for your level. The Grand Final is where players will have a chance to win their share of the $20,000 up for grabs every month in the Tourney King Promotion. Each player won’t start with the same amount of chips in the Grand Final. The amount of chips you start with in the Grand Final is based on how many points you earned on the leaderboard in the given month.
The 1st place prize in the Grand Final for high limit players is $3000 while the low limit monthly tourney king will walk away with a cash prize of $1500. The cash is deposited directly into your Carbon Poker account after the tournament and there are no rollover requirements that need to be met on the money you win in this promotion. The top 50 players out of the 250 players that get to play in each Grand Final will win a prize, which means you have a 20% chance of winning a prize once you make the Grand Final.
Most poker room don’t have promotions for MTT players other than the few really big poker rooms. CarbonPoker.ag is a great online poker site to play multi-table poker tournaments and this promotion is icing on the cake. The leaderboards are updated on the Carbon Poker site daily, which will give you an idea of how many leaderboard points you’ll need to earn to crack the top 250 players each month.
The great thing about the way the leaderboard points are calculated is that volume doesn’t necessarily mean everything. If you win a big MTT you’re going to earn a lot of leaderboard points for that single victory. Volume will obviously help your chances, but it only takes a couple deep runs in big MTT’s at Carbon Poker every month to crack the top 250 players.
Mobile poker is just one of the games that can play from your cell phone. The majority of mobile gambling sites are for online casino players. In the past year or so, a lot of the more popular online casinos have created software for you to play casino games from you smartphone and mobile devices.
As you might guess, the majority of these casinos cannot be played by people who live in the United States. This is because of the same rules that have prevented a lot of people from playing poker online. The mobile gambling apps are primarily going to be available to people in the UK, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Here are a few of the best mobile casinos that you will find:
32Red: They offer a £50 instant bonus for new mobile players! 32Red uses Microgaming software. Microgaming has created the Spin 3 mobile casino software.
This software is used by all mobile casinos that use Microgaming. There are currently 20 different mobile games that are offered.
This includes about half mobile slots and the other half are table and parlor games like blackjack, video poker, roulette and keno. If you make a deposit of £50 or more through your iPhone or other mobile, you will receive a £50 instant bonus to play these mobile games.
mFortune: This mobile casino is mostly for players in the UK. You must sign up from your mobile in order to play these games. mFortune has created their own proprietary mobile games. There is currently 10 mobile games offered and you can see some of these below:
You can see that they offer a Texas Hold’em Poker game. This is a real mobile poker game that is offered. You can play for free or real money and there are no robot players, only real players. You can also set up a private table to play with your friends.
In addition to that, you can try 5 different slots and fruit machines and a “Sexy Poker” video poker game. There is also a mobile bingo room that is offered with several different bingo rooms that you can play at.
Slotland: Hey USA mobile fans! Did you know that this is your only mobile games option right now? You can choose from a selection of 6 different mobile games.
2 of these games are video poker and and 4 of these games are slots. The 2 video poker games are Striking 7s and Jacks or Better. The 4 slots games are Golden 8, Lucky Stars, Treasure Box and Booster.
It’s been a while since I’ve actually been able to do an update on mobile poker. There really hasn’t been much around that has impressed me in the past year. Of course, online poker regressed this past year as the largest consumer of mobiles – the United States – decided to crack down on online poker players.
There have been a couple of sites that have offered mobile poker tables, but they weren’t that popular and didn’t really have very good mobile software. But, I have found a pair of mobile sites that have develop a pretty decent mobile poker game. Please note that neither of the following mobile poker sites will accept players from the United States:
Switch Poker
Switch Poker is the home of online poker to all iPad, iPod and iPhone users. The mobile software that is offered at Switch Poker is currently only compatible with Apple mobile devices.
Switch Poker offers real money poker tables with a maximum of 6 players at a table. These table are currently only for head-to-head poker ring games, however there are plans to expand this and introduce Sit’n'Gos tables and Multi-table tournaments in the future.
Currently, you can play rings games with stakes ranging from 1¢/2¢ up to $5/$10. If you would like to try them out, you can sign up and go to the play chip tables. If you would like to learn more, take a look at this Switch Poker review.
Terminal Poker
Terminal Poker is available for anyone who has a mobile smartphone. It is not limited to Apple products like Switch poker. This means Terminal Poker should be your choice if you use an Android or Blackberry. However, you can also play at Terminal poker if you do have an iPhone, etc.
The mobile poker software was designed to only allow a maximum of 5 players at a table. There are lots of options available with the mobile software including Hand History. Terminal Poker offers an hourly freeroll tournament.
You can also get a bonus at Terminal Poker. The bonus is a 200% match up to $400. Like most poker bonuses, the money is not received upfront but is earned by playing at the poker tables. You will earn points by contributing money toward the rake.
Future of Mobile Poker
As soon as the United States legalizes online poker, you will see an explosion of mobile poker apps and online poker sites that offer mobile poker rooms. Until then, mobile poker is going to be remain a niche.
Most serious poker players that I know will continue to be playing poker from their computer. This is because they can open up 4 tables at once and play at a frantic speed. Mobile poker is going to be more for the people who are on the go, but still want to have fun playing for small stakes at a single poker table.
Still, if mobile poker became more popular and accepted as a media, a lot of the poker pros would simply log in and play a quick cash game while they are out and about or waiting in line for something.
If you are in a game of Texas hold em Poker and you are dealt pocket jacks what do you do? You can open up the pot with a raise and then you can raise again, when it is your call to.
If you are in the middle position and have pocket jacks then you need to raise. You may get called by another player. There are other scenarios that give you the opportunity to play pocket jacks.
You need to play pocket jacks according to the position you are currently in. Most of the time, you will raise the bet when you have one. You want to get to play the flop with only one or two players playing against you at the most.
In the early position, without any raises, you can make a strong raise. The amount you raise will depend on how the game is going. The main objective is to limit your field to one or two opponents.
If the pot has been raised up then you can raise the amount even higher if necessary. Only if there is an opening though.
If you are in the middle position, you will be able to raise if no one else has raised. You want to discourage weak handed players to play and raising the bet will only cause them to fold.
If you are in the late position and if the pot is not raised and there are only a few players left, you may be able to raise the bet but reduce the size of that bet. Make sure that you limit the amount of room you leave the other Poker players when you raise the bet even more. You want to flop against just one opponent and not several.
Now that it is time to play the flop with your two pair of jacks, you will probably enter the flop with a very strong hand. Keep in mind that you probably won’t be able to improve your hand though.
You want to avoid flopping an ace, king, or queen if you have a pocket jack. Instead you need to get everyone worried by doing a continuation bet. This will either make the other guy fold or they too will see your bet. If any of the other players do not fold but continue on the game then you may want to go ahead and fold because the chances are, they hold a winning hand.
Flopping the under cards is a common flop and if you are holding pocket jacks it is a good idea. If you have an overpair you may be holding a great hand. You will be able to bet strong in order to profit from the hand.
Flopping a set is a big deal when you hold pocket jacks. You could win a large pot in the end. You still need to proceed with caution by betting out though.
When playing pocket jacks you only have two outs. When the pot is raised during a turn or river you need to fold.
Well this really blows. I thought we were making progress towards the legalization of online poker and getting the natural jump that the game would take to all of the mobile smart phone platforms. As I have said before, there isn’t much to report on the mobile poker front. Now with the US government sticking their greedy hands into the fold, I can almost kiss this site goodbye.
But, if I can’t speculate about the next craze in online poker, I can subvert their will and show you the places that still offer online poker to Americans.
As of right now, most American poker players were completely shocked on Friday, April 15 when the federal government went after and shut down operations in the US for four of the largest online poker rooms: Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.
To tell you the truth, I’ve never played at either Absolute or UB because I’ve heard some shady things in the past about cracks in their poker software. Specifically, I remember a story that showed that players could see the cards for one of the two sites. Anyways, they are both owned by the same group and I never played at either poker room.
I did play at both Full Tilt and PokerStars, but for the past 10 months or so I had been favoring PokerStars and their Home Games network. Well, not anymore … at least for now.
Still want to play online poker in the US?
There are still online poker networks that offer services to U.S. based clientele. First and foremost is the Cake Poker network, which I have promoted recently as the only viable mobile poker website in this article.
You can also obviously play at Cake Poker without using a Windows Mobile device, just like any other online poker room. Cake Poker. The software may appear a little different then you are used to, but it doesn’t take long to master.
Other Poker Networks
There are a couple of other poker networks that are still alive and kicking. This includes one of the new largest poker rooms for US players – Bovada Poker. Being the new largest US poker room isn’t saying that much right now, as all the casual fans of online poker have stopped playing.
On average, there will be between 500 and 1000 real money players at Bovada’s Poker rooms at any one time. This very well may increase substantially as Full Tilt and PokerStars refugees start to look for other places to play.
Also, you will find the Merge Poker network is still alive and well. The largest online poker room under the Merge network is called Carbon Poker.
Again, currently these poker rooms are rather small in numbers. Carbon is currently averaging between 300 and 800 real money players at a given time. Like Bovada, I expect this number to increase in the coming weeks and months. Carbon also has side games that you can play while you are in one of the poker rooms.
Lastly (for now), there is the Yatahay Poker Network. The largest poker room in this network is Doyle’s Room, which is based off of the legendary poker player Doyle Brunson. If you would like more information about Doyle’s Room – click here.
Are you looking to play online poker on your mobile phone? Now that Aces Royal is gone, there aren’t too many options for playing mobile poker in the United States. Don’t despair, mobile poker will be back as online poker gains more legitimacy.
There is still at least one option for you. Cake Poker has recently launched its own mobile poker room. There is only one catch; you need to own a Windows Mobile device in order to install Cake Poker Mobile on your phone.
Installing the application is easy – All you have to do is enter http://mobile.cakepoker.com/m into your web browser. Then, click on the download link and click Yes/Confirm at each of the prompts.
In the future, Cake Poker plans to have support for Blackberry and Symbian devices as well as mobile poker tournaments.
For those of you who don’t have a Windows Mobile phone, I will keep my ears open for you. If you are from the UK, you can also play mobile poker at Red Kings. Unfortunately, Red Kings Poker does not allow players from the US.
If you would like to find the latest online poker news, including any breaking news on mobile poker, I would suggest you visit what I would consider to be the best poker blog.
About Cake Poker
Cake Poker was founded in 2004 by a small team of passionate poker players that set out to design a better poker site for all types of players.
Cake Poker have slowly risen up the poker chain to become one of the most prestigious room’s in the online poker industry offering some of the best promotions and tournaments available to date.
Sign Up Bonus
Sign up at Cake Poker now and make your first deposit and you will receive a 110% match bonus up to $600.
The sign up bonus is released in $5 increments for every 83.33 FPP’s earned and you will have a maximum of 90 days from the date of your first deposit to earn the bonus before it expires.
Promotions
A Great selection of promotion and Hugh guarantee’s are always on offer at Cake Poker, some of the biggest and most prestigious ones are the $200k guaranteed and the $150,000 Point’s Race.
Others promotions include the Gold Stacks Cash Grab, $50,000 Rake Race, Freeroll into Millions, Gold Chip Tournament, Refer a Friend Bonus, Flexible WSOP* Prize Packs and the Daily Lottery.
Tournaments
The Multi-Table Tournaments and Sit & Go’s are frequently running at so you can always find a good game to play no matter the time of day.
The buy in’s start from $25c and go up to $5,500 and you can play them all in regular, speed and rebuy. There are loads of satellites and they host gold card freerolls.
Game Variety
There is a decent selection of games to play, see the list below to see what’s available:
NL Texas Hold’em – Stakes: ($2c/$4c to $500/$1000)
PL Texas Hold’em – Stakes: ($5c/$10c to $25c/$50c)
FL Texas Hold’em – Stakes: ($2c/$4c to $100/$200)
PL Omaha – Stakes: ($2c/$4c to $500/$1000)
NL Omaha Hi/Low – Stakes: ($2c/$4c to $10/$20)
PL Omaha Hi/Low – Stakes: ($2c/$4c to $25/$50)
FL Omaha Hi/Low – Stakes: ($5c/$10c to $30/$60)
* NL – No Limit, PL – Pot Limit, FL – Fixed Limit
They also have 7 Card Stud and 7 Card Stud Hi/Low but these games are yet to become available in the lobby.
Traffic
Cake Poker is an independent poker room and they average around 1700 – 6000+ online players during peak hours. As with any poker room, most of the percentage will be playing multi table tournaments and Sit & Go’s. In terms of traffic it’s mostly on the low to mid stakes games or play money so you won’t find much high stakes action.
Competition
In the low to mid stakes cash games and tournaments players are very loose/aggressive with flop percentages reaching in the 60’s or higher. Since most of the games here are played on the low to mid stakes you can expect to find loads of armatures. Although high stakes games can be tougher, you’ll still find the competition very soft.
Software
The current software used by Cake Poker is a bit tatty and the game play isn’t the best but they are soon to rollout the new 2.0 version of Cake Poker. The lobby is easy to navigate so you’ll have no problems finding a game, in game play is good and you have all the usual features like player chat notes and hand history.
Loyalty Rewards
Every player gets rewarded with FPP’s every time they play at Cake Poker. In cash ring games you are awarded 1FPP for every $1 paid in rake and for tournaments you receive 7 FPP for every $1 in entry fees. FPP’s can be used to buy into tournaments and they also have a shop where you can purchase merchandise.
Support
Cake Poker currently only have email, the support team is surprisingly fast considering they only offer email support, response times are good and you can expect to receive a reply with-in the hour. There’s also a handy FAQ page to help you find all the common answers to your questions quicker.
Deposit & Cash out Methods
Deposit: Visa / MasterCard credit, debit or check card, Entropay, Moneybookers, ClickandBuy, WebMoney, ECO, Ukash, Paysafecard and Online Bank Transfer.
Cash Out: Neteller, Moneybookers, ClickandBuy, WebMoney, ECO and Check.
Every poker player knows that most of the essential decisions in a game of Texas Hold’em happen before the flop. Players make their strategies and calculate their odds before they go for the flop and these strategies and the element of luck are the two things that decide the fate of the game. Lets look at 6 six tips that can make your winning chances better.
- Choose the table with least number of players: The more the number of players, the more the chances of one of your opponents having a better hand than the one you have. This means that the more the number of players on the table, the harder it is to win a game. So choose the table with the least number of players if you are looking for long-term gains.
- What are you opponents thinking: When you are up against other players it is important to know what are their strategies. Every step they take can take some of your chip stack away from you. So keep observing what everyone on the table is doing and try to infer their strategies.
- What’s the size of your chip stack: It is very important to consider the size of your chip stack before you decide your strategy. If you have enough cash to take the risks, then play the good hands and try to pull more in. Also, if you have very less budget, then it is sensible to keep your play tight and take the risks only at the later stages of the game.
- Whats your place on the table: You may be sitting very close to the dealer on his left or on the extreme right to him. This really makes the difference because the farther you are, the more your influence on the size of the pot is. The farther you are, the more players make their moves before you do and this makes decision making much easier. So, you can play your hands with more confidence as you get an idea of the strengths of other players.
- Don’t chase the bad cards: In Texas Hold’em it is essential to know which you cards you should bet on and which you should avoid. If you don’t make right decisions of this, you will definitely become short of chips very soon in the game. Learn from your experiences and read to gain more knowledge about the choices that can be better for you.
- Long term gains: Always play with the term gains in mind. Poker is a game based on luck to be frank and your being a master of strategies in no way assures your victory in each and every game. So if you see that you are not going to win in a game, leave it and go to another table. Don’t take too many rash risks for winning lost games. The long-term gains matter not only because you can’t alter luck, but also because they give you a chance to win more in lesser time.
The reason for the immense popularity of Texas Hold’em poker is the complexity and wide range of unique situations that this game provides. The excitement of a different outcome at the end of every game is loved by poker enthusiasts. The inclusion of luck and the fact that people are sharing the same cards in a no limit game (most of the time) makes any person who knows this game feel like they can win.
Many people give up on playing poker though. It’s not a skill that automatically wins you a lot of money at first. In order to truly understand the game as you should, you need to play tens of thousands of hands. Its hard to enjoy this game when your not winning. In order to win at all, you must know some general tips on playing Texas Holdem, such the ones given below:
- Tight at the Start: The beginning and even the middle of the game are parts where you should prefer playing tight. Let to loose players play bad cards and take advantage of them for that, if you want to. But control your moves and keep you intentions and hand less obvious to your opponents.
Now this doesn’t mean that you are so tight that you don’t play anything but great cards, because that won’t win you any money. You are going to want to take advantage of your position during the hand in order to get cheap pots that you can easily get lucky and take down a big pot or just as easily throw your cards away when someone bets.
- Pressurize: Making the right decisions is the most important part of Texas Hold’em. Pressurize the weaker players with your aggression so that they are forced into making the wrong choices. When you are being aggressive, play cards which are sensibly strong, otherwise the tables may well get turned on you.
This always has its limitations. In order to do this right, you must be able to classify your opponent’s game. If they are someone who only throws around money when they got something, don’t go up against them unless you are pretty sure that you still have them beat. Sometimes putting a modest raise out for these people is a great way to get anyone to expose the strength of their hand.
- Don’t trust the bad cards: Don’t go around risking your odds on weak hands. These hands can win, there is no denying that but the chances of that happening are less and so there is no use doing too much of that. It will only cost you your chips most of the time.
This is an easy one, especially if your in an early position. If you don’t have at least a pair of 7′s or an Ace-10 or similar, you have to fold. Just because you have suited connectors means that 4 out of 5 times your throwing your money away because the flop won’t hit you. Late positions have more flexibility when it comes to starting hands. If everyone else folds, it’s likely that the others will think that some good hand has to be out there.
- Observe: Don’t just keep looking at your hand. Look beyond your cards, onto the hands and into the eyes of other players. Poker or for that matter any game, can be won only when you know what your opponent is up to. You should try to infer the strategies of other players from their moves.
When it comes to mobile poker or online poker in general, there are other queues you can take from people. The biggest one is how fast they make their decisions. One that gives some people away is that it takes a couple of seconds for new players to realize how to make a non-standard raise. If you see that someone took a couple of seconds getting a $350 raise on a $100 big blind, they might have known what they wanted to bet but had difficulty getting the bet in. This is a sure sign of strength in these cases.
Also, watch for people to deliberately take a long time or no time at all to check, call or raise. These people are trying to hide something or trying to be sneaky/savvy. Classifying who your opponents are is crucial to avoid the big losses that general take you out of a tournament.
- Be wise with bluffing: “Bluffing is not as easy as it seems”, you might have heard this many a times before and probably think that it is not so. But take this point seriously. Bluffing like fool will do no more than give your strategy away. If you go on making faces and trying to fake your intentions in an obvious way, you will loose more than you can anticipate. Other players, read tips on blogs like this too. They know that you are going to try to bluff. So try to do it only when you think your opponent won’t expect it and you are confident about pulling it off.
- Act normal: If you start to get a feel that the ship is sinking, don’t act as if it is or else your opponents will drill a few more holes in it. Act normal no matter how bad a hand you get. Try to hide your situation and your intentions.
As far as online, the best way to do this is by developing a pattern to your betting. I know that people think that patterns are bad in poker, but they are a great way to Mohamed Ali rope-a-dope someone into thinking they know how you play. If you pop people unexpectedly a couple of times, they will be much more wary of coming after you.
- Don’t show your cards: Ever! You don’t want people to pick up any unnecessary information, especially online where you’re just another person from somewhere that no one really knows or cares about.
It’s one thing to do this with your buddies, because most of the time it’s a relaxed atmosphere and the familiarity with the players means everyone should have a good idea of what is going on. Online, there are professional online players that are trained to find your weaknesses and you don’t want them to know anything except what they see on the screen.
- Vary your game play: You don’t know it, but people on the table and off it are observing you. If you are a good player and if you are a regular, they probably expect to be up against you soon. So they want to take notes of your playing style. So make sure you have enough surprises up your sleeve to make prediction difficult.
- Take notes yourself: I just told you that others are taking notes on you. They are doing it because it’s a good thing to do and so you better start doing it yourself.
- I CAN WIN: The last and the most important thing is confidence. You have to have a winning attitude throughout the game. No matter how bad the situation gets, you have to keep the gains in mind and work towards them.
Do these things and you can watch how your games starts to improve. This of course is always tempered by being able to control yourself when you are losing or have loss a big hand. If you can successfully say to yourself, “those chips are gone but I still have these chips to play with” and don’t try to double up really quickly to make up for things. Patience is the key for this. Easy to say, very hard to do while your in the moment.
Just remember, no online poker website is ever going to do anything to make the games unfair for anyone. They simply don’t make the money from you winning or losing. All they care about is the rake that they get and the fees for their tournaments. I don’t care if it was a one card pull or runner-runner to beat you, it is fair and it does happen so let it go. Do that and you will save yourself money and aggravation.
It’s finally been announced that the Cake Poker room will be going mobile. Currently the game is under beta testing and can only be played on a Windows Mobile® device. They have plans however to release the poker room across several other platforms once they are out of the testing phase.
If your phone is compatible you can head over to mobile.cakepoker.com to check out the new software. They are even offering a $5 reward for people that help to test. You may want to wait until the first official release however as there is no guarantee that the software will be without bugs at this stage. We will announce on this blog as soon as we have word of the official launch date.
You will be able to play with the same real money rules promotions that apply to the online version but can only load up money via your computer as of now. For more information you can check out the official Cake Poker Mobile FAQ page.
I have been playing poker for about 4 years now and have been doing it professionally for about 8 months, it has its ups and downs as you can imagine.
It all started when I moved to Spain last year. During my time there I broke my ankle, lost my job and in turn couldn’t afford my rent. I loaded money onto my poker account and put some hours in at the local wireless cafe, it kept me alive.
After a few months I realised I was making 3 times more than I was getting for job, so it wasn’t a conscious decision. Now I’m back in the UK I’ve had 3 jobs since. Every time I come back to poker because I keep getting more money playing poker part time than working. Eventually I just made it full time.
Iv had a couple of bad times during my 8 months, all of them being self inflicted, playing with a hangover, too tired, calling to many coin flips,etc…
Most of the time being put down to lack of discipline, I realised this and sorted it out.
I exercise before a session, eat good food, and only start playing once I feel fresh. It’s very tempting to play a few hands after you’ve been on a night out and had a few drinks, fighting this urge is harder for me than actually making the money. I normally play 7 days a week, but I work 6 if I plan to go out on the weekend so I don’t play with a hangover the next day.
Playing poker for a living has its pros and cons. You get as much freedom as you want, you chose you own hours and days, and you can pretty much play anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Not many people have this amount of freedom and can still make money, so I make the most of it, I like to travel a lot. I’m moving to Thailand for a while soon.
You can get sucked in If you play too much poker. I like to play a lot of poker, about 60-70 hours a week. I get out a lot too. Its important to have a balanced lifestyle, otherwise you wont truly appreciate it.
I’m actually looking for a part time job, not for the money but just for the social aspect and to get out a bit more such as a bar job.
My advice for people planning to turning pro is dont gve up the dayjob until you have consistantly earned more playing poker for a long period of time, even then nothing is guaranteed, enjoy it whilst you can.
