Hi all, Once again thanks for all your patience, I know it can be frustrating!

Overall things are not as bad as they were, the sever has been down a lot less recently but there are still gremlins in there somewhere that tech is working to find and fix.

The biggest recent problem was at the “Thanksgiving” on Saturday 3rd where quite a few players were thrown off (not by mods ) for some technical reason that we’ve yet to track down but possibly due to server load.

As a result we think the result can’t be upheld as fair so have decided to exclude the game from the overall holiday freeroll results and count the overall winner as the best from Halloween, Xmas and New year games. I know this won’t please everyone but it’s the fairest way we can figure from the limited available options.

BIG Bonus Winter Freeroll
One thing we have decided to do once things have settled down is to run a bonus extra BIG freeroll sometime midwinter part as an apology and part as a thank you for all your patience and support

Details of this to be confirmed later…cos as I write we only decided on this about a minute ago

Register on NoPayPOKER now for the Thanksgiving free online poker Freeroll game which starts at 8pm GMT, 3pm EST, 12pm WST  The password is holidays.  

It’s the second of our 4 holiday freerolls, this one has a pot of $3000 FreeD. After this there are 2 more - Christmas and New Year.

If you play in all 4 “Holiday” tournaments and get the best overall finishing positions then you will win, on top of whatever else you get a bonus $50 USD/$10,000 FreeD

You must play all four tournaments to compete for the best overall position bonus

> Holiday $2000 Halloween Freeroll – 31st Oct 2011 – Played
> Holiday $3000 Thanksgiving Freeroll – 24th Nov 2011
> Holiday $4000 Christmas Freeroll – 25th Dec 2011
> Holiday $5000 New Year Freeroll – 1st Jan 2012

Go open up the NoPayPOKER games software now and register for this great fun freeroll game right now!

And if you are not a NoPayPOKER.com member go to the free online poker home page to download the free poker software right now, you can play right away, no complications or deposits of any of that guff to worry bout as it is all (did we mention this before FREE!

NoPayPOKER.com – Play free online poker games today!

Register on NoPayPOKER now for the HALLOWEEN Freeroll game which starts at 8pm GMT, 3pm EST, 12pm WST  The password is holidays.  

It’s the first of 4 holiday freerolls, this one has a pot of $2000 FreeD. After this there are 3 more – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.

If you play in all 4 “Holiday” tournaments and get the best overall finishing positions then you will win, on top of whatever else you get a bonus $50 USD/$10,000 FreeD

You must play all four tournaments to compete for the best overall position bonus.

Holiday $2000 Halloween Freeroll – 31st Oct 2011
Holiday $3000 Thanksgiving Freeroll – 24th Nov 2011
Holiday $4000 Christmas Freeroll – 25th Dec 2011
Holiday $5000 New Year Freeroll – 1st Jan 2012

Go open up the NoPayPOKER games software now and register for this great fun freeroll game right now!

And if you are not a NoPayPOKER.com member go to the free online poker home page to download the free poker software right now, you can play right away, no complications or deposits of any of that guff to worry bout as it is all (did we mention this before FREE!

If most of you reading this article are like me then the bad economy is taking a big bite out of your, what I call, flexible income. This means that you, like myself, have to find a way to entertain yourself without spending a lot of money.

We all know that when we go out for a night on the town the bill can really mount up, but there is a way to have a lot of fun without spending much money. The way I am speaking of is to join a free online poker site. Not only is playing online poker fun, but it is also a great way to meet new friends. Most online poker sites offer chat groups.

This means that you can chat with other members of the site while you play or between games. This gives you a great chance to make new friends as well as a way to learn some really great free poker tips. Most sites also offer great poker tips and training for the new player to help you learn to be a better player.

There are many online poker sites to choose from. Some cost money to join and play, which really can go against having fun and saving money, but there are other sites like No Pay Poker that give you the opportunity to play and find new friends for free.

If you really want to find a way to have a whole lot of fun and save a whole lot of money doing so then find a good online free poker site that offers chat lines, good playing tips, and free poker play, and you will be amazed how much fun you can have while beating the hard economy. Good luck, have fun, and good luck.

If your idea of fun is playing against players that take a game very seriously, that are some of the better players on the site and if you think you are a better than average poker player then the $10000 Sponsor Tournament is the game for you. This is one of the most difficult tournaments to win on NoPayPOKER but yet has the fewest players of any tournament.

I would definitely recommend using the maximum allowed Bonus Chips in this game since most of the players do and to not do so will place you at a disadvantage and make it very difficult to place much less win the game.

Although it may seem daunting at first, getting a ticket to this game is not hard if you just read Suzzie’s article on how to do sponsors.  Anything worthwhile is worth doing and this game is very worthwhile, it will test your poker skills more than any other game on the site plus give you a chance to win a lot of FreeDs.  With the recent number of entries in this game first place has been paying from $4000 to $5000 FreeDs.

You may have noticed that you see the same players in this game week after week, the reason why is they took a small amount of time to learn to do the sponsors to ensure receiving a ticket. They are the “regulars” that frequently win this game and if they can do sponsors to earn that ticket so can you!  So do the sponsor offers, bring your “A” game to this tournament and show the “regulars” just how good you are.

Incoming search terms:

• 10000 free sponsor tournament

In poker online free games where there are many inexperienced players who don’t have the poker skills needed to win frequently by skill a good player deploying solid ABC poker will win a lot of games. Against experienced players, even in some free poker games online and for certain in cash games, ABC poker won’t work so well.

To win frequently you need at mix new methods into your game. One tactic that you can employ to confound skilled poker players is the ‘light’ three-bet.

It serves a very different purpose than the typical ‘value’ three-bet in which you raise with premium pre-flop hands like aces, kings, queens, or ace-king. With those kinds of hands, you’re looking to extract the maximum value from a strong hand before the flop.

The ‘light’ three bet is a really different sort of move altogether.

Purpose

When you “light” three-bet, you’re re-raising with a hand that may not be the best before the flop but may turn out to be the best when all is said and done. The Light-3 bet then is a type of semi-bluff, but only semi as the hand is not total rubbish.

You want to win the hand before the flop with your re-raise, steal the hand from your opponent after the flop, or get lucky and make up a big hand.

Even if it fails you will succeed in affecting your table image and balancing your range. Should you play too tight you will find it hard to get your pay off when you get a Big Hand. But if you Light-3 bet the other players will not think you’re a nit.

They won’t know whether you have pocket aces or a hand that may be much weaker.

Ideal Opponent

You don’t want to use the “light” three-bet against a poor player. You do not need to get sophisticated with them, if you have good poker skills you can beat them with your ABC solid tactics.

You do want to use the “light” three-bet against a good player who plays somewhat loose. Since the player will play a wide opening range of hands, he’ll be playing less than premium hands frequently. Oftentimes, this type of player will lay down his hand when you “light” three-bet. He wants to steal pots. He doesn’t want a confrontation.

Ideal Hand

You obviously don’t want to “light” three-bet with the worst starting hand possible. Although, some young online pros have been seen to “light” three-bet with all sorts of trashy hands.

Ideally, you’ll want to “light” three-bet with suited connectors or suited aces. Even when you miss the flop, you may pick up a strong enough draw to allow you to stay in the hand the hand. If you “light” three-bet with 7-2 off suit, it’s essentially a stone cold bluff with no real outs.

Summary and Warning
You ought not risk the “light” three-bet too much and without an understanding of the intention of the tactic. You should play a generally solid game but still generate enough action to get paid off with your good hands. If you “light” three-bet too much, you’ll just develop into another weak, loose player who bleeds money at the table.

If you’ve not tried the light 3 before practice it when you play free poker first and work it into your cash game repertoire when you feel confident in its use. If you’re new to poker learn how to play poker for beginners first at a online poker free site and learn this sort of tactic in the process.

Regardless of if you’re a beginning free online poker player or a WSOP top table pro, the all-in is the biggest move in poker.

As a rule of thumb, usually one moves all-in only with hands that can stand a chance against, say, A-K or A-Q (the most common all-in hands).

It is because these are the hands also most prepared to call. Which hands, then, are we ready to put our tournament life on? Pocket pairs spring to mind. So does A-K (or A-Q or even K-Q suited or K-J suited if you are running out of chips)

But someone does it differently. I’d like to add that here; player B is usually an impatient, rowdy player who is familiar to us TV poker fans.

BLINDS 12k/24k

A has Ad-Kd raises 75k

A’s raise is simply standard for A-K suited, though it is slightly stronger (the average preflop raise is about 2.5x the big blind, but this raise is a little greater than thrice). But look at B’s move, which may be less standard:

B has 10c-5c moves all-in 544k

What about that: a 10-5? With about 22 big blinds left, which is relatively a short-stack (but not so short), B moves all-in. But with a 10-5? B can wait for slightly better hands than this.

Now let us try to justify the 10-5 in this situation. If B did it with a small pair, he is a slight favourite (about 55-45). If with A-x (with x smaller than a King), he is a significant underdog (about 75-25).

With any 2 cards apart from A or K he much less the underdog (approx. 66-34).

So the win-rate of 10-5 against A-K (here B deciding that A’s hand was A-K or similar was quite a gamble; if he’s up against A-A he is a big underdog, about 85-15) is just the average of the win rate of a pocket pair against A-K and the win rate of A-x against A-K, and therefore not so bad.

Moreover, with 10c-5c B has two live cards, in contrast to A-x, where x is the only live card. Moreover, B may dislike having 22 big blinds dwindle to, say, 15 or 14 later, so he decides to put his heart and soul into this hand. Who is this player, anyway? “I’ve got a 10-5, girls and boys.” Yes it’s true, the garrulous Mike Matusow! “The Mouth!”

A calls 469k (Pot 1.124m)

Now let us observe how “The Mouth” will fare against all odds.

FLOP: Js-7c-5s

“That’s a Flop!” A Five fell, pairing Matusow!

TURN: Js-7c-5s-8d

RIVER: Js-7c-5s-8d-6d

Moving all-in can prove to be the most dangerous moments in poker. Even in free online poker it can also be the most thrilling, anyway. The all-in recharged Matusow’s stack to 45 big blinds.

This sort of unusual play can be exploited forever in any case. When Matusow believed that A has A-K or similar, he is gambling.

While most players will work a strategy where they will call with pocket pairs I doubt in this case that A will call with anything less than 10-10.

Against A-A or K-K or a higher pair, 10-5 will win only about 15% of the time, and with 10-10 to 5-5, about 25%, and with 4-4 to 2-2, nearly a coin flip.

Summing up the All-In

Take time to read and comprehend the principles behind this article. Attempt comprehend the ideas behind what’s going on with this example and look into strategies to put these lessons into your individual play.

It takes time to learn how to play poker at a level where you make money consistently.

But if (and when) you learn how to play poker well then you’ll make some good money. Why?

Simply that the vast majority of players you come up against never get to what can be termed a good level.

So you, if you can get to a good standard will do very well very easily. You don’t have to be a TV pro to make good money in poker!

The fact that most players are at such a low skill means that whenever you hunt/play them on free online poker games or low stakes sites you’ll be able to clean up.

To learn to play poker for free explore the NoPayPOKER blog, the free poker lessons here cover all levels from beginner to advanced, plus, the site itself as a free online poker site is the perfect place to practice what you learn.

How to Get Winning in Free Online Poker

This free online poker help page will teach you the fastest, easiest ways to learn how to play poker free and start winning money at poker.

First you’ll learn how to win big on NoPayPOKER, then we will graduate you onto some of the lower stakes cash tables or poker tournaments at places like Titan PartyPoker and Feltstars where you can win some pretty nice amounts of cash with no real pain (cos you will know hat you’re doing!)

If you’ve not already registered (free) for NoPayPOKER do so on this link – free online poker (opens in a new window so you won’t lose this page) simply register and then download the software, then come back here to learn what to do next.

The Problem With Free Online Poker

The biggest problem you will find with free online poker games, as a player, beginner or otherwise, who wants to learn how to play poker better and win a bit is that it is, well free.

OK so why is free poker a problem?

Well it’s the fact that in being a free online poker site NoPayPOKER.com inherently has no risk to the wealth of a player, you can’t actually deposit any money here so the chances of losing it are 0 Kelvin (absolute zero!)

The result is that a lot of players, rather than use this as a way to learn how to play poker free and witjh no risk use it as a way to go crazy and do things no player risking real money would do. They’ll go all-in preflop with a 2-7, or even all-in post flop with terrible hands post flop when it is clear that someone else ost likely will have a better hand…

In other words there are a lot of reckless “luck” players (AKA chip flingers, donks, maniacs and farm animals)

The fact then that it is free online poker with no risk of loss means that thy can play luck and now and again luck comes good which gives them the means to go on and supports their daft assumption that poker as a game is only about luck not skill.

Free Online Poker – The Good News

• There are ways and means to play around the lunacy.
• You as a player who wants to learn and play seriously can do so.
• You will learn some money as you do it too.

Best Of All

When you learn how to beat the living daylights out of the chip flingers on a regular basis you will find that not only tdo they inhabit free onoline poker sites such as NoPayPOKER, they are also presentin force on low stakes real cash tables and tournaments on cash poker sites.

• They’re there mostly due to over-optimism as a result of good marketing by said sites on all those TV ads and TV shows like WSOP and Poker After Dark.
• They think that all they have to do is copy those moves they saw on TV and they’ll win a packet.
• Your job, as a good player is to come along, find the daft player tables and fill your account with their money
  

So How To Use Free Online Poker To Get To This Point?

• Take our free poker lesson series, these can take you from being an utter beginner who does not even know a single poker hand to a level advanced enough to play pros
• …well in theory, you need to take it all in and live it to get to that point!
• However, one thing you can be sure of if you do the lessons and apply what you learn is that you can at least get to intermediate skill and that is more than enough to massacre free online poker and low stakes tables

As ever practice makes perfect and there is no substitute for game time no matter how easily the concepts may come to you so read, learn, take your time. Practice, come back again and keep going. If at first you don’t succeed and all that!

Free Online Poker Lesson Time!

Lets go then!

• Ideally load your printer and have a ring binder ready. It’s good to be able to print and read anytime.
• As it is blog format the lessons are in reverse order. So when you go to the main pages we link to here scroll down and get to earlier lessons.
• We’ve also linked to lesson 1 in each series.
• At the end of each lesson go back to the home page to locate the next one (all lesson series home pages are also linked to from the right hand page menu)

Introducing Your Teacher and Mentor: Dean Michael Vadnais

Dean Michael Vadnais is an exceptionally experienced poker pro player and mentor. He plays free online poker at NoPayPOKER as well as in numerous “real world” live games and runs real world classroom training courses and groups. His lessons are both highly detailed and amusing, I can promise you that you will have some very definite views of chip flingers” once you’re done…one thing, always be polite and don’t abuse the chip flingers, we don’t want to scare them off, they give us money!

Free Online Poker for Total Poker Beginners

If you’ve never played free online poker before, or have just a base understanding start with the Poker 101 series.

• Poker 101 Home page
• Poker 101 Lesson 1

Free Online Poker Beginner to Intermediate Progression

• Building A Bankroll Home page
• Building A Bankroll Lesson 1

Free Online Poker to Real World Poker

• World of Bricks and Mortar home page
• World of Bricks and Mortar Lesson 1

Free Online Poker – Advanced Poker

• Advanced Poker Home page
• Advanced Poker Lesson 1

Free Online Poker Success – A Summary and Final Words…For Now

As I say above, practice. It really does make perfect and there is no substitute for game time no matter how easily the concepts may come to you so read, learn, take your time. Practice, come back again and keep going. If at first you don’t succeed and all that!

Play lots and lot of free online poker here to learn what you need to learn and also have some fun. You can win some real money too whuch does spice thingsn up a bit! Even nce you progess to low or hiher than low stalkes poker it s good idea to keep some free online poker going, it’s a great way to have some fun away from the real cash stress as well as practice new ideas and techniques that you’d prefer not to risk money on.

So that’s all for this page, bookmark it so you can come back and access quickly and, most of all, as you embark on your free online poker career…good luck and see you at the tables!