December 2012

  • December 2012
  • This month we get inside the mind of a champion, as we sit down with new WSOP Main Event winner Greg Merson and get him to walk us through all the significant hands he played at the final table. We also check out the new craze that's sweeping the poker community, Open Face Chinese Poker. Plus, we offer the ultimate Xmas gift guide for the modern poker player about town. Plus, as always, all the news, views, gossip and strategy from the biggest names in poker.

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PKR.com's Vladimir “Beyne” Geshkenbein on how to be a loose-aggressive Russian maniac.

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One of the trickiest stack sizes to play is 15 to 20BB, or roughly 6M to 8M. It’s considered by some to be too big for an open-shove, but small open-raises can leave you with some pretty tough decisions – especially against good players, and especially on the button where opponents should rightly put you on a weak(er) holding. What should you do in these spots with half decent hands?

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Nick Wealthall tries to predict the future

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At 28, Rick Trigg is considered a grizzled veteran these days, but he’s still got the skillz to pay the billz.

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Neil "Bad Beat" Channing surveys the affairs of the gambling classes

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EPT winner and celebrated maniac, PKR.com’s Vladimir Geshkenbein tells us about the games in Macau and why he likes to get under people’s skin.

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As I discussed last month, nearly every PLO player who is struggling to win consistently has one thing in common – their pre-flop hand selection is too wide.

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Ben Jackson's hand analysis

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Bluff grills KidPoker

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These days, it seems, everything has to be about “social integration” and gambling is no exception. It no longer involves standing around in a bricks n’ mortar bookies in quiet desperation, it’s all about collecting “power-ups” and chatting to your “friends”. Bluff takes a look at the best social gaming apps on the market and ponders what on earth drives people to pay real money for play chips.

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By Paul Jackson.


The obvious and fundamental difference between playing online and live – one which can have significant impact on a player’s ability to play to his optimal best – is the slowness of the live game. Playing on a live table is usually about six times slower than playing one table online (excluding misdeals) and, of course, you can play multiple tables online which is a much trickier feat to accomplish live.

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Paul picks holes in your typical live player