Posted on November 14th, 2008 — in Fun Stuff, Gambling World, Gaming World
In pokeren, the one who walks with the most money is the winner. It’s not the person who wins all the pots. There’s a great deal of excitement in taking in a pot, whether it’s big or small. It reminds you that winning is within reach, that you’re capable of beating those around you, that your chip stack is being bolstered. It’s a great little confidence booster, especially when you haven’t won for a while.
The problem that can arise is when you’re more focused at the poker en ligne> table on winning pots than you are in winning money. It can be easy to lose sight in your goal and start buying up a bunch of blinds just for the ego boost. Not that there’s anything wrong with buying up a bunch of blinds when no one’s betting on them, in fact that’s a great idea. The problem arises when you start playing mediocre hands in a misguided attempt to buy up a bunch of small pots.
It gets dangerous when you start playing middle pairs against reckless players who start to throw money in the pot whenever you raise. It’s easy to get caught up in buying the small pots, but don’t risk you’re stack buying a ton of $3 pots-save the good stuff for when there’s real online poker money on the line.
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Posted on September 29th, 2008 — in Fun Stuff, Gambling World, Gaming World
You hear it a lot, it’s better to be an aggressive online poker player than to be passive. In other words, you don’t want to be labeled as a “calling station,” a “rock,” a “fish,” or a poker “noob.” And for good reason. These players all share a similar trait when playing, that is, they’re passive. They’re stoic, and they accept what comes their way, rarely going out of the way to get into the action. But if it falls to them, then they’re all about playing.
Now poker is a game of chance to be sure, but it’s also a game where “luck” can be made. If you don’t understand this yet, you will soon enough.
When you’re betting on a hand, you need to be the raiser, not the caller. Calling, shows weakness. But, when you raise, you’re taking control. You’re essentially making the first move. Remember, poker is not about playing on the defensive, it’s not about playing not to lose, instead, it’s about playing to win, to make someone else lose.
And it’s not just about the psychology behind being in control of a hand. It’s also a good tactical position. Instead of having to take the pressure on yourself to decide whether to call or fold, you’re putting the pressure on your opponent to make that same decision.
Think about it in terms of betting after the flop, too. If you’ve raisedpreflop, even if you had nothing, then you’ll be in a better position to bet your hand if you do hit on the flop, and you’ll look even stronger. This is a very powerful move.
On the contrary, say you checked before the flop or just called. Then post flop, you hit and decide to bet. Your credibility is much lower, and the other players can sense that you just barely hit something. After all, that’s what a bet is, it’s a guess as to how your hand will do. If you’re betting good before the flop, and betting good after, you will absolutely look that much stronger than if you called, and then bet.
Here’s another situation. Say you just call, and then after the flop, your opponent bets. Now the situation has moved to you to decide whether or not to call, raise, or fold. And had he raised pre flop, and you just called, then he raises again post flop, how do you feel about making that call? Probably not very good.
Key to remember: Aggression and solid fundamentals work much more in your favor psychologically and tactically than calling and hoping you hit.
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Posted on May 2nd, 2008 — in Gaming World
There have been hundreds of sports video games throughout the years. In less than forty years we’ve gone from Pong to MLB 2K6 for the Xbox 360. But the evolution of games hasn’t always meant better games. Just because a game has flashier interfaces and better graphics, it doesn’t necessarily make for good gameplay. That’s the reason that many PS2 and Xbox games are doomed to linger in discount bins at your local game store, while classics like NHL ‘94 and Tecmo Super Bowl continued to be obsessed over by sports fans. Here’s my Top 10 of all time:
10. Jordan vs. Bird (NES) - Was the one-on-one gameplay that great? No, not really. But the game was innovative with the three point competition and slam dunk contest long before it showed up anywhere else. For that alone it deserves a spot in the Top 10.
9. Madden 2005 (PS2, Xbox, GC) - The jump from ‘04 to ‘05 was HUGE. ‘05 introduced the hit-stick control and defensive playmaker to bring the defensive control on par with the offense. Franchise mode is pretty much the same as ‘04, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. My favorite thing to do is build a team from scratch. I love taking the worst team in the league and building them into a powerhouse. You can move them to a new city and build a new stadium, then draft real college players from NCAA ‘05. Overall, I liked this game more than any other Madden. 2006 just didn’t improve upon this game enough for me.
8. Punch-Out (NES) - what kid born in the late 70’s or early 80’s DIDN’T spend hours on end trying to beat Tyson with Little Mac?
7. Madden ‘94 (Genesis, SNES) - Based on memory this game was awesome. I remember being able to play with all the NFL teams and a bunch of classic teams. It was one of my favorite sports games growing up. That said, I played it recently and it sucks. It can’t even come close to holding it’s own against Tecmo Super Bowl. The passing is unrealistic, and the running consists of repeatedly hitting the spin button while tacklers bounce off your runner. It’s this high just because of how much I remember enjoying it as a kid.
6. NBA Live ‘95 (Genesis, SNES) - This game might not have been realistic at all, but it was insanely fun to run up and down the court firing up threes and throwing up alley-oops. The fact that it was the first NBA game by EA with every team and every arena also scores it points. Not to mention, this was the first game with the 3/4 angle camera.
5. NFL Blitz (Arcade) - The football version of NBA Jam. Fast scoring, late hits, and crazy rules like being able to throw multiple forward passes behind the line of scrimmage make this game great. The arcade version was waaaay better than the PS or N64 versions.
4. NBA Jam (Arcade) - Between the arcade version and the console versions, I’ve played a ton of NBA Jam. It is one of the most unique games ever. Who didn’t enjoy beating the crap out of people in mid-air or hitting three after three when they were on fire? This game totally rocked. The best part was getting all of the codes and playing with mascots and Bill Clinton.
3. Little League Baseball (NES) - I don’t know why this game doesn’t get more attention as one of the best NES sports games. The gameplay is the best of any NES baseball game - pitching, hitting, and fielding all are simple and feel relatively realistic. Plus there’s just something fun and unique about playing with little leaguers. As far as I know this is the only little league game ever, although I could be wrong. Adding to the excitement, certain teams are significantly better than others. Want a challenge? Try winning a tournament with Italy, the worst team in the game. The replay value of LLB is unbelievable; I still play it to this day.
2. NHL ‘94 (Genesis, SNES) - I love modern NHL games as much as the next guy, but this game is the best ever. I still play it ALL THE TIME. The quality of play is amazing. Take away the easy wrap-around goals and the gameplay is amazingly real, especially considering how old this game is. Oh, and for the record, they are playing NHL ‘93 in Swingers but talking about the removal of fighting in NHL ‘94. Weird huh?
1. Tecmo Super Bowl (NES) - This game was far ahead of it’s time - editable playbooks and season long stat tracking were so cool back then. The gameplay is far from realistic but amazingly equal. For that reason, the game is still popular and there are tons of people who still play in online leagues. The advent of emulators has allowed for the editing of rosters - I’ve played versions of the game with rosters from as recent as 2004. There are also versions with college rosters and USFL rosters. The weird little gameplay quirks like Bo Jackson being impossible to stop, fumbles bouncing all over the place, choosing defensive plays by guessing the offensive play, 100 yard passes, etc make the game MORE fun. This game will never, ever get old.
Disagree? Rate and review sports video games at Games.SportsLizard.com.
Adam McFarland owns the SportsLizard.com Network - a network of sports sites including collectibles, movies, books, video games, and more.
SportsLizard.com recently won honorable mention in the Microsoft Start Something Amazing Awards and was featured in the February 2006 issue of Tuff Stuff Magazine.
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Posted on April 4th, 2008 — in Gaming World
Mahjong is a traditional Chinese game. There are various versions of mahjong today: the Chinese, the Japanese and the American with different rules. There are also various kinds of games like the Mahjong solitaire. Mahjong is a game that involves skill, intelligence, estimation as well as luck. Mahjong, which literally means “the game of a hundred intelligences” in Chinese, has been traditionally used as a gambling game. Ma Chiao, Mo Tsiah, Ma Cheuk, Ma Jong, Ma Chiang, Ma Chong, Man Chu, Mah Diao, Pung Chow, Mah Chong, Ching Chong, Mah Cheuk, Ma Chiang, Kong Chow, Mah Deuck, Lung Chan, Mah Lowe, Pe Ling, Baak Ling are other names for Mahjong.
Tiles are the most important part of the game. A mahjong game may contain 136, 144, 148 or 152 tiles, the most common being 136 and 144. These tiles have beautiful designs on them representing honor tiles (the winds and the dragons), suit (bamboo, circles and characters) and flower tiles. The most common designs are: the circle/wheel suit (contains circles), the bamboo/stick suit (contains bamboos), character/number suit (Chinese characters representing ten thousand coins each), wind tiles (representing north, south, east and west), dragon tiles (red, green and white), flower tiles (containing art work) and joker tiles (used like a wild card, as a substitute for any tile). A Mahjong set contains 144 tiles, 2 season tiles, 4 “red 5″ bonus tiles, 1 table wind Tessera, 4 dice, scoring tallies, storage trays and a carrying case. These tiles are of 34 kinds, in five different suits or designs-wan, circle, bamboo, wind and prime (4X34=136) and 8 flower tiles.
The flower and season tiles are like the wild or joker card in card games. They are used as a substitute for other tiles and may not contain any scoring points. Plum, Lily or Orchid Chrysanthemum and Bamboo are the flower tiles while spring (fisherman), summer (woodcutter), autumn (farmer) and winter (scholar) are the season tiles. Seasons are represented by people or animals. There are three kinds of dragons: the red dragon, the green dragon and the white dragon. There are four dragons of each of these three kinds in a set. Each of these tiles has different scoring points. The stick suit, the wheel suit and the number suit contain 9 kinds of tiles, numbered 1 to 9. The wind tiles contain 4 kinds of tiles, 4 kinds of flower tiles, 4 kinds of season tiles and three kinds of dragon tiles. These tiles are made of ivory, plastics or other compounds though semi-wooden or wooden tiles are also available. Some sets contain wooden tiles with beautiful hand-engraved designs.
Mahjong provides detailed information about mahjong, mahjong solitaire, mahjong tiles, mahjong online and more. Mahjong is the sister site of Free Online Casinos.
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