Many online poker players have been asking themselves a similar question: should I play just a few tables and concentrating on my win rate or should I play a lot of tables and focus on rake back? I will answer this question in details in this insight and I hope you will enjoy it and get some benefit out of it. 
        
        First of all, let me answer this question in a simple fashion: You should always choose to play the games whichever way will maximize your hourly rate. With this principle in mind, it is not hard to figure out whether YOU, should go for a lot of tables or just a few. Now, let me give you a detailed analysis for either way of playing. 

        Let's say that you decide to play just a few games and concentrating on beating the games. By playing a few, you would constantly be facing the followings:
        1.Game Selection. Obviously, you can easily choose the juicier games: find the game with higher average pot size, higher VPIP percentage, less regular pros, more fishes. This is your advantage and it is +EV for you. 
        2.Bankroll Requirement. As you will be playing only a few tables, you do not need to have a large sum of bankroll sitting at your online poker account. As long as you have enough money, say 3 X Number of table X full buy-in for the game you play, you should be fine. This is your advantage and it is +EV for you even it is not that significant. 
        3.Observing your opponents. As you will not be constantly making poker decisions, you will have time to watch how your opponents play. You can easily spot a fish or a player is on tilt. You will learn whether your opponent is passive or aggressive. You might also be able to find some tells from your opponents, like slow-rolling a big hand, quick call with a very strong or weak hand. This is your advantage and it is a big +EV for you.
        4.Game Operation. You have enough time to act whenever it is your turn. You will not run into a situation like out of time and your hand is forced to fold. You will not rush your decision which means you will always make the most +EV decision to your knowledge. This is your advantage and it is +EV for you. 
        5.Rake-back Percentage. Since you do not play many tables and therefore not pay much in rake, you will not get a big percentage in terms of rake-back. If you play medium or even higher limit games, the rake-back can be almost omitted since your profit by beating the game is so much more than the rake you pay. Of course, you will not be benefit from the VIP program the poker site offers much. This is your disadvantage and it is -EV for you. 

        Similar analysis I will show you if you decide to play as many tables as possible:
        1.Game Selection. You have almost no choice on what kind of table you feel like to play; you will just simply play all of them on whichever limit you are capable to play with. You will be constantly playing with a lot of regular pros, low average pot size, low VPIP percentage tables on a daily basis. This is your disadvantage and it is -EV for you. 
        2.Bankroll Requirement. In order to play 10+ or even 24 tables at the same time, you need to have a big chunk of money on your online poker account. Normally, you should have about 3 X Number of Tables X full buy-in for each table. For example, if you decide to play 20 tables $3/$6 Limit Hold'Em, since the full buy-in is 20 BBs, which is $120 per table, you will need 3 X 20 X $120, which is $7200 in your poker account to have absolutely no financial pressure while playing. This is a disadvantage for you and it is -EV even it is not that significant. 
        3.Observing your opponents. Since you will be making poker decisions almost at every second you are playing, you almost have no time to observe your opponents, especially to the new faces. You have to judge by data from HUD (Heads-Up Display) software or simply poker instinct. This is a disadvantage for you and it is a big -EV.  
        4.Game Operation. So many tables you are playing at the same time and guess what? You can be sure that you will fold Aces pre-flop once a while if you are not a seasoned professional. You will constantly rush your decisions, click on the wrong buttons and get timed out a lot of time. This is a disadvantage for you and it is a pretty big -EV. 
        5.Rake-back percentage. Since you are playing more rakes to the site than almost anybody else, you will be easily recognized as the highest VIP. The rake-back percentage can be as high as 100% depending on the limit your games are. This is an advantage for you and it is a big +EV. 

        As we may observe from the above, there are pros and cons for each approach. You might be able to make +4 BB/100 hands if you just play a few or you might be a small loser if you play 20+ tables at the same time. It seems that it is obvious that you will prefer +4BB than -0.1BB from the first look; however, the later approach might yield a higher (2X+) hourly rate on average. In conclusion, you need to carefully evaluate both approaches yourself so that you will find out which one is better in terms of hourly rate. You can spend a month to try both approaches if you have enough time, or you might try just a few sessions and then do a detailed calculation and analysis. 

        Whichever way you choose, I wish you can be successful in poker!

        In this article, I would like to emphasize that the Texas Hold'Em is a skillful game; "luck" has zero impact in the long run. Since money is involved in this game, many people will automatically relate it with other gambling games in casinos: you need to be "lucky" to win. This type of thinking is definitely incorrect and the game of Texas Hold'Em is essentially different from any other games which casino offers. Before I start making my point, I would like to mention again: the purpose of this article is not for discussing poker strategy or so on, you can look for other articles for detailed strategies under Insights tab.

        First of all, let me explain how Texas Hold'Em is different from any other casino games, for example, Black Jack. When you are walking towards a Black Jack table in a casino, you are looking at the deal's tray. Your objective is to take as many chips from the tray as possible. In another word, your opponent is the casino. Does your opponent make game decision by his own? No, the decision has been made: Stay on 17, or, hit on soft 17; it is clearly written on every table. Obviously, your opponent has relatively "infinite" amount of chips as his bankroll and when he plays against you. Also, your opponent has no emotion involved when he is in a game with you. Now, let's take a look what you are facing when you walk towards a regular Texas Hold'Em table. Your objective is to take as many chips as possible from each person's chip stacks and casino is not involved. Your opponents are the people who already sit at the table or people who will join your table later. Do your opponents make decisions by their own? Yes, on each and every turn, each one of your opponents must make his own decision. Whatever the decisions they are making, nobody knows ahead of time, in another word, it is unpredictable. Do your opponents have relative "infinite" bankroll? No, the chips on the table plus the money in their pocket are most likely will be involved for each session. If you are observant, your opponents easily express their emotions when opportunity comes. As above shown, the game of Texas Hold'Em is completely different than other casino games. Another important difference I would like to point out here is: the outcome of each game of Black Jack or any other casino game, is almost always depending on cards you are dealt, or the symbol combination shows (e.g. a slot machine). For Texas Hold'Em, only 50.3% of showdowns are won by the player who could make the best 5-card hand*.

        Now let's get to the "skill" part of Texas Hold'Em. Let me break it down to four sections: fundamental skills in general, basic decision making skills, observation skills, and psychological skills. 

        Just like any other risk taking activities, in order to make profit, you need to follow some basic principles. Money Management is the rule number one. Whatever you are investing, you might want to cut the loss when things are not looking good, putting more money in when you can see your investment has more potential. There are other rules like, you might want to stay longer when the value of your investment tends to increase and stop hanging around when the value of your investment starts to decrease. Playing Texas Hold'Em is the same as trading stocks or buying real estates, those rules are all well-applied. 

        In Texas Hold'Em, you have a few options to make when every time it is your turn to act: Check/Call, Fold, and Raise. As many of you already know, in order to win, you need to make positive Expected Value (EV) decisions as much as possible (search online if you have no idea what +EV means).  Basically, the ideal or optimal way to play is: find out the EV for each option when it is your turn, and then pick the most +EV one. There are many factors which affect the EV for each option, your hole cards, your position, your opponents, the actions which have already occurred, etc. Those factors will complicate your process on finding out the EV for each option and this ability will take a lot of practice to master. A beginner will generally make most of their decisions by their nature feelings; on contrary, a seasoned professional player will make most of decisions based on the EV of each option. In the long run, it is not hard to see who will benefit more from playing Texas Hold'Em. 

        As most of you may have already realized, if you are an observant person, you can narrow down your opponents' holdings by watching your opponents' behaviors during a game of Texas Hold'Em. The body movements, facial expressions, words coming out of mouths, all of this information will help you to solve the puzzle of what your opponent's holdings. Again, just like how to figure out the EV for each option, making a better decision by observing your opponents takes a lot of practice to master it. 

        Because your opponents are real human beings, the psychological factor automatically comes into play. We all have emotions, some outgoing people may easily express their feelings and some may conceal their emotions carefully. More observant players can easily capture their opponents' current psychological state so that they can form a proper, or in another word, higher +EV decision to make against their opponents. How do you make correct adjustments towards your opponents after they lose a big pot and becoming angry? How about after they win a big pot and start singing songs? On contrary, does your face turn red after losing a big pot or do you start to show mercy to your opponents after you beat them badly in a pot? Once again, in order for you to act and react properly, it will take a lot of practice to become skillful. 

        In conclusion, a successful Texas Hold'Em player must learn and adapt many important skills to make their game profitable. Whether if you can win from this game over time does not depend on how many Royal Flushes you make or how many bad-beats you give to your opponents; it all depends how many skills from all areas you possess. For more details about the statistical analysis on proving Texas Hold'Em is NOT a game of chance, please find the report by Cigital Inc. 

        Master your skills and use them to profit~!

*  Statistical Analysis of Texas Hold'Em, Paco Hope, Sean McCulloch, March, 2009

        Supernova Elite, aka SNE, is currently the highest VIP level on PokerStars, the largest poker site in the world. PokerStars offers the best VIP program available for online poker, which unfortunately, only a few people realized at the beginning in 2007. There are only 39 SNEs in that year and soon after, 148 people became SNE in 2008 and the number is growing yearly. So, what are the benefits as a SNE and how do you, as a dedicated and aggressive poker player, become one of them? Let me show you in a great detail here. 

        First of all, I would like to talk about the benefits of SNE. PokerStars has shown the information from their VIP Club. There are basically four parts for the bonus: Frequent Player Points (FPPs), the Milestone Bonus, Land-based tournament entries and weekly freeroll tournament entries. In short, the sum of these four parts is among $100,700 to $138,800, depending on which tournament you choose and whether or not participating its weekly freeroll tournament. You may find more details on the reward part at FPPPRO.COM . Needless to say, if you can just break even the whole year, the rewards as a SNE can surely beat most of jobs in the world. 

        As you have seen how attractive this deal could be, you might start wondering if you could become one of SNEs. The answer is: YES, you can. From what I know and what I heard, SNEs are coming from very different "world". Some of them are professional poker players, college students, computer engineers, stay-at-home fathers; even a lady who was pregnant last year got her SNE status. If you have chosen becoming SNE as your yearly goal, let me show what you need in order to achieve it. 

        First and foremost, Dedication. Every beginning of a year PokerStars will reset your VIP Player Point (VPP) to 0 and you have the whole year to earn 1,000,000 VPPs to qualify for SNE. For some high rollers who are capable to play high limit Sit-and-Gos (SNGs), the reward from SNE is just a compliment. For all other SNE chasers, becoming SNE requires a lot more dedication than you think. You must answer yourself: how many hours you can play online poker per month for the entire 12 months? A lot of things could happen in a year besides playing poker: family or friends parties, holiday celebrations, vacations, sick days, etc. you need to figure this all out and plus a few days for the expected bad days (the days you run so bad that you want to call it off the day). 

        Secondly, Planning and Executing Your Plan. You should come up with a yearly, monthly, weekly and even daily plan. For the yearly plan, it might be as simple as one million VPPs on PokerStars. For the monthly and weekly plan, you can break down to how many VPPs you must earn for each time frame for the entire 12 months. And for daily plan, you need to know how many VPPs you need to earn for each working day, and what timeframe during a day you want to play. Do no forget to exclude the days that you cannot play poker. I would strongly recommend using a Microsoft Excel sheet to figure out. As an example, you might want to have the following for each column: Date /Table Limit /HourIn&Out /Hours/Hands Played /Winning /VPP Earned /VPP Required /VPP/Hour. Comparing on executing the plan, planning is the easy part, obviously. After you are done with planning, try a few days or sessions to see if you can follow the plan. You might have to adjust your plan by adding more tables, longer sessions, more working days, etc. You must figure out your plan by yourself; nobody else can do it for you as everyone has a different situation. 

        Third, Game Selection. By game selection, what I mean is what type of game you want to play in order to achieve SNE. You need to know what type of game you are good at and you can play long enough without getting bored. Is it Limit Holdem or No-Limit Holdem? Is it SNGs or multitable tournament? You might also choose more than one type of game to play so that you will not get bored along the way. After you have chosen what type of game you want to play, you should fit yourself into a proper limit. You can try it out with relative lower limit to play at first, until you reach a limit which you are not comfortable with. 

        Four, Bank Roll (BR) Requirement. How much money you need to have as bank roll before you start? There is an interesting website shows the BR requirement for different types of game: POCKETFIVES.COM. However, I strongly recommend that you build your own bank roll. I believe that it is the only way to find out what type of game and the limit you are comfortable with and it helps you to maintain a relatively high confident level throughout the year. Me as an example, I started out with only depositing $500 in May, 2008 and made my SNE by the end of the year and other SNE made his way through by depositing one or two hundred dollars initially. 

        Lastly, Miscellaneous. There are a few little things I would also like to mention here. There are good days and bad days along the year; you need to know how to handle them properly. You might want to play longer when you are running well and shorten your session if you are experiencing a significant downswing. Whenever comes to gambling, money management is always a very important thing to keep in mind. Improve your game as you pursue your SNE. I am sure that there are areas you can improve in your game, so do not wait until you run down to your last penny; you can seek helps from friends, books, Internet materials and maybe a coach. Remember, every mistake you correct means a big jump in your yearly profit. Find yourself a relatively comfortable working environment. Comfortable computer screen, chair, proper temperature in the room, good neighborhood, these are all pluses to your productivity and profits. Tell your family members and friends about your goal; they will understand you and give you support whichever way they can offer. 

        I hope your dream comes true and good luck at the tables. 

          While making decisions playing Texas Holdem, there are always exceptions while you might act differently than usual under some circumstances. I happened to run into the following hand while I was staying at the Palms during the 2009 WSOP Main Event. 

          It was a ten-handed $3/$6 Limit Holdem with full-kill at the Palms. I, acting as a tricky semi-loose aggressive player, had KhKd at hijack position. The UTG, 20ish very loose aggressive player, limped in, as well as a middle position, 50ish loose passive player. I raised and others folded to Small Blind, a 30ish lady who appeared very loose and extremely passive. So far, she played just about every hand and raised only once before the flop. This time, surprisingly she decided to make it 3-bet to go. The UTG limper called and so did the MP limper. I just called. 

          The flop was Th 5h 3h 

          The lady at Small Blind made a continuation bet and got immediately raised by the UTG limper. MP thought a moment and called. I re-raised, the lady called and the UTG capped. Everyone called his 4th bet. 

          The turn was	Ks 

          The lady checked and UTG bet again. MP called and I raised. The lady thought a moment and cold-called two bets. At the end, the turn was capped again and the four of us were all in the pot. 

          The river was Qc 

          Everyone checked to me and I bet. The lady called and so did the UTG limper. The MP limper mucked his hand. Final pot was: 3 x $12 + 4 x $12 + 4 x $24 + 3 x $6 = $198. I showed my KhKd and the lady voluntarily showed her QhQs. The UTG limper showed 8h4h and took the pot. 

          Now this hand brings a few questions to us: 
          Why not make it four bet before the flop? 
          Why not just call the raise on the flop? 
          Why not just call the bet on the turn? 
          Why not check the river? 

          Let me answer these questions one by one. 

          Why not make it four bet before the flop? There are three reasons. For one obvious reason, the unusual three bet from small blind shows a much higher chance than usual that she holds a pair of Aces. Secondly, my semi-loose image would likely make people believe that I do not have an extremely strong holding even I put in one more raise. This would make my chance of winning the pot less as nobody would throw away a weak draw even as weak as drawing for a pair of Aces. Lastly, I would like to keep the pot relatively small and people relatively calm so that I can squeeze both limpers out on the flop with my position advantage if she three bets on the flop after I raise the flop. 

          Why not just call the raise on the flop? First of all, I would like to find out where I am at on a cheaper street. I have the second biggest over pair with the second nut flush draw on the flop. My holding at this point is dangerous and I rather making the picture clear than fuzzy. Secondly, I would like to receive a free card on the river if everyone had checks to me on the turn and my hand is not improved. Also, my play becomes very difficult if someone bets the turn and another raises before me. 

          Why not just call the raise on the turn? As the Ks falls on the turn, my hand strength and potential has improved significantly. I have ten outs with the completion of my full-house and a not-so-small chance winning with a flush if another heart comes on the river. As none of the players would likely to lay-down their hands at this point, I receive a positive EV by raising and capping on the turn. 

          Why not just check the river? The main reason is for the thin positive EV by betting on the river. As everyone checks to me and I am last to act on the river, I almost certain that no one has a nut flush. Since there is no reasonable straight draw could continue due to the heavy bets on the turn, I would rule out the possibility someone makes a gut-shot straight on the river. The only thing that I do worry about is the UTG limper could have a non-nut flush; however, as he quickly checks the river, I would generally put him on a set or even two pairs. On the opposite, if my opponents have Aces, two pair or a set, they would pay me off for just one bet. 

          As shown, even it seems that every decision I made from the above example is not the usual case, it could be mathematically correct under some special circumstances. I hope you have enjoyed reading this insight and any feedbacks are welcome. 

          Good luck at the tables. 

          In addition, here is an analysis on reading the above players' holdings on each street after the flop. 

          After the flop action: 

          SB: AA, QQ, AKo with Ah. She would not have flopped a flush as I had Kh and most likely she would not three bet with AhQh before the flop. 

          UTG limper: two pairs, a set of 5s or 3s, a pair with Ah, a flush but not the nut flush. I would generally consider anyone with nut flush would not want to squeeze the other two opponents who have not acted yet out of the pot at this point. MP limper: top pair with a good kicker, two pairs, a set of 5s and 3s, a nut-flush, any two cards with Ah. I would consider anyone with a flush but not a nut flush would three bet at this point. 

          After the turn action: SB: AA, QQ with Qh, AKo with Ah. 

          UTG limper: a set of 5s or 3s, a flush but not the nut flush. Even as an aggressive player, he would not put in another raise with two pairs. 

          MP limper: two pairs, a set of 5s and 3s, any two cards with Ah 

          After everyone checks to me on the river: 

          SB: AA, QQ with Qh, AKo with Ah. 

          UTG limper: a set of 5s or 3s, a flush but not the nut flush. 

          MP limper: two pairs, a set of 5s and 3s, any two cards with Ah. 

          Comming Soon...