Congratulations To The Winners Of Bet2 APT Promotion!!

Congratulations to the final winners below, and thank you to all of you for Joining our competition! Top Three winner win the prizes ($2,500 + $200 Buy-in to the Main Event on Aug 25-29, 2010 for the Asian Poker Tour to be held at Resort World Manila, Philippines).

NO. Screen Name Hand # Hand Ranking Winning POT Date of Submit
1 localsnake 30847800 Royal Flush USD $7.72 08/08/10
2 CoolRun 30789906 Straight Flush “K” USD $13.65 01/08/10
3 RonnieO18 30907820 Straight Flush “Q” USD $3.42 08/17/10

For more information, please visit the following sites:

Bet2: www.bet2.com
APT: www.theasianpokertour.com
Resort World Manila: www.rwmanila.com

Bet2 Asian Poker Tournament Promotions 2010

Term & Conditions
1. This promotion is valid for all BET2 real money Hold’em tables.

2. The top three strongest hands shall win the prizes ($2,500 + $200 Buy-in to the Main Event on Aug 25-29, 2010 for the Asian Poker Tour to be held at Resort World Manila, Philippines). In the event of a tie, the amount of winning pot garnered by said member will be considered to break the tie. If there is still a tie, then the tie shall be resolved based on first come first serve, which means the member who obtain the stronger hand based on BET2 recorded time.

3. Prizes are non-refundable, non-transferable and cannot be converted to cash.

4. Any individual player can win only one prize at the mainland Main Event.

5. Participants must be at least 21 years of age for mainland Main Event.

6. Players are responsible to have a valid passport, obtain a visa at its own cost and all other documentation necessary to participate in the mainland poker tournaments.

7. By qualifying for BET2 APT promotions, players agree that their real names, aliases, images, moving images, spoken/written quotes and/or amounts won, can be used for online and offline promotional purposes of BET2.

8. By entering BET2 APT promotions, players agree that, should they win a mainland poker tournament seat, they will wear BET2 apparel (Jacket or sticker) in accordance with the instructions of BET2 management.

9. BET2 shall in no way be liable for any injuries, losses, damages or expenses suffered or incurred by any winner of a BET2 APT promotion package as a direct or indirect result of accepting and participating the mainland poker tournament seat.

10. All decisions made by the BET2 management are final.

11. BET2 will not be responsible on the tax position of winners, as some jurisdictions treat poker wins as tax free, while in other jurisdictions such proceeds are taxable. If the winnings are taxable in a player’s jurisdiction, the player is solely responsible to keep track of and report his/her winnings to the appropriate authorities. The members participating in this BET2 APT promotion are aware of the legal issues relating to the operation of remote gambling and tax implications of winnings. The members also understand that BET2 is not warranting in any way or manner that the playing of poker over the internet for the purposes of remote gambling, as such term is commonly understood in the industry, is legal in any jurisdiction.

12. Winners shall be entitled to receive each the $2,500 + $200 buy-in to the Main Event once he/she reach Manila, Philippine on 24 August, 2010. Winners shall also be entitled to free hotel accommodation (for avoidance of doubt only BET2 winner participants shall be entitled to the said accommodation). Winners shall be responsible for their round trip airplane tickets and pocket money expenses. Family members, friends or guests who would like to join with the BET2 winner participant shall pay for their own round trip airplane tickets and hotel accommodations.

13. Winners shall be entitled to avail hotel accommodation from check-in time of August 24 and as long as they still remain in the qualifier or final round. In case the BET2 participant gets eliminated, he /she shall no longer be entitled to the said hotel accommodation as of check out time of the date of elimination. If the participate would like to extend hotel accommodations throughout of the APT, then they will arrange and pay for the same at their own cost.

14. BET2 winner participants agree to abide by the rules and regulations of the APT.

15. BET2 has the right to stop its promotions, or change their conditions at any time at its sole discretion.

Note: Any product/service names, logos, icons, brand name, trade dress, and other trademarks/service marks featured, referred to, or appearing on this Website are the property of their respective trademark holders. These trademark holders are not affiliated with BET2.com, our products, or our Website. Unless so governed by contractual relations, the trademark holders do not sponsor or endorse our products or our Website and are not in any way affiliated with BET2.

HOW TO WIN?

1. If a player hits/meet the hand (win with completed hand), the player will need to send an email (support@bet2.com) or contact our CSD to apply, provide his owns winning hand screen shot or hand history number to apply for the prize promotion.

2. BET2 APT promotions shall be held from 23 July 2010 until 18 August 2010. BET2 shall monitor the results of the strongest hands for Hold’em tables starting 12:00 midnight GMT+8 on 23 July 2010 until 12:00 midnight GMT+8 on 19 August 2010. BET2 shall no longer include the results of hands beyond this cut off period. BET2 shall inform the members chosen as winners for being one of the top three strongest hands. Winners shall inform BET2 not later than 20 August 2010 to claim their prizes. Unclaimed prizes shall be forfeited in favor of BET2.

3. BET2 will update the latest player standing in BET2 Leader Board.

For more information, please visit the following sites:

APT: www.theasianpokertour.com
Resort World Manila: http://www.rwmanila.com

Asian Poker Tournament Philippines 2010

Poker players from all over the world will be converging in Asia as the Asian Poker Tour (APT) holds events in various locations around the region.

After the success of APT Philippines 2009, the APT is back with its next event: APT PHILIPPINES 2010! Held from August 23 to 29, the tournament will be held at the luxurious Resorts World Manila complex. Buy-in is set at US $2,500 + US $200.

Last year, the 2009 APT Philippines was won by local poker pro Neil Arce, who took home US $185,000.

Get in on the action NOW and register for APT Philippines!

Poker Rebuy Strategy

The main question on poker rebuys that you will probably want answered is should you rebuy? Quickly followed by if so – how often should you rebuy?

Firstly what is a rebuy? It’s a stage in a poker tournament where players are allowed to buy more chips to add to their stack. They don’t necessarily need to be low on chips or out of chips, anyone can choose to rebuy if they want to.

The good thing about a rebuy period for all players is the tremendous increase in pot size that you see taking place. If you are in a good position and don't need to rebuy, the fact that so many players have bought their way back into the game should not bother you too much. You were good enough to be in front of them before the rebuy period so the chances are that you will be good enough to stay in front of them.

Normally for any particular tournament they will come in the form of single or limited rebuys, or unlimited rebuys and can be used either to buy your way back into a tournament that you’ve dropped out of, or simply to bolster your chip count.

When deciding whether it’s worthwhile rebuying into a tournament you need to consider several factors.

1. The quality of your opposition
Were you among the better players in the game? Could you look at the way your opponents played and see that it should have been them who went out early and not you? In that case you should buy your way back in and get on with the game. However if you have seen that the standard of opposition is better than you, there is probably little point in carrying on.

2. Were you unlucky to be knocked out?
Were you knocked out of the poker tournament by a bad beat where you held the best cards and used the right betting strategy only to find you lost out to a lucky break your opponent got on the river? A rebuy is certainly in order here too.

3. Are you within sight of your opponents chip counts?
If you rebuy and get sat 1500 chips, is it going to be enough to give you a chance against the chips your opponents are holding? If you are too far behind you will probably get blinded out before you get the chance to land a winning hand and your rebuy will have been in vain.

4. Do you WANT to carry on?
Have you still got the mental desire to get back into the game and start over again? Or has your early exit left you dispirited and feeling that you should just leave well enough alone and try your luck another time?

The very knowledge that players can rebuy back into the game often influences their game plan to a great extent, especially when there are multiple or unlimited rebuys. In this instance there tends to be a bit of a betting frenzy in the early stages as there is an opportunity to get back in even after losing an all-in.

(This tends to defeat the purpose of an all-in, although it is still good for the player who wins as they will get a good chip boost).

The other side of this type of play however is that a few players can break away with chip stacks which put them in extremely strong positions in the latter stages of the tournament. It is often the case that if you want to stay in contention you need to make some similar plays to keep up with the leaders, or else the blinds will catch up with you and you’ll be out.

Probably as with most things in poker, the biggest consideration with rebuys is value. If you consider that the rebuy fee is worth it in terms of the chance you have of progressing, then you should consider a rebuy.

Stealing Blinds in No Limit Texas Holdem

Stealing the blinds is one way of ensuring survival in a no-limit Texas Hold’em game. If you steal enough blinds, you can be in the game a longer time than your initial stack warrants.

What Is Stealing the Blinds?

In Texas Hold’em, there are obligatory opening bets from the small blind and the big blind (the first and second player to the left of the button provides the small and big blinds, respectively). Together, they make up the initial pot.

Stealing the blinds refers to trying to win the initial pot or trying to win the blinds. Stealing the blinds serves a two-fold purpose: it will let you win extra chips, unchallenged, and help you reduce the size of your opponents’ stack.

How to Steal the Blinds

In order to steal the blinds, you must make all your opponents drop out of the betting round/s pre-flop. The best way to do this would be to raise and re-raise during the pre-flop betting round. If you are under-the-gun and you wish to steal the blinds, bet more than the minimum. If you are in a middle position or a late position, you should multiply the minimum bet by around two times. In other words, if you are trying to steal the blinds, bet aggressively and avoid mini-raises.

Stealing the Blinds Strategy

If you are a late-position player, you are in an advantageous position to steal the blinds. If most of the players have folded before the betting action reaches you, you can dominate the game and steal the blinds.

If you are short-stacked and wants to steal the blinds, it would be much better to go all-in rather than wait to be raised. Take the lead in betting whenever you can. Additionally, if only a few players are at the table (the game is short-handed), stealing the blinds is good strategy because you are obliged to post blinds more often than not and you’ll run out of chips much sooner.

You should not try to steal the blinds all the time, however. Trying to steal the blinds means you have to make hefty raises. If another player plays you and you miss the flop, you’ll lose all your bets. Furthermore, not all blinds are worth stealing. If the blinds won’t significantly increase your stack, perhaps you should just let it go. If, however, the blinds will make a sizeable addition to your stack, then by all means go for it. The rule of thumb: be selective of the blinds you’ll try to steal.

Top 10 Poker Quotes

These great quotes culled from poker players and writers sum up some of the most essential ideas of the game.
1. David Sklansky on Poker
“When we play, we must realize, before anything else, that we are out to make money.”

2. From Big Deal by Anthony Holden
"Poker may be a branch of psychological warfare, an art form or indeed a way of life – but it is also merely a game, in which money is simply the means of keeping score."

3. David Mamet on Poker
"Poker reveals to the frank observer something else of import—it will teach him about his own nature. Many bad players do not improve because the cannot bear self-knowledge."

4. Bobby Baldwin on Poker
"You cannot survive without that intangible quality we call heart. The mark of a top player is not how much he wins when he is winning but how he handles his losses. If you win for thirty days in a row, that makes no difference if on the thirty-first you have a bad night, go crazy, and throw it all away."

5. Crandell Addington on Poker
"Limit poker is a science, but no-limit is an art. In limit, you are shooting at a target. In no-limit, the target comes alive and shoots back at you."

6. From Poker Nation by Andy Bellin
In the absence of any mathematical explanation, one thing is for certain; if you engage in games of chance long enough, the experience is bound to affect the way you see God. Successfully draw to an inside straight three hands in a row, and you’ve got to be blessed. But if you’re the person drawn out on, the one whose trip aces just got snapped for the third time, you will go home feeling cursed.

7. From The Gentleman’s Handbook on Poker by William J. Florence
The strong point in poker is never to lose your temper, either with those you are playing with or, more particularly, with the cards. There is no sympathy in poker. Always keep cool. If you lose your head you will lose all your chips.

8. Pug Pearson on Poker
“The real things to know is that folks will stand to lose more than they will to win. That’s the most important percentage there is. I mean, if they lose, they’re willin’ to lose everything. If they win, they’re usually satisfied to win enough to pay for dinner and a show. The best gamblers know that.”

9. From A Girlhood Among Gamblers by Katy Lederer
The cardinal sin in poker, worse than playing did cards, worse even than figuring your odds correctly, is becoming emotionally involved.

10. Amarillo Slim on Poker:
“It never hurts for potential opponents to think you’re more than a little stupid and can hardly count all the money in your hip pocket, much less hold on to it..”

What You Need to Get Started with a Home Poker Tournament

A great way to enjoy a good game of poker with friends it to have a poker tournament at home. You can play with as few as 6 or as many players as you’d like, and you can play any kind of poker you’d like. You can play limit, pot-limit, or no-limit, or mix it up. The varieties and fun are endless.

But to get started, the easiest and most common set-up though is to have 8 to 10 players at one table and play no-limit Texas Hold’em. This easy how-to will get you going in no time to playing the most popular form of tournament poker there is.

Before players arrive, there are a few things you’ll need:

* A poker table or table that seats up to ten
* Two decks of cards
* Poker chips
* A dealer button
* A poker timer or some other timer

Optional: If you are playing with beginners, it is wise to post this list of what beats what and print out this quick how to play texas hold’em guide.

The next thing to decide it how much the buy-in or entry fee for the tournament is and what the prizes are. You can play for any amount you’d like, but in a beginner game, I suggest every player buy-in for $10 or $20. That way, the winner will get a nice chunk of change, but those who don’t win won’t be out more than dinner or a movie. You can also allow re-buys back in for the first hour of play -- that way if anyone busts out of the game early, they can buy back in and not feel left out. It also builds the prize pool!

Whatever you decide, in a 10-person game, usually the top three players place “in the money” and win some of the cash. You can do a “winner takes all” game as well, but I find that in a friendly game, it’s more fun for everyone if you pay the top three. A common break down might be to give 60% of the total prize pool to the first place winner, 30% to the second place winner, and the last 10% to the third place winner. You can adjust these percentages/amounts, but for instance in a $10 buy-in game with no rebuys, 1st place would win $60, 2nd place $30, and 3rd place $10, or their money back. Whatever you decide, announce it before the game begins so everyone knows what they are playing for.

The basic idea of a poker tournament is that every player starts with the same amount of chips and you play until one person has them all. To make sure the game doesn’t go on forever, tournaments are played with levels -- after a certain amount of time, the price of poker goes up, meaning the blinds go up. You can also start adding in antes after a while.

There are two factors that control how long a tournament goes on: How many chips each player starts with and how long the levels are.

If you want to play a quick tournament (1-2 hours), start each player with 2,000 chips and play with 20-minute levels. Here is the structure for a quick tournament.

For a longer tournament (2-4 hours), start each player with 10,000 chips and play with 30-minute levels. Here is the structure for a longer tournament.

The advantage of a short tournament is that you can often play two in one poker night, and is best for a group of beginners. A longer tournament is better for experienced players, and allows a game of more strategy.

Once you’ve decided, you need to assign values to whatever chips you are using. You don’t have to use this suggestion, just make sure its clear and that there are enough chips of each value to go around -- you’ll need the most of whatever you denote as the lowest-value chips.

Common chip values:
Green: 25
White: 100
Red: 500
Black: 1000
Blue: 5000


A good chip distribution for a 2,000-chip tournament might be: 4 greens, 9 whites, 2 reds.
A good chip distribution for a 10,000-chip tournament could be: 8 greens, 8 whites, 6 reds, 2 blacks, 1 blue

Once everyone is seated and the chips are distributed, the last thing to decide is who will get the dealer button. You can do this in two ways -- the host can deal out a card per player and the player with the highest card gets the dealer button, or you can spread out a deck and let each player pick a card. In each case, the higest card wins -- if two player gets the same cards, the suits will decide. Spades is the highest suit, followed by hearts, diamonds, and finally clubs.

Now just begin dealing the cards and let the fun begin!