Anybody skilled (or lucky) enough to have made the recent final table in the monthly Ipad tournament knows all too well the pressure that can come with the blind bets as a poker tournament rolls on. For the people with shorter stacks of chips at a final table, a little bit of luck is a necessity for them to stay alive in the tournament while the players with taller stacks can play a more passive game and bear to lose a blind or two when the cards don’t fall their way.

Our friends at AintLuck.com recently put together a short list of three items that will help players deal with those increasing blind bets, as well as detailed descriptions of each topic.

• Look at your stack size
• Steal and re-steal
• Think about your own image

Basically the points involve knowing what kind of leverage and time you have to work with depending on your chip stack and how to keep yourself afloat when you’re not getting the best of cards dealt your way, all the while remaining conscious of your own image that you’re putting out to the other players at the table. Essentially, a lot of it comes down to playing within one mentality, and convincing the other players at the table that you’re much more confident in your cards than you might actually be to steal some blinds.

The article could do some good on certain particulars to keep fresh in your mind if you find yourself under the pressure of those increasing blind bets.

Check out the full piece here: http://www.aintluck.com/high-poker-tournament-blinds/

If you have made your way over to this very blog, chances are you’re also aware of Triplejack’s Facebook and Twitter communities as well. But the most involved, most in-depth gathering place that Triplejack has to offer can be found right on our own website!

Pop on into the Triplejack Forum here: http://www.triplejack.com/forum/

In the forums, you can find a myriad of topics. Here are some of the things you can expect to help you get further engaged within the Triplejack community.

• Announcements and updates on new features and perks within Triplejack
• Pointers from other players and users about how to make the most of Triplejack
• A dedicated sub-forum for introducing yourself and getting acquainted with your fellow poker players
• Poker tips and strategy from other players
• Whatever off-topic items you would like to talk about in the Pie Bombing sub-forum
• And much more!!!

A link to the forum can be found on the main page of Triplejack under the “Community” tab. You can also access the forum by clicking the link at the bottom of the main page. So what are you waiting for? Head over to the forums and start meeting some new people to play some poker with!

Because it’s been a while since the last bit of poker strategy, let’s share something simple, yet incredibly important to poker success: Discipline.

Discipline can go a long way in your poker game. Rather than try chasing down a prayer on the turn and the river cards, knowing when to fold a hand with slim chances can go a long way in keeping you alive in any game or tournament. (more…)

Undoubtedly, if you’ve played a fair amount of poker, you’ve also seen a fair amount of bad beats. You think you’ve got a hand won after the flop with something that only a miracle could keep from hauling in some more chips… Then that miracle happens.

Whether you’re the victim of such a bad beat, or you see the cards turned over at the end of a hand and realize how slim of a chance the winner had at that victory, it happens from time to time. They can’t really be predicted, it’s just how the cards fall. The closest that you can get to avoiding such a disaster is knowing what kind of odds are stacked against your own hand.

Eventually though, a bad beat is going to get to everyone if you play enough poker. Take this for example…

This video was part of a list of the top-10 poker bad beats that TV cameras were lucky enough to capture. If you can believe it, that video is only No. 10 on the list. For the amount of hands that are played on Triplejack, eventually you’re going to run into something like this. But don’t forget that for every bad beat to one player, another player gets to experience the thrill of a dramatic victory.

Check out the full list of bad beats here: http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article/top-10-televised-poker-bad-beats-200068

You may have noticed recently when you log in to Triplejack. It’s a small box hanging around just below the lobby where players can choose their game to play, sandwiched between there and the list of upcoming prize tournaments.

Go on, have a look!

What you see is the countdown until the next prize tournament on Triplejack will begin, giving players an easy place to see what their next big win could be! And as always, the list of other upcoming prize tournaments can still be seen just below this new feature. If the next prize up for grabs isn’t what you’re looking for, you can always set your sights on the next prize tournament on the list.

We wouldn’t want any players to go without knowing what prizes could be at stake for them, so we’ve made it easier to see what tournaments will soon be available to play.

Now get after it and win yourself something fancy!!

Have you ever logged onto Triplejack and aren’t able to find the kind of game you really want to play? Or maybe there’s a tournament going on that you want in on, but no more seats available. Did you know that you can take the control of all of this into your own hands?

Triplejack gives you the option to create your own games to play, as well as a myriad of options to customize the game to your liking.

First off, you can choose whether you want to play just a regular poker game or tournament play. Choosing a tournament gives you the option of playing a single table, multi table or a level up tournament.

Next you’re given the option to choose whether your game or tournament will be for chips or jacks. From there, the betting limits, style of poker and number of players per table can all be customized as well.

The ability to create your own game is just another part of what makes Triplejack poker a great place to play poker, mingle with people and even win some prizes. Oh, and it’s a whole lot of fun too!

Over at Aintluck.com they put together a short article about poker tournament strategy that had a few interesting points that work well with a few points of our own.

The article suggests keeping track of your tournament success over the course of a month, or even as long as three months in order to get a good feeling for what your overall success rate will be. Within the span of just a few days or a week, a whole lot of variables can come about that might make your results appear better or worse than they might actually be over a longer span of time to sample from.

Other things to keep track of:

• The size of tournaments you play, and your finishes in them
• The progression of hands that you either won or lost big
• Patterns in your own play
• Mistakes of other players you were able to take advantage of

Obviously there are plenty of other things, or subcategories of what is already mentioned, that could help you improve your play as well. Keeping the numbers on such a lengthy span of time might be tedious, but in the end will likely be worth it for the sake of coaching yourself up to be a better poker player. If nothing else, being able to assess your own play and recognize any holes will help you do better in patching those holes.

Not that you’d really need to if you’ve read this far, but if you still want to read the full piece from Aintluck.com, head over here: http://www.aintluck.com/long-term-poker-tournaments/

Have you ever been in a Triplejack room with a player who has way too much to say, loves to make random comments on every little thing, or is just annoying? Did you know that there’s something you can do about it?

If you want to block those messages in the chat window, or keep them from sending you any private messages, simply click their name under their avatar and click “Block Private Messages” to put that player on mute.

If you want to give them a second chance, you can always unblock them later on. Just know that you have the power to control what you have to listen to during your online poker experience!

A recent stop in Oklahoma on the World Series of Poker Circuit made for one heck of a feel good story. Abraham Araya was in a tough situation after his job as an airline flight mechanic was pulled out from under him due to his company’s bankruptcy.

Araya’s luck took a drastic turn for the better when he came out on top of 978 entrants in the Oklahoma WSOPC stop’s main event, taking home more than a quarter-million dollars in winnings. Not a bad rebound in the face of turmoil for him. To celebrate, Araya said a trip to Hawaii for he and his wife is in order, as well as a visit to Africa for his three children.

If nothing else, poker has given one man and his family a financial safety net to get them through to tough time between jobs.

For more on this story and the other players Araya squared off against in Oklahoma, read up here: http://newsok.com/jobless-poker-player-wins-big/article/3646629?custom_click=headlines_widget