Aadam Daya, a 31-year-old business analyst from Mississauga, Ontario, won the $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em poker championship (Event #3) at the World Series of Poker to collect a whopping $625,872 and his first WSOP gold bracelet. Daya topped a huge field of 4,345 players in the poker tournament, played over Memorial Day weekend. The tournament was the second-largest non-WSOP Main Event poker tournament in history. Only five live tournaments have ever attracted bigger turnouts. It took five full days to play from thousands down to a winner. The size of the field was so large that two starting days were necessary. Players were given the option of starting on either Saturday or Sunday. The $1,000 buy-in events will be played each weekend under the same format at this year’s WSOP. Incredibly, it was Daya’s first time to cash in a WSOP tournament. He had previously cashed in a few small poker tournaments played in Las Vegas, but this victory was on an entirely different scale. Daya works as a business analyst in Toronto. He manages information technology systems for a large medical corporation. Daya was born in Toronto, and his parents immigrated to India from East Africa prior to settling down in Canada. The third-place finisher was Gabe Costner, from Long Beach, Miss., a stockbroker-turned-poker pro who has been playing professionally since 2002. This marked his second WSOP final table appearance. The fourth-place finisher was William Mark Davis, from Mckinleyville, Calif. He is a research associate. Davis cashed for the third time in a WSOP event. He holds three graduate degrees from UC-Berkley. The fifth-place finisher was Nick Mitchell, from Webster, N.Y., while Oklahoma City resident Cory Brown was sixth. The seventh-place finisher was Fresno State University student Isaac Settle, from Clovis Calif. Settle previously left school for a few years to play poker, but decided to return and finish his degree.

Premeditation They call it the blind man’s bluff. And in poker, it’s one of the most useless moves to ever concoct and throw at your poker opponent. Essentially, you’re making a predetermined move, not based of any of the information you are given. This is usually a novice mistake, but I’ve even seen seasoned vets do this on occasion and have the audacity to talk about it afterwards. “I only raised there to bluff him off his poker online hand.” Like all things poker, there’s a time and place for making that statement. If your opponent holds something like QQ and the board comes AK2, you may be able to, if you’re a tight player and your table image and play style permit it, bet him off of his queens with a well timed bet or raise, checkraise, or call-bet (I’m rambling, there’s tons of ways to do it). But the point is, the action shouldn’t be premeditated. If you’re determined to play with the blind man’s bluff, then you’re doomed to fail at it from time to time. On an AK board, you may get a guy off queens. On a 2-6-J board, he’s less inclined to fold his queens since, it’s highly unlikely you’ve even two-paired him. Like I said, there’s a time for bluffing, but it should never, never, be premeditated. Let the action and the information determine if the bluff is the move to pull at that moment on that board with that opponent. It’s all about the variables, man.

When you have a rough week on the job you might want to look up on the internet the local movie theater’s address and go out for a movie. It is good to get your mind off of the tough things in life and enjoy what the best actors have to offer in the top selling movies. Grab a date and get a bite to eat at the local restaurant and head on over to the theaters. The lines might be long if you get there late, so make sure to check the times and dates before going. The ticket prices have gone up quite a bit but that is alright because the special effects in the movies have been getting very good. You can go to the stand and grab a combo package of popcorn and a soda and head on into the theater. If you have chronic back pain and neck pain than you will want to sit at a place where the screen is level with your eyes. If you sit there staring up the whole time it puts a lot of tension on the spine and causes injury and this defeats the whole purpose of going out and having fun. After the movie, make sure to do a movie review online so that you can help others decide on whether or not to go to what you just watched on the big screen.

If you’ve been following the Tom “Durrr” Dwan challenge, you’ll have seen the names of, of course Tom Dwan, Patrick Antonius, and other well known high stakes poker players. But there was a mystery man on the scene who seemed to appear out of nowhere who was only known by the moniker “Isildur1.”

He took the highstakes poker online games by storm, smoking Dwan a few times for Millions in a single session, but would also have his share of downswings losing back most of what he won to Dwan and Antonius.

Well, the mystery is finally over. Originally thought to be hail from Sweden, with speculation all over the internet about who exactly this guys was, was finally put to rest when the identity was revealed to be the Irish High Stakes Rounder Niklas “Nicky” Power. Well it turns out that he does originally hail from Sweden, but the 40 year-old poker pro has moved to Ireland and has been playing the high stake circuit there for some time.

The question finally came about as to why he decided to reveal his identity. Several people had speculated that “Isildur1″ was actually Viktor Blom, the 20 year old high stakes Swedish player. To that remark Power said, “Well, I couldn’t let that Blom fella [sic] get all the credit, so I decided to reveal myself to the world.”

Now that his anonymity has been abolished, Power has decided to play in some live poker tournaments, which have attracted some of the biggest names in the business to get a piece of the action.

It seems like the big highlight in online poker television broadcasts is disproportionately based around the coinflip, or the race. Especially late in big tournaments, the pushing of stacks with pairs against overcards happens more and more, and the cameras tend to go toward this action.

These kinds of spots, though, are much less skill based than they are luck. If you are putting your money in too often when the odds are 50/50, eventually you are going to get caught.

The rule is that an online poker player with less skill and experience stands to do better against a pro by pushing for races more often, as when they are faced with skill elements, they will lose. Pushing too hard in these kinds of spots, preflop and on the flop, then seems a tactic of the newbie or the less seasoned. If you are neither one of these, you should be focusing more on your postflop and late stage tactics than focusing on trying to get all your money in on a prospect.

We don’t want races. We want good bets. We want to get our money in with the best of it and hold up. If all you are doing is pushing and hoping to get lucky, you might as well be at the craps table. Remember this when you’re playing poker online.

For years women complained about equal rights and equal opportunity. But one man in an Atlantic City online poker tournament turned the whole idea of gender discrimination upside down, at least in the online poker world. Abraham Korotki was the lone wolf that had the whole pack of women in an uproar when he won a poker tournament held at the Borgata Hotel and Casino. Korotki won against a field of 260 players, all but him of the female persuasion. See, at first no one really cared that Korotki entered the tournament reserved for women. But as the field narrowed, and the lone male eventually won the tournament, the reactions quickly changed. Everyone was trying to figure out why Korotki entered the women’s tournament when there were so many others to choose from. One disgruntled onlooker said, “It makes no sense…that this guy would enter a ladies event. I guess he felt that it would be easier to beat women, so he gave it a shot.” But Korotki had another reason in mind. According to him, he merely entered because he hadn’t been playing a lot of poker. He “just wanted to tune up his game” he said, before he played in the main event. “I didn’t do it for the money,” Korotki said, “I needed some practice time.” Of course not every woman was upset with Korotki. Some more grounded players seemed to think that it was only fair that Korotki be able to enter. Player Fran Hinkle said, “We’ve been trying to gain equal ground with men for years, if we want to be allowed to play in events with them, then there should be no reason that they should be forbidden to enter a ladies’ event.” For all intents and purposes, I tend to agree with the latter stance. It’s one that promotes equality and sportsmanship across the board. When we talk about equality among men and women that equality should be universal. What Korotki was knock down the invisible wall that ostracized men since we all know that there would be a tremendous uproar if someone tried to host a men’s only poker tournament.

If it’s your turn to act and no one has bet, act as if you’ve got the best hand. Unless you’re paying against an especially crafty player, you’re playing against a bunch of opponents that aren’t very confident in their cards. If you’re playing tight-aggressive online poker, you’re probably rocking the best hand anyway.

Generally a player who checks hasn’t made his hand yet, but isn’t ready to fold his hand just yet. He’s either waiting to see if any of his poker opponents has a hand that they like or he’s trying to see if the next card will be the one that he needs for a win.

Since you’re in the hand, you’ve probably got at least an overcard, but if things go your way, it won’t matter. If everyone checks to you, respond to their weakness with strength and most of the time the table will fold to you.

Watch out for deceptive players. Better online poker players will make a hand and slow play it, feigning weakness and allowing their opponents to fatten the pot and bet with confidence, only to turn over the winning hand at the showdown. When you consider raising to a table of checkers, look at your opponents and make sure that you aren’t being trapped before you make your move.

There comes a time in every online poker player’s life when they need to abandon Texas Holdem. The point is different for every player, but there is always a moment when they realize that Texas Holdem does not offer everything they need. It is a natural transition really, people these days learn to player poker online by watching televised Texas Holdem shows, but then find out that the reality does not match the television. When they realize that the game is not everything that they thought it would be, they often find themselves ready to jump ship to a new poker variant.

How do you know when it is time to abandon Texas Holdem? You should ask yourself if you still feel challenged and interested in the game. If you are starting to feel bored when you play, or if it is starting to feel like work, you may need to start looking at other games. It is probably time to start looking at the less popular, and more challenging, poker variations that are available on the casino floor these days. It is always worthwhile to see what the remaining options are left. Remember, you can always come back to Texas Holdem if you find that it truly is the only place for you.

We have all had those moments playing poker when the standard poker face will not do. There are times when you just need to let your emotions out to keep yourself from getting too caught up in the poker game. These are the times when you should yell and scream at your computer screen. No one will be able to hear you, so let it out.

Many people do not realize that the process of interacting with an online casinopoker game in this way can actually help them in the long run. It will definitely help you from going on tilt if you don’t have to bottle up your emotions. You can get into serious problems if you internalize your issues at the table. Take advantage of the privacy of your home to let the computer know exactly how you feel about your hand. You’ll probably end up playing a much more controlled card game because you will not be trying to use the cards to act out your emotions.

This is one poker tip that is only applicable to the online poker world. Don’t try doing this in a brick and mortar casino or you will find yourself being escorted off the premises by security. Keep while displays of poker emotion at home.

It seems these days everyone is an expert. The topics vary from poker to anything else, as does the level of actual knowledge, but everyone is allowed to broadcast their opinion on everything to the world at large. I am talking, of course, about blogging. That great internet David that has toppled the traditional Goliaths of the printed word. People don’t read books anymore, they read bogs. And everyone seems to have one. A very popular topic for the would be bloggers out there is to write about online poker. Some of them know the game through and through, while others would have difficulty navigating their way around a poker deck. The actual level of experience of these bloggers is not the issue. What is important is their ability to string words together to be entertaining. With the surfeit of poker blogs out there, a new player could feel a bit lost. Do you trust the authority of strangers on the internet, or rely on more classic information sources? My advice to you is to read the blogs, but read critically. You need to remember that there is no guarantee that the poker pro on the other end is who he says he is. Just take it with a grain of salt.