Several months back, American poker player Steve O’Dwyer packed up and took his talents across the pond to start over with his poker playing career in Europe. The results thus far are rather impressive, as well as making for a pretty neat story.

Since moving, O’Dwyer has racked up ten separate top-10 finishes playing in various poker circuits. Among those finishes was a win in the Epic Poker Tour Loutraki Pot Limit Omaha Rebuy, and a trio of second-place finishes from October to December alone. Two of those runner-up finishes came in the Main Event tournaments of the tour stops where O’Dwyer was competing.

While this move was a bold one in order for O’Dwyer to pursue his poker game as he saw fit both in live play and online, in this case it appears to have paid off. And because of this, many are wondering if he’ll be bringing his game back to the states for this summer’s World Series of Poker. Fans will have to wait and see on that one, but still, this has made for a cool story of one of America’s own heading to foreign territory and finding some tremendous success.

To read more on O’Dwyer’s foreign fury, as well as details on where his top-10 finishes have come, head here: http://www.epicpoker.com/news/blog-pages/2012/03/steve-odwyer-conquering-europe.aspx

One of the stand-out aspects of Triplejack poker is the social side of things. Good friends getting together to play for the fun of it is a beautiful thing. But once in a while, you might want leave the keyboards and internet connections out of things for a night and play a good old fashioned game of poker at home. Before doing that though, there are several things that you should make sure of in order to see that things go down smoothly.

The following is an excerpt from an article found on Yahoo! Sports. Have a look.
__________
Planning a Home Poker Game Part One

Getting together with friends and family to play a friendly home poker game is a fun way to spend an afternoon or evening. Most everyone knows how to play some type of poker and many people enjoy the challenge of the game. The best part about hosting a poker game is the fact that it does not really require many things and with just a little planning, it can be accomplished.

When to Start Planning

Start planning your home poker game a week or two ahead of time just to give your guests plenty of time to add your game to their schedules. If you are going to purchase any items that are going to be shipped, begin planning a month or more before the date. Find out how long it will take your poker party items to arrive and then make your plans accordingly.

Home Poker Game List of Things Needed

You don’t have to spend a lot of money when planning your home poker game, unless you want to. The two basic things you need are a deck of playing cards and a place to play the game, such as a dining room table or even a large coffee table. If you want to use a real poker table you can purchase a complete table or just the layout from numerous online sources, but you really don’t need this added expense. You may consider buying a poker layout or table, if you plan to have many home poker games and/or have the required finances for such a purchase. The prices range from under $10 for a felt layout that you place over a table, up to several hundreds of dollars for a complete poker table.
__________

To read the remainder of this article, head here: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ycn-11195346

It’s only fitting that we talk about tournament strategy as the month winds down and the biggest prize tournament on Triplejack rolls around once again.

With poker being as mentally intensive of a game as it is, there are all sorts of factors that run through the minds of poker players during a lengthy tournament.

“What are my odds with these pocket cards?”
“What does that guy have to finally bet big like that before the flop?”
“Do I have something worth playing to the turn with?”
“Is this chair wobbly?”
“What’s the score of that baseball game?”
“He raised me how much???”
“What does he have that could beat my hand?”
“Is he chasing a flush on the river and hoping to be rid of me by then?”
“How many chips do I have?”
“Where am I going to eat today?”
“When am I going to eat today?”

And so on…

It’s not unnatural at all for the human mind to wander around a bit during things such as poker that require a long attention span. This gets especially challenging in tournament play, but can also show its effects during length cash games as well.

Our friends over at PokerListings.com have put together a list of five rules to abide by that can save your online poker bankroll. Some of them are things you might not usually think of, but valuable nonetheless.

Have a look at the list here: http://www.pokerlistings.com/strategy/five-rules-to-save-your-online-roll

When poker tournaments with big prizes at stake (like an Ipad maybe) are getting thinner in players and deeper in chip stacks, every win is a big one. Along with that though, every risk carries immense weight as well, making the timing of everything that much more important.

It’s not too uncommon to see a handful of players still playing cards late in a tournament who got there from a couple risky moves and loose plays paying off in a big way for them. They caught some cards, had luck on their side, and now chances are that they are going to stick to the style of play that got them there.

Enter the squeeze play.

Read More »

Sometimes the cards just aren’t falling your way, which can make the excitement of some royalty showing up in your pocket hand that much more exciting. You’ve been treading water and blind bets throughout a tournament as sub par cards came your way, now with an ace-king in hand, you want to make your big move, right?

But slow down there turbo. There’s other factors in play that you should take a second and consider before calling any bet thrown out there. First, you should consider whether or not your A-K is suited. If so, your risk goes down a bit, and you’ll have a much better idea of where you stand after the flop. If you’re not sporting a suited hand though, much more consideration should be taken into the other players betting at the table.

If they’ve been conservative all tournament but have finally bet big, chances are they have at least some kind of pair in their hand already, which leaves you hoping for another ace or king in the community. All the while, you’d better hope they don’t catch another card to give them three of a kind. Also don’t discount the chance that they might have their own pair of aces or kings in their hand already, which essentially erases any chance you have at beating their hand by pairing up one of your cards.

Now, this isn’t to say that paying your way to the flop with ace-king is a bad move, because it’s not. With cards that high, you’re looking at a pretty good opportunity to put together a very good hand. It can be misleading at times though, and it’s not always as glamorous as it might seem. Take a close look at the rest of the table to see what kind of business the other players are up to before letting the excitement trump a level-headed poker play.

To read a bit more on how to handle ace-king, check out this bit from AintLuck.com: http://www.aintluck.com/playing-ak-poker-tournaments/

If you’re been coming around to Triplejack for a while now, you’ve probably noticed how we’re always updating things and adding new features to make Triplejack’s online poker experience the best on the web.

One of the newest features we’ve recently added is the ability to add pictures into chat. Whether it’s one of the preloaded options we have available, or a photo you would like to upload and share with friends, now you can add some visual flare to the chats on Triplejack. To do so, open the “Community” tab at the top of the page and select the “Insert picture into chat” option from the drop-down menu.

From there, just keep on having fun, keep on playing poker, and keep on having some good times with good friends!

This year’s World Series of Poker will be adding another event to its festivities, this time with more money at stake than any other Main Event tournament has ever offered. The new event is being called the “Big One for One Drop,” with proceeds from every entry going to benefit the One Drop charity that aims at providing safe and clean water throughout the world.

While it might not seem like too many people will be banging down the door to enter a tournament with buy-in that is 100 times the amount as the Main Event, so far there are already 30 confirmed entries to the Big One for One Drop. As it stands, the winning prize would be more than $12 million, which really might not be a huge get for anybody who can fork over a cool million to play poker, but it’s the charitable work that really counts.

Then entrants are currently a decent mix of businessmen, high-ranking CEO types and poker professionals such as Gus Hansen, Johnny Chan and Daniel Negreanu. And the list looks like it will continue to grow, and in turn grows the final prize, which looks to surely beat the $12 million prize that 2006 Main Event champion Jamie Gold took home.

To read more on this tournament for a cause, check out this article for more details: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/story/2012-04-12/WSOP-Record-Pot-Million-Dollar-Buy-in/54206940/1