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.

What else can I say mate? If you want to look slick when playing poker or have a tendency to fidget whilst playing poker then Chips Tricks are your saviour. Learn these and the women will be falling at your feet as men shoot you high fives across town. Well… probably not, but it does look cool! Here’s a quick video we threw together to get you started.

MobileInsider performing a Chip Twirl – Chip Trick Tutorial

Poker office 5 has been called the ultimate tool for the modern online poker player… It has some amazing features that can give players a huge advantage over their opponents . You can see what type of hands players are playing preflop/flop, how often they are folding to re raises, their mucked cards and much much more.You can even hunt fishes with the search feature, setting it to your preference with the search filters.

Poker Ofiice 5 has just been released and is avaliable for around £75.
http://www.pokeroffice.com/pokeroffice-5.html

It doesn’t work on all the sites and some have banned it completely claiming it’s giving an unfair advantage for the better players. Cake poker feels strongly this way and have a feature that lets you change your name once a week. So ultimately if you dont want to be hunted choose a site that does not allow the program.

Here’s a quick video from Cake Poker, Heads-up $25 just to give you some variation, since we will be covering a lot of cash games on the site.

Here is the second live poker session from our one and only Mobile Insider:

Once again feel free to leave your comments and suggestions on this page.

Previously we’ve mentioned on the site that we were planning on releasing a poker diary of our war stories. We decided that we were going to go one better and provide you with a full streaming video of Mobile Insider playing poker and commentating on his thoughts as he played.

Bare in mind that this is the very first video we have created of this sort and we are personally getting used to these ourselves so if the quality is a little off or there is something else that bothers you then please do leave a comment and we will do our best. These videos are for your benefit so we want to ensure that you are getting the most out of them.

With that in mind, here is our very first video:

Good Stuff hey? We like it, but as I mentioned we are open to suggestions.

I have one last question to propose to you:

If we were to release a product containing poker hints, tips and anaylsis and probably some great video  analysis what exactly would you be interested in finding out from us. What are the main things that would like to know. What secrets would you consider ‘priceless’? You can either leave a comment below or email us here.

There are a few common mistakes and tells that the experienced eye will pick up on during a game.

• Draws: Chasing straight and flush draws for the in correct price is a common mistake,  you need to be getting about just under 3 to 1 on your money on the flop to call for your flush draw and 5 to 1 on your money for a call on the turn  E.g on the flop if there is £9 in the pot and a player bets £3 you are getting the right odds to call, if there is £9 in the pot and someone bets £5 you are not priced in to call, and in the long run you will loose more money than you will win.Once you notice a player that will call big bets for draws, you can simply lure him in. Some players tend to bet small amounts to try and get a cheap card,instead of checking and having to call a bigger bet, a lot of players lose a lot of money by simply calling these small bets and letting them hit their draw very cheaply, the standard play would be to re raise about a pot sized bet, which will still entice a lot of bad players to call even though there getting terrible pot odds,but get rid of the good players if the turn comes a blank I would then bet about 1.5 – 2x the pot and take it down there and then.

• Check/Fold box: Players that check to you instantly have probably clicked on the check fold box, which means that they will fold to any bet, which is useful information if there are 3 players on the table and 1 check/folds checks to you, you know you can bet and only really have to worry about 1 player, thus increasing the chance of you taking the pot down by 50%

• Call: players also use the call check/call button in advance to, this is useful information to, If someone instantly calls regardless of the action before him, you can be pretty certain he has a monster hand, whereas check call could be used in advance for drawing hands.

• New players: I have noticed a lot of new players do this in my poker career. When new players are playing a live game, you often see their hands shaking, because of the adrenaline, more often than not in my experience I have seen people with shaky hands and then show down the nuts. It is not a myth, it is an easy tell but is not that common, but it does exist with certain new players, so keep an eye out.

• Over playing hands: On full handed tables ( 9-10 ) players you will often get players who will play pretty weak-average hands from early position. What i mean by this is a hand like J 10 , K J playing these kind of hands in late position on the table when there is only 1 or 2 people to act behind you is OK but playing them in early position is a bad move. There are several reasons for this, first of all a 10 handed game is very different to a 6 handed one, you’ve got extra 4 hands out there to compete with which means the value of hands will go down. If you limp in early position with J10 and everyone calls behind you and the last player to act raises a bit, you will probably be getting good pot odds because of the amount in the pot, so you will probably call and so will the the rest of the table for the pot odds, this has achieved nothing for your hand, you have put more money in the pot than you originally intended and all the players are still in.Secondly, you will be first to act after the flop which is bad news because everyone is still to act behind you, Even if the flop came J 2 3 , you wouldn’t know where you stood because there are so many people in the pot, the last person to act pre flop might have called the small raise  with 2 3 because he was getting 10 to 1 on his money… If you bet out with top pair weak kicker, and you get a raise behind you, you might find yourself getting tangled up, or even getting pot committed where you have to call off the rest of your chips because you’ve already got so much in there. A Lot of weak players tend to fall into this trap and over play average hands from early position, Position is one of the most important words in the poker world, position is power.You will get some players that are used to playing short handed games, but fancied playing a full table, and are still playing short handed style, quite loose.If you find these kind of players at your tables you want to make it expensive for them so hit their weak hands when you’ve got the goods.and on the flip side if you have a monster you can trap them by checking to them hoping they overplay their hand when they hit their mediocre hand.

• Playing too tight/Aggressive: This is a common occurrence, you will get players that will play hardly any hands or play every single 1, its pretty simple to play these people, If you have a super tight player you should be trying to steal his blinds whenever you can, and if he raises you only want to be calling with a premium hand, just stay out of his way if you’ve got a mediocre hand, you’re probably out kicked. If you find yourself playing an aggressive player, you generally want to be trapping him and letting him do the betting for you, I would check to him a lot with  good hands, but occasionally do some raising to regardless of the hand, so  that he doesn’t know that you’re always check your monster hands to him.

• Playing with scared money: This is a tragic mistake to make, If you buy in above your comfort zone and are scared to loose the money, then the odds are against you, you will be less inclined to put money in the pot and gradually get chipped away. NEVER make this mistake.

You’re new to the game and spoilt for choice. You know the basic rules but don’t know where to start your voyage. To start off I would choose a poker site with little traffic such as Cake Poker, Interpoker, or Fatbet,. Read reviews online and find yourself one that would best suit your needs.  Sites with lots of players such as Pokerstars tend to be tougher competition.

So once you have found your site and you’ve got an account, now you need to set up a rake back account so you can get some money back each month, go to http://www.raketherake.com for an account.

I would start off on the micro cash games 00.1 /00.2  00.5/ 0.10. Most importantly, you need to have good bankroll management, learning the ropes can be expensive, and you might think you can jump up a few levels a bit to quickly. I would also recommend playing a few sit n go’s 6 or 9 player, again small stakes $1 or $2 etc. Play a few 1 on 1s or heads up too, as it is a completely different game and will give you good practice for when you get heads up in a 6 or 9 player sit n go.

Many sites offer guaranteed tournaments with a certain amount in the prize pool, some very cheap buy ins, again $1 or $2, you should play at least a couple of these a month, to get used to a large field. They can be great value for money, there are also many freerolls available on many sites.

Once you have found your favorite style of game you can concentrate on that but not forgetting to play other styles occasionally to keep on top of your game.

Buy books, watch poker on TV, visit www.PokerTube.com, do all you can to get information about the game, you can never stop learning. Also have a look for your nearest casino/cardroom and see how you play live. Some people play strictly only live poker, and some online professionals have never even played in a live tournament!

There is only so much you can learn by reading peoples books and watching poker on the TV. The rest you must discover for yourself, you are your own teacher and student.

I keep notes on every session I have;  starting stack, buy in, hours played, total profit, profit per hour, and notes on people in key hands. It seems a bit of a task sometimes but its definitely worth it,there are sometimes where I’d be having a rough day and I would read through my notes and see that I’ve played well all month. I’ve been calling big bluffs, re-raising super aggressive players with 6 high and getting paid, and it would make me feel better, give me more confidence just reading it.

I have a list of all players that I like to see at the table. Easy money list and players I’m not so keen on seeing for whatever reason.  If you feel like you are outclassed at a table you should simply leave, forget the Ego and look after your wallet, what are you here for? To feel manly or to make money? I’d rather feel like a man off the tables with their money, where that whole society thing is…

You should always anazlyze every session, dont just make notes for the sake of it. You have to actually digest the information, did I play that hand badly? Did I Price him in for his flush draw? Why is he calling every preflop raise? What cards does he play under the gun? Is he really attached to suited connectors?  Poker is a game of questions, questions get information, and more information wins more money, you should always be making notes or mental notes on peoples play. Professional poker player, Gus Hansen, takes his hand held voice recorder to every live session, and makes notes on people in Danish, I love this idea.