Poker for Amateurs

PartyPoker.com was launched in 2001 and has since grown to be one of the largest online poker card rooms. The site is endorsed by Mike Sexton, the host of the World Poker Tour television show. The domain partypoker.com attracted at least 3.6 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study. The site offers various forms of Texas Hold'em, Omaha and Stud poker.

The following types of poker games are offered Poker: Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo and Five-card draw, plus house variations like Double (three hole cards, choose two, halfway between Hold'em and Omaha). In terms of stakes, users can choose between Fixed Limit, Pot Limit or No Limit tables. A “play money” version of the games is also available for users to try out for free. bwin offers poker tournaments, both, Sit & Go and scheduled, and cash games (ring games). Sit & Go tournaments begin as soon as the table is completely occupied. Scheduled tournaments begin at a specified time and allow for higher numbers of participants and the highest prize pools.

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The term freeroll is also used to describe a poker tournament with no entry fee but the use of the terms 'free' and 'no entry fee' can be misleading because some freerolls require a payment at some point to gain entry to the tournament.

The prize pool, instead of being an accumulation of the entry fees minus a fee for the 'house' (the way pay-to-play tournaments are typically constructed), is derived from a donation from the house, sponsorship fees, admission charged to spectators, broadcast rights fees, or any combination of these. Sometimes a particular cardroom or casino (either traditional or online) will offer a freeroll tournament to frequent players. Invitation-only tournaments are frequently freerolls.

Many online poker sites offer incentives to players in the form of bonuses. Usually the bonuses are given after a certain number of raked hands are played. For example, a site may offer a player who deposits $100 a bonus of $50 once he plays 500 raked hands. A poker player who can at least break even can become a long-term winner by playing with poker bonuses. A winning poker player can add to their winnings with the use of bonuses.

In addition, several online cardrooms employ VIP Managers to develop VIP programs to reward regular players and additional bonuses exist for players who wish to top-up their accounts. These are known as reload bonuses.

Partypoker offers players great tournaments, free games and player bonuses.

Poker hand converters allow players to take text-based online poker hand history files from different online cardrooms and convert them into formats more friendly to the eye and suitable for posting on online message boards. Hand converters are often used to show played hands to other players for analysis and discussion. Depending on the converter used, the output may include the pot size per betting round, blind level, seating order, and stack sizes. Most online cardrooms store played hands on the computer of the player, allowing players to analyze and keep track of their own performance or to discuss poker strategy with other players. Most major poker sites such as Partypoker provide players with hand history files, while a few such as the Playtech network offer hand histories, but not in a text file format. In addition to using hand history files to analyze and improve an individual's game, they can also be used to gather statistical data about opponents, both those a player has played against and even opponents never faced. Whether the latter constitutes as cheating depends on the Acceptable Use Policy of the cardroom. Sharing the raw hand history files is generally considered collusion and a violation of the AUP. Even though some sites don't offer a readily available hand history files, you can usually request a transcript by e-mail. The first hand history converter, PokerStat, was introduced in 2001. Numerous software products and web-based tools now offer similar functionality.

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Play it at PartyPoker!

PartyPoker.com was launched in 2001 and has since grown to be one of the largest online poker card rooms. At peak times, tens of thousands of players can be found playing on the site's virtual poker tables. The site is endorsed by Mike Sexton, the host of the World Poker Tour television show. Games include Texas Hold 'em (No Limit and Fixed Limit), Omaha and Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-card Stud and Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo. Stakes range from 0.05/0.10 to 100/200 for limit games, and 0.02/0.04 to 25/50 for No-Limit/Pot-Limit games. Players can play for either real money or play money. All poker variants offered at real money tables are offered at play money tables. Party Poker offers a bad beat jackpot, which has at times grown to over $700,000 USD.