Category Archives: gambling

How to play Badugi Poker?

Badugi poker, also known as Padooki poker, is said to have been originated in Asia. Even though it can be played as a no limit or a pot limit game, the most common variant of Badugi poker uses a limit game. If you’re wondering how to play Badugi poker, be rest assured that it is really easy to master. The strategies and rules are quite similar to a normal game of poker. All you need to do is understand the subtleties and variations in the gameplay and the rules. Badugi poker is considered to be a four card game where players need to have the lowest Badugi, i.e., a hand where no cards have the same suit or the same value. If you get two or more cards from the same suit or the same value, the one with the lowest value is kept and the others are discarded. As a result, your hand might transform into a 1 card hand as well.

Understanding the Game Structure

Badugi is a game of poker that is quite similar to the triple draw in its structure. The major difference is that each player receives four cards instead of five and that the hand values are different. There are a total of three drawing rounds wherein players are allowed to discard anything between zero to four cards from their hand and draw the same number of cards from the deck. A round of betting follows each draw and another round of betting is conducted after the final draw. The main object of Badugi poker is to create a win by making the lowest Badugi hand or by getting all others to fold.

The Gameplay

All players are dealt with four cards. The game begins with a round of betting. Once the betting is complete, players can discard anything between zero to four cards and draw the same amount of cards from the deck. This is then followed by another round of betting. The discarding, drawing and betting process is continued for two more rounds. Once the third draw has been played, there is a final round of betting before players (those who are still in the game) reveal their hands to determine the winner.

Badugi Hand Values

The main idea of Badugi poker is not to have cards of the same rank or the same suit in your hand. This means that if you have two aces or two hearts in your hand, you need to change. Having a hand where each card is from a different suit and has a different denomination is the best hand that a player can have. This is followed by the three cards, two cards and one card hands. If players have the same number of cards in their Badugi hand, the card values are compared in order to determine the winner. The player with the lowest highest card wins. If the highest card is the same, the second highest card is checked and so on.

Badugi Strategies

Here are a few strategies to help you out with Badugi poker.

– Your starting hand selection is extremely important. Chasing the game is extremely difficult and expensive in Badugi poker.
– A completed Badugi is always known to be more valuable than a one card draw.
– Try to complete your entire hand as early as possible, even if your lower ranking hands need to suffer.
– If you complete your Badugi before everyone else, consider escalating the bet size to increase the pot value.
– Be extremely careful while changing the high value cards in your Badugi as the card that you receive in the draw might just ruin your entire game.

What percentage of hands should you play in poker?

Did you know that there are 169 possible hands that poker players could be dealt to start with? Out of all these hands, only 5 hands are considered to be “excellent” hands – AK (Same suit) JJ, QQ, KK and AA. Irrespective of your chip position and bankroll, you should always ensure that you play these hands as long as the bet amount is not very high. However, if you have players who have been betting and increasing the bets, you should try to refrain from playing unless you have kings or aces.

By now you must have begun to realize that the main secret of winning in poker is to understand which hand to play. Remember, playing every hand and basing your decisions on the first set of three cards that open up can make you lose a huge sum of money. You need to realize that most sensible players end up folding approximately 80% of their hands. However, if the pot has not been opened before your turn, i.e., no one has called the game before you, you should try your hand in that particular round. Once someone ahead of you raises, your hand selection should be narrowed down considerably before you play further. What this essentially means is that it is OK to bluff, but the best bluff is always the one where you control the outcome of the game, i.e., you have cards that are worth playing with. For example, you should never play in a game where you have a JQ and another player has raised the bet. In this case, KK, AA, QK and KA have a better chance of winning the game.

Let’s bring statistics into the equation. It has been observed that most of the players who end up on the winning side play about 18 – 22% of the hands. If you’re new into the world of poker, you simply need to understand that you should be playing a maximum of 15 – 20 rounds in the entire session. Look at it this way. If your opponents play about 45% of their hands and you play anything between 20 – 25%, you should normally have a major advantage in each of those hands. However, the importance of blinds should not be diminished either.

Another factor that vastly influences the percentage of hands you should play is whether the game is played in a passive or an aggressive manner. There are a number of hands that can hardly be termed as playable the moment someone raises the pot. A raise normally indicates that your opponents have anything between above average – excellent hands. This considerably reduces your own odds of winning.

Remember, the more sessions you play, the more experience you gain. And the more experience you gain, the more rounds you should be able to play. And as most pros like to put it, the number of hands you play should actually depend on your own skill levels. The more advanced you are, the more hands you can play and succeed in.

Food items that can help you with online gambling

Whether you believe it or not, online gambling ultimately boils down to luck and probability. Now you might not believe in luck in the cosmic sense, but you do admit that there are days when you feel like you have won a lot more while gambling online compared to most other days. Let’s just take these days to be lucky for you for argument’s sake. Now, you might not believe in luck and might just tone down these acts to random acts of nature, but there are a few individuals who go out of their way to ensure that their luck never dwindles. In fact, a few people are also known to believe that there are certain food items which can help you increase your luck while gambling online.

Eating your lucky meal
As they state, fortunes favours the brave and the prepared. You need to figure out the food items that bring you the most happiness and define them as a part of your lucky meal. Remember, being happy allows you to create your own luck and if you don’t believe in these sort of things, simply believe in the fact that it always helps to be happy and satisfied before you gamble online.

Keeping cinnamon also helps
A common superstition is to keep a stick of cinnamon in one’s wallet or purse to ensure that there is a steady income and prevent sudden financial setbacks. Well, how far it actually helps can be debated, but it surely allows you to make your money and your credit cards smell nice.

Common food items that people eat to bring luck
According to many, there are a number of food items that can actually help gamblers to increase their luck. Some of these items include dairy products, soy protein, egg whites, fish and game meat. As funny or weird as this sounds, you can find numerous instances of people vouching for the fact that they fared much better at online gambling after eating one or more of these items. Luckily for the logic freaks, studies have come up with a logical explanation for this superstition. It is believed that all such items contain an amino acid known as Tryptophan. Tryptophan is particularly useful in increasing the level of serotonin in a person’s brain that helps to get rid of anxiety and depression. Simply put, having food items which are rich in Tryptophan help you to feel lighter and happier, which ultimately brings forward the notion of feeling lucky.

Lucky food

Lentils are also known to bring in luck
Many people also believe that having Lentils right before you sit down to gamble is also considered to bring immense luck. No doubt that this superstition comes from the fact that Lentils are considered to be good luck charms for improving finances and many people in Brazil eat lentils as their first meal of the New Years to ensure a year of prosperity and happiness.

Double your luck
If you’re looking to try out one or more of these foods, you should look at trying to double your luck. Basically, you need to ingest your tryptophan rich food items along with carbohydrates in order to substantially increase the benefits of Tryptophan. Therefore, instead of dairy products, you could try out a grilled cheese sandwich. Instead of having fish, why not order for a pizza with extra anchovy toppings. Not only does this help you to try out these funny ways of increasing your luck, it also helps you to double it and prevent yourself from looking like a fool.

Gambling in Africa

Let’s face it. People want to either gamble for fun or to get paid. The fact is, a lot of people in Africa can’t afford this kind of luxury. So who gambles in Africa?
This may be a controversial topic but there are a few rich folks in Africa although not many of them are known. The casinos in Africa aren’t the best either.

So who are these rich folks? They break down to a few groups: Warlords, traders, foreigners, politicians, celebrities among a few others. These people make enough money in one day to live in Africa for a whole year. They have so much money they just visit casinos to blow it all. Funny thing is, in Africa, the casinos don’t offer free drinks like the ones in America. It sucks but hey, at least alcohol is quite cheap in Africa, although it may be illegal in some places. If you’re rich enough, it doesn’t matter.


This is Africa.

However, do be careful when partaking in illegal activities in Africa. If you get caught and if you are put in jail… some say it’s quite… difficult to get out. Of course, if you spend enough money, this isn’t an issue. But what if you don’t have your money with you or you ran out of money? Then you’re screwed! African jails are some serious places that you never ever want to go to.

Gambling in Africa is quite different than gambling in more developed areas, but if you have the money, like most places, you can have a blast. So be very careful of the law, spend your money wisely and you can enjoy your stay like a king.

TAXI DRIVER RETURNS $300.000 POKER BAG IN LAS VEGAS

At the end of a regular day’s shift of last month, taxi driver from Las Vegas Gerardo Gamboa, happened to find out that some client left forgotten a bag at his cab. He opened it, in search for some documents or information about the owner, in order to give it back. But to his surprise, he only found six bundles of 100$ bills, a total amount of 300.000$.

Gamboa decided to go back to his office, and turned in the money. They contacted the police, who started an investigation that managed to determine, with the help of the casino authorities, that the owner of the money was a famous professional poker player, who asked to remain anonymous.

The vague poker player had then to go to the taxi office to claim the money back. Gamboa’s boss defined him as a nice guy, who was just feeling too embarrassed about his dismissal. But he was grateful about the kindness and the exemplar action of the taxi driver. Somehow it looked as if it wasnt the first time he lost his poker bag.

The taxi company rewarded Gamboa with a 1000$ check, and a steak dinner for two. And rumors say that the poker player rewarded him with 10000$ for his action. Gamboa, who has been driving his taxi for over 25 years now, declared that he didn’t do it for the money, or for attention. That’s just the way he was raised by his parents.

What would you do in Gamboa’s situation? Would you opt for the good citizen action? Or would you consider that after 25 years driving a cab, this was just a generous tip from a rich client? I want to believe that majority of people would do the correct think, although its hard to know until one finds himself in the situation.

Celebrities and Gambling

Its a well known fact that gambling is a very popular activity in nowadays society. And we have also read and heard quite often about the celebrities and their gambling stories, sometimes leading to dangerous addictions due to the big amounts of money that they spend on this hobby. So its not a strange fact that every day we see more and more celebrities partnering up with big online gambling companies to work on their promotion and advertising campaigns.

Recently we have been able to see the latest Pokerstars campaign, featuring 2 of the most popular sportsmen from big markets such as Brazil and Spain. If you still haven’t watched the campaign, it wouldn’t be difficult for you to guess who are we speaking about: 2 absolute world wide idols like Ronaldo Nazario and Rafa Nadal. These professionals learned by visiting an internet casino because it’s easily accessible. As you can imagine, getting such stars to participate in your campaigns is pretty expensive. So this is a very clear sign of the money that the online gambling industry generates worldwide.

But Rafa Nadal and Ronaldo Nazario are not the only ones. We still remember Boris Becker’s campaign, as one of the first examples of how beneficial can be linking a celebrity to a certain business, in this case, gambling.

Besides all this, some of the biggest betting companies have opted for a different approach, sponsoring some of the biggest football clubs in Europe, such as Real Madrid or A.C Milano (Bwin) and Malaga C.F (William Hill) among others.

If this wasn’t enough, rumors say that a Norwegian gambling company just signed one of the biggest sport celebrities of the end of last century, Mike Tyson. Its a quite curious case, because the former boxing world champion was one of the most loyal customers in Las Vegas casinos, squandering a considerable high part of the fortune he gathered over the boxing rings. Even if he has been one of the most polemic public figures, surrounded by dozens of problems with justice and drugs, he is still a very popular person, and we are sure he is still a good face to link your campaign with. We wish the best to Mr Tyson!

Gambling in Europe

The first time a person gambles, it’s exhilarating. The first time a person gambles and wins, that person is a winner. Many folks wonder what it truly takes to be a winner.

When people think it takes skill to win a large amount of money, they’re wrong. Gambling requires a ton of luck and if you just get lucky once, you can live rich for the rest of your life. However, lady luck is usually not on your side. Most of the time, it requires patience, skill and experience to win. That’s why people choose casino games where they can become better rather than leaving it all on luck. Gamblers want as much control as possible because there is money at stake.

Gambling in Europe is pretty great if you have money. Offline gambling is easy – you just have to walk in a casino. They will be friendly and in most cases, they can speak English as well. Gambling online is actually easier – you can play straight from your home or from the hotel you’re staying at. All you need in access to the internet and have some credentials on you, and you’re set. Some countries have weird laws regarding gambling online, but in most cases, foreigners play if they have access. Due to these restrictions, many online casino companies are based in Malta.

Benefits of Online Casinos

The fact of the matter is, online casinos will overtake land-based casinos in the near future. The comfort of playing casino games from home as well as the variety of slots available to a player at any given moment are the two main reasons why this will happen. When strictly talking about online casinos, many refer to them as netticasino.

It’s also quite easy to get into these games. Many people who enjoy going out to the casinos for the experience of going to such places have all the right to do that. However, for those who want the power to play any and all casino games at any given moment, the time is now. Act now and play these games while the bonuses are amazing. Since the online casino market is relatively new, companies are handing out great incentives to play such as bonuses or free spins. We don’t know where the market is headed, except for the fact that the online gambling market is only growing and it will only get bigger.

While many folks enjoy the comfort of playing from their own homes, there’s no doubt that these online casinos lack the physical aesthetics as well as the pleasure of pressing the button, or pulling down the classic slot machine lever, or even the live human interaction that goes on face-to-face.

While some key aspects of the experience of a casino are missing when you are at home, the important thing is that there are better incentives as well as better games available online.