Darren Meredith

Poker players are welcome to try 888.com poker room and casino online games. Play poker against thousands of other players or try your luck with games like online blackjack, slots machine and roulette.

Ok a bit of an update on all my sites is needed and I thought I would start off by updating my blog. I don’t seem to use the blog that much as I mainly use my facebook profile to update and keep in touch with friends.

First Live Game

Back in April I made the big move and played my first live event when I joined in the London Pub Poker Open, which was held at Loose Cannon. It was a 2500 starting stack, with the opportunity to re buy when you ran out of chips. I held AK and ran in to pocket aces, which meant a rebuy for me was needed. After re-buying I just didn’t seem able to get really involved in any pots and I was out in 93rd place out of about 170 starters.
I was a bit disappointed with my place, but went home and had a few games online. For some reason I just didn’t seem to be hitting the cards when I deeded a bit of luck. So I gave it a break for a week and played a bit of x-box and chilled out. My online play has still been very poor and unlucky. Mainly due to the number of idiots that don’t seem to appreciate when I have the wining hand, but will call an all in on a draw and end up hitting the draw card on the river.

Second Live Game

Yesterday (24th May), I decided to go back and have another go at a live game and made my way over to the Loose Cannon poker room. This time it was 5000 deep stack start and I was determined to finish better than my mate Mark, who had also made the trip down with me.
I started off by trying to play a bit aggressive, but didn’t hit the cards I needed on the flop and was pushed off by people that seemed to hit. I then decided to tighten up my game and try and limp in where I could. This allowed me to keep my stack just below average for a few blind level increases. After the 3rd break I was very short stacked, but finally hit a few good hands and increased the size of my chip stack. I took out the bubble and I was on the final table with a decent amount of chips.
I was in the money and would have been very happy with 9th place and to get my buyin back after being so short stacked early on. But before I knew it there was only 5 of us left and I had gained a few more chips. A hand full of hands later and a fantastic bluff against the chip leader it was down to heads up and I had the chip lead. I was dealt Q7 suited and raised, only to be re raised all in. After a few moments and happy with second I decided to call this all in. James turned over his cards and held AQ un suited. The flop came down and gave me my possibility of the diamond flush. Turn card didn’t hit, but the river card gave me the flush and I had won the game ?

Bring on the next live game in a couple of weeks, but I think it will not be as easy the next time.

I have been playing on PKR a bit more recently. I played a $0.40 game where you go all in on the first hand (this is automatic). I won the second one and have been on a role. There are 6 phases to the competition.

$0.40 buy in
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Final Phase

I’m currently on Phase 3

I am also hosting a $100 freeroll game on the 24th March 2008. Full details are on PKR Review

I recently found a new poker room and I love it.  Johnny Black Poker was launched about 3-4 months ago and is becoming a popular place for me to spend a couple of hours.  I loaded up $20 and went on to a cash table.  Within a few moments I was up a couple of $’s.  I then went on to play a couple of small tournaments and won a few more $’s.  I really like the site and the play on tables.  You can build points really easy, which then allow you to play in fermium freeroll games.  Which I won… woop woop

Visit my other site www.review247.co.uk and read the full review.  Sign up though my link and I will be able to invite you when we have promotional freeroll games ourselves.  We will be running 2 x $50 prize fund games, with the opportunity to have more if all goes well. I love playing poker for a bit of fun and most of the time I find it a good way to chill out and relax.  Ok the game is set for Thursday the 13th December 2007 @ 7pm with a password of chips.  Head on over to www.johnnyblackpoker.co.uk and register your interest.

Last year in December I bought myself a nice new shiny laptop. Asus laptop; it was fantastic. Nvidia graphics card and loads of memory and was just about in time to make sure it still had windows xp, before the launch of Vista.

All has been working fantastic for the past 11 months, until this morning. I went to power my laptop up and noticed that the battery was only showing, even though I had it plugged in to the mains. On closer inspection I noticed that the power cable was not actually connecting in to the back of the laptop.

Without hesitation, I powered down to save on battery power and plugged in my other laptop. I got the number for laptopsdirect.co.uk and called their customer services number, who advised me to call Asus. Midday on a Saturday and their call centre wasn’t open. The message said I could go online and send them a message. Logging on to the support site for asus, I found my way to the support pages and was able to send them all the details of my fault and also what I had done to check the problem.

Within a few hours of sending off my problem I was sent a reply; telling me to fill in a form and request a returns number. I have now filled in the return and am waiting for a reply. Once I have a returns number I can then arrange collection and have the laptop sent off for repair. I just hope they repair it and I don’t get charged with it. I will update this as I hear more.

Update
The laptop isn’t covered by waranty repair. So looks like I will have to see if it is covered on my contents insurance. I have accidental cover, so should all be covered and have to pay £50 excess.

When playing poker, some people like to work out their odds of getting the cards they need and others just follow their instinct and hope for the best. Sometimes luck will prevail and the poker gods will give you the cards you want; other times luck will prevail and the river card will go against you. It is this reason I think that poker is classed as gambling and not a game of skill. My answer is; if it is a game of luck, then why do the same people win on a regular basis.

Working out your odds of hitting the card need to make that flush or straight can help you decide if it is worth calling of folding the hand. You do also need to consider that if you get your hand, will it still beat the other player, but that is something you learn as you go.

There are a number of ways to calculate, but I always use the following way.
First of all, you only every take in to account the cards you can see, so assume that none of the other players have the card you want or need. Say you are holding AK Hearts; you have the same chance of making a hand or pair as someone holing 57. If the flop comes down 3h,8h,9c. You will need one more card to make your flush. There are 13 cards of each suit in the deck, less the 4 you can see, will leave you with 9 outs. You then multiply your number of out by 4, to get the rough estimate of your % chance of hitting the card. This will give you the % chance of 27%. Now if the next card comes down and it is a club, then you still have another card to give you your flush. But as there is only one more card due out then you will reduce your % chance by half; or multiply your outs by 2; thus giving you the chance of hitting your card down to 18%.

Now you also need to consider the chance of hitting a pair, which will increase your chance % chance of getting a hand. You have AK, so you also have the chance of hitting a pair with these cards. There are 3 A’s left and 3 K’s left. So you have 9 + 3 + 3 = 15 outs after the flop. Multiply by 4 will give you 60% chance of hitting a hand after the flop and 30% after the turn.
A tip when working out your outs is to make sure you never count the same card twice as an out.

You also need to consider if it is worth making a call or a raise if you hit a pair. This is where the skill element comes in. You need to read your player and try to figure out if they are trying to bluff you off the pot, or if they do really have a hand. This is where making a note of your opponents playing style will come in handy. If they are a tight player, then they are more than likely to have a good hand. If they seem to call everything down to the river or rise on a regular basis then they could be a lose player and be trying to bluff you off the pot.

For more help or poker chat, come speak to us in our forum www.ukpokertalk.co.uk

I have been asked to write a few articles for an email newsletter that is soon due to be sent out from www.ukpokerreview.co.uk who review poker sites available in the UK.

Welcome to the first news letter from UK Poker Review. We thought we would start off by maybe helping you learn how to bluff in poker. It’s not something that has a strict rule, but can help you bluff people off a pot, or make them call when you have a top hand (known as the nuts).

Now there are many opinions out there on the best way to try and bluff in poker, but it does depend on how aggressive other players are and also how you have been playing the table. Firstly we wouldn’t recommend trying to bluff on the first hand or too early in the game. You are almost guaranteed that someone else will have a better hand than you and many players will be cautions calling any big raises straight away as it really isn’t worth them risking a stack of chips to bust out of the game early. We would normally play quite tight early on; then try to bluff a bit later in the game. By playing tight early on in a game, it will help you throw players off a hand later, as they should have noted you are a tight player. After I have played a few hands and managed gauged how other players are playing their cards and let other people lose a few chips we might play a bit more aggressive for the odd hand. Be careful that you don’t run in to a big hand and bust out of the game though.

If you get premium hole cards and you raise it pre flop by up to 2.5 times the big blind, which is a standard raise. You should get a couple of callers then you are in a good position. You are not likely to get many callers with 28 off suit, who might otherwise try to limp in. If you hit the flop you are laughing, if not you can bluff a trap check. By this I mean you check the flop and see if you get any raisers, then when you get the turn card try putting in a medium bet, normally by this time it would be about 4 times the big blind. If you get a call then the other player is likely to be on a drawing hand. Try to think what hands could be made. Then when the turn card comes, try another slightly larger bet or if you are confident that they don’t have a decent hand try an all in move. This is what can throw people off the hand. To do this you have to hope the person you are up against has only hit a pair and the community cards allow you to bluff a straight or a flush as an example.

Alternative after the flop you can try a large raise on the flop and see if anyone calls or re rises. If you get a re-raise, then they might have hit a set (3 of a kind) or might be trying to see if you are bluffing. It is quite dependant on how they have been playing. If they are a lose player then they might have been lucky and hit a decent hand. The main rule I can give you though, if you are consistently a tight player and then make a big raise, then most players will credit you with having a big hand. Bluffing is an art and can take years to master. There isn’t anything better in our opinion than bluffing someone off a big pot.

If you do try our approach, let us know how you get on and if you found it to be of any use. Or if you have another approach you would like to share with us then please feel free to send us your comments or come and chat to us on www.ukpokertalk.co.uk

Future articles include:
To Show or not to Show – Should you show players when you have a hand or if you are bluffing?
Playing tips – General tips on how to play different types of poker
Playing live V’s Online – How to approach your first visit to a casino when you are used to online play

Every man and his dog seem to be going on facebook these days. I have created a group on facebook to promote the poker sites that I help run. If you are on facebook have a look for a group called UK Poker Friends. I will be promoting the site more this weekend and also doing lots of updates and links to promotions etc. I like facebook as it is easy to use and also people can post photos of you and tag you in them, so you can view photos of friends easy. One think that does annoy me on the site though is all the stupid add on sections that people ask you to sign up to. It is good though in that people can’t mess about by putting stupid pictures in the back ground, so you are unable to read what is on the page (unlike myspace). Search for me Darren Meredith on face book and add me and also join the UK poker Group.

I’ve had a bit of a quiet weekend, but I am happy to have had a nice quiet one. I have been under the weather a bit all week and had a day and a half off work. Full of a cold and sore throat, but wasn’t able to concentrate in work much at all. As I haven’t had much concentration I have not played much poker during the week. But have played a bit over this weekend and it hasn’t gone very well. I Lost 3 games in a row. All lost by really bad beats. Worst one was me holding AK and a king came with a rainbow flop. There wasn’t any straight draws on, so I decided to go all in; I was called with K10 off suit and he hit a 10 on the river. Grrr…

I decided to come offline and watch the 2006 WSOP. What a match. Jamie Gold just couldn’t do anything wrong. Whatever cards he held, then he would always hit something. 34 on one hand and flopped a straight.

The really annoying things for me is that most of my mates have been busy all weekend and were not that interested in going in to London to have a butchers at the WSOP and see who was playing and what was going on. I am hoping that I will be able to catch a bit of the EPT at the end of the month and pop along for a viewing. The thing is, I haven’t been to a casino before and was a bit nervous about going down on my own. But I think next weekend I am off, I might well pop down and see what is going on. There are a few places to choose from, so I will have a look and see what I can find out about each of them.

The sites are in need of some updating, so hoping to get on with a bit of that soon.

Oh I nearly forgot. I have been out and bought a new LCD TV and also a new DVD player. I will do a review of them on my review site soon.

Watch this and anyone that says they would call has balls of steal. Nearly half a million $’s in the middle:

High Stakes poker - half a million $ pot Continue Reading »