Table Position & Starting Hands

Most times people feel that playing at a shorter table means that you can play a wider range of hands. This is true and in fact, it is very important as the blinds come around more. You simply can not wait for the monster hands to come. However, people tend to abuse this concept and misjudge where they are at after the flop. They just “overvalue” what they are holding and it can get ugly quick. As far as starting cards are concerned, this is what we would suggest:

EP+1/EP+2 … Pocket Pairs AA-99, AK-A9 suited/off suit
MP+1/MP+2 … Pocket Pairs AA-55, AK-A5 suited/off suit
LP+1/LP+2 … Pocket Pairs AA-22, AK-A2 suited/off suit, suited connectors down to 5-6

This is looser than what you would play at a full 9 handed game. While you will find that many people say to play looser than this, it is crucial to keep in mind that if you are new you should still focus on playing quality over quantity. In the long run this will keep you out of trouble and when the time comes you can loosen up your game a bit more. The biggest differences in starting hands is the value of your Aces go up. You can play lower kickers more often as they will prove to be good quite often.

As a guide, we have this table below so that you can see where you’d be sitting in relation to the hands you would play.

Table Postion in Poker (screenshot of Aced Poker)

Hand Value & Betting

It is very important to keep in mind that although your Aces are worth more, so is everyone else’s. You will really have to focus on your kickers and get a good feel for where you may stand in the hand. A really good rule of thumb is to take your starting hand ranges from a full handed table and then just add a couple starting hands to that. For example, if you were to only play AA-JJ in early position at a full ring game, then you can consider adding maybe 1010-99 to you range, even as low as 88. Over adjusting can be one of the most fatal errors a player makes at a shorter table. There is no reason to over adjust, and the extra hands applied to your range is an aggressive enough adjustment.

A very important tool to have in your arsenal is betting. It is what sets the fish apart from the sharks. What tends to be the case more often then not, is player semi bluffing more often and reraising frequently. In a situation where you limped in the pot and someone raises you in later position, you will not know where you stand. This is an extreme disadvantage to you. Here is a couple good rules to remember:

Be #1. When you are the first person to enter a pot, raise. You can not complain if you just take the blinds.

If you have a solid read on a player or just are holding a very strong hand and you get raised, reraise them back! It is crucial to stand up for yourself as you are very likely to get ran over if you do not. Since starting hand ranges are going to vary slightly from a full handed table, everyone is going to be playing slightly weaker hands. If you have a good pair or two high cards, play them strongly. Something else to keep in mind is that other players tend to overvalue their Aces with weak kickers. Take advantage of this.

Play connectors suited or unsuited before the flop. Let them go if you completely brick the flop. They are a great for disguising your hand, but can really foul you up if you stick with them and they are no good.
Middle pair will have good value after the flop. Obviously you do not want to over value them, but play them as you would a high pair at a full handed table.

Playing Style Adjustments

You will immediate notice a difference at a shorter table then a full handed table. What is most important is the adjustments you make as a player. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you make the transition.

Do not be a tight player. The blinds come around 3 hands sooner. If you are a player that only plays Aces and Kings, you will be crushed.
Loose aggressive players may not have to adjust much. Your aggressiveness may cause you to backpedal and tighten up a bit as the other players at the table will have similar playing ranges.
Proper knowledge of implied odds and stack sizes are very important here.

Always raise or fold. Try not to just call hands if possible. Having the 2nd best hand does you absolutely no good. You need to have an idea of where you stand and project that to your opponent.

With the proper adjustments to your game you will notice that playing at a 6 handed table can really be a good break from the everyday grind of playing at larger tables. After playing at shorter tables you will find that you are much more aware of your surroundings and can use these things to better your game. You will find that you are better at dealing with pressure and that you can really open up your game to different strategies and starting hands. In short, you will be a much more rounded player with some 6 handed table experience under your belt.

Poker is a long term game of information. Obviously you can not see another players cards so you have to soak up information such as betting patterns, starting hand ranges, and other tells, like a sponge. And table position will affect you directly because all of this strategy adjusts as the dealer button moves clockwise around the table. To put this into perspective, one minute you can be sitting at the worst seat at the table, the small blind, and the next very hand you are in the best seat possible, the dealer button. And the dealer button is the best seat at the table because you will be the last person to act in every betting round allowing you to see all the action, or information, before you have to act.

Since some light has been shed on what position is and why it is important, you now need to know where you are sitting. “Halfway around the table” is not good enough. So how will you know where you are sitting? Very easy. Just imagine that the table is split into 3 sections with 3 players in each (Or 2 for a 6 handed table). Starting with the small blind you would count over 3 seats from the dealer button. This is known as Early Position or “EP.” Starting with the fourth seat from the dealer button and ending with the sixth seat is known as Middle Position or “MP.” And last, seats 7-9 are known as Late Position, otherwise known as “LP.” For the purpose of this article, we will refer to everything as position and seat number from the dealer button. For example, if you are on the button you would be LP+9 (late position and 9 seats from the dealer button) or if you were in the Small Blind you would be in EP+1. To better explain this, please take a look at our picture below.

Table Postion in Poker (screenshot of Aced Poker)

As you can see from the picture above, poker table position is a very clear cut idea and hopefully this sheds some light on how important it is. Another important factor in table position is the starting hands you play.

Poker Starting Hands

Why should you be concerned with starting hands in relation to table position ? As mentioned above, poker is a game of information. The more you have the better. How much experience do you hope to gain sitting in EP? Not a lot, right? For example, lets say you are in EP+3 and decided to play your favorite hand, the 10-J of spades and limp in for the minimum. Everyone folds down to the Big Blind who puts in a raise of 3 times the Big Blind. He has told you with a simple bet that he thinks he has a better hand. You look down at your favorite hand and realize that he is probably right and folds. Although it may not have been a lot, you still lost chips and accomplished nothing. Now if you were on the button on this hand, the roles could have been reversed and the 10-J of spades could have been playable.

Provided below is a starting hand guide. Now please be aware that this is only a guide and these hands may change due to your specific playing style.

EP+1-EP+2
AA-JJ, AK, AQ suited

LP+7-LP+9
AA-22, AK-A9 suited or off suit, Suited Connectors

It is also important to keep in mind that these hands are based off the fact that you are first to enter the pot. If you were not the first to enter you would have to consider the Gap Concept which basically states that you must have a better hand to call a raise with then if you were to make the first raise yourself.

Knowing the basics of poker table position and a few starting hands is really the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to learn such as betting, slow playing, and using the positions you are sitting in to your advantage. All of these are affected in some way by poker table position and this is the reason why beginners should spend time learning what it is and how it relates to the game.

Cake Poker is the flagship site on the Cake Network and revolutionized the way players received player rewards by creating the unique Gold Card and Gold Chip program. The poker room provides various promotions for live events including their own unique promotions geared towards their rewards program such as their popular 100 Gold Card Giveaway events. Additionally players will receive a competitive first deposit bonus, top of the line support and Cake Poker is one of the few rooms left which cater to US players by accepting US credit cards. They are licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and have been in business since 2006.

Cake Poker Initial Deposit Bonus

Cake Poker provides all new players with a standard bonus of 100% match up to $500. This bonus will be held in your pending bonus account until you have met the play through requirements which are explained below. You will also receive entry into the new player $500 freerolls on top of earning Gold Cards and Gold Chips by playing in any of the real money games. To meet the play through requirements you will need to earn frequent player points, with Cake awarding points at rate of 1 point for every $1 in rake or 3 points for every $1 paid in tournament fees. Every Cake Poker player point has a cash value of $0.06 of your bonus, which means you will need to earn 833 player points for every $50 in bonus dollars.

Promotions

The Gold Card and Gold Chip program is one of the room’s biggest highlights and actually rewards players for their loyalty. The Gold Cards are only available at the cash tables and are distributed to players by random. Once a table reaches a fixed amount of rake, the RNG will choose a card from the vault and provide it to a player at random. The cards are awarded in all cash games which means players can earn cards at any stake. These cards can be used in various on site promotions such as the Daily Gold Card Lottery, the Gold Card Race or collected as a set for a cash prize of $52,000. The Gold Chips work in a similar fashion and are earned based on the number of FPP’s you accumulate in both ring and tournaments. The Gold Cards can be redeemed in the Cake Poker online store or access to exclusive freerolls with prize pools up to $10,000.

Tournaments

Cake Poker has continually provided players with some great promotions and tournaments. Their tournament schedule is formatted for Holdem and Omaha games only and features daily guarantees, bounty tournaments, freezeouts and satellites to both their own main events in addition to live events. The tournament prize pools range from a couple hundred right up to the room’s monthly event, guaranteeing a $250,000 prize pool with buyins of $300 + $12, or you can earn your seat through a daily qualifier for only a couple dollars. An interesting tool supported at Cake is their tournament monitor located in the main lobby. This is a great feature for players who want to keep tabs on upcoming events, or track any tournaments which are about to run in an overlay.

Sit and Go Tournaments

The sit and go lobby provides a wide variety of tournament formats. Although the games are only supported in Holdem or Omaha, players will find shootouts, bounties, heads-up and their most recent addition the Kamikazes. The Kamikaze tournaments are the fastest SNG game online. Each player is forced to go all in on the first hand, and it’s a winner take all event. Although the game is based entirely on luck rather than skill it has become a popular event in the SNG department.

Ring Games

The ring games are supported in Texas Holdem, Omaha and Omaha Hi Lo with stakes starting at $0.01/$0.02 up to $50/$100 and tables hosted in NL, FL and PL in each of the variations. Over the last couple of years Cake Poker has seen a significant amount of growth and because of this, players should have absolutely no problems finding a game of choice at any of the stakes supported. In lobby statistics, displaying the viewed flop percentage, hands per hour and average pot size are available.

Software & Graphics

The software was created by a group of engineers and poker players who wanted to offer something unique and creative for players. The graphics are nicely designed and provide a sleek background with 3 dimensional avatars used and a full table setting. The games have a striking resemblance to an actual brick and mortar table. Players will have access to hand history files, which are saved directly onto your hard drive in addition to your own personal game stats located at the tables. The tables support chat and you will notice that your hand stats, player rewards info and note taking is located in the same box. An interesting take to the Cake software, is that they don’t support data mining software simply because they feel it gives players and unfair advantage. Due to this they also provide players with the ability to change their user names once every seven days, to avoid being tracked. Multi-tabling is available with resizing tools and Cake supports up to four games in play at once.

Competition

The competition at Cake ranges from your average beginner to semi online pro. The room has gained the attention of various players and because of this you will find the competition varies according to the limits played. That being said the low limit cash tables still provide an above average number of soft games with viewed flop percentages peak in the high 50’s through most limits up to $3/$6.

Support

Players who need to contact Cake Poker’s support team can do so by using the email or live chat features. The room does provide a support section within the lobby which details information about any known issues they are currently working on. If it’s an issue with the software, we suggest you check here first. The overall response time is excellent even during peak hours.

Deposit Options

$50 minimum deposit with Visa, MasterCard, Neteller, and MoneyBookers.

Withdrawal Options

Neteller, Moneybookers and Check

PKR Poker was released in 2006 and took the industry by storm, creating the most dynamic and creative 3D poker room anyone had seen thus far. They took the standard 3D software and revamped it into a multi-functional and high performing program where players had complete control over their user experience. PKR Poker provides you with a choice of over a dozen fully animated avatars allowing you to make them perform chip tricks and other movements, in addition to the standard features you would expect to see from a world class poker room. New players will have a choice between six different bonuses; on top of monthly reload offers and tournament players will find a host of tournament overlays in most of the sites main events. PKR Poker is a licensed by the Government of Gibraltar. The poker room does not accept players from the US.

PKR Initial Deposit Bonus

Unlike other poker rooms, PKR Poker allows you to choose which bonus best suits your game. New players will have the choice between one of five PKR bonus offers, and we do advise players to check the clearing terms as each of the bonuses has a different play through requirement.

1,500 PKR Points, five free tickets $300 freerolls plus one ticket to the weekly $1,000 Premium Freeroll with a deposit of over $25

100% match bonus up to $50 – BONUS CODE: 4kp50

50% bonus up to $250 – BONUS CODE: 4kp250

100% up to $600 – BONUS CODE: 4kp600

100% up to $2,000 – BONUS CODE: 4kp2000

The bonuses are cleared based on the number of frequent player points you earn, with points awarded in both real money ring games, and tournaments. Ring games can award up to 300 points per raked hand, and a player who claims the $50 match bonus will need to earn a total of 7,500 points to clear the full amount.

Promotions

Tournaments

PKR Poker’s tournament schedule is catered towards the low limit player, which is why you won’t find as many large guarantees here as you would the other big rooms. That being said they do provide plenty of added value tournaments, with the majority of the room’s guarantees running in overlays. Tournaments are available in Holdem and Omaha with buyins starting at $1 and increasing up to $100. The room hosts two weekly main events, totalling over $45,000 combined on the weekends, in addition to their monthly $100K. Tournament players can also enter into PKR’s monthly leaderboard challenge which awards a top prize of a $500 cash bonus.

Sit and Go Tournaments

For the most part the SNG lobby is fairly slow during off peak hours, although they do offer some great value games for players. The PKR step tournaments, also referred to as Phase tournaments provide players with the ability to enter into a $3 SNG and work there through six levels to win a top prize of $700.

Ring Games

PKR Poker only supports ring games in Holdem or Omaha with stakes that start at the $0.05/$0.10 and leading up to $50/$100 tables. Omaha players will find bother variations supported with all games formatted for Pot Limit, No Limit and Fixed Limit. During peak hours the room attracts nearly 2,000 players which means you shouldn’t have to many problems finding open tables from the micro limits up to $5/$10. Even with all the advanced tools and options made available to players, PKR still supports the basic statistics allowing you to view the % of players seeing a flop, number of hands per hour and of course average pot size before you take a seat at the tables.

Software & Graphics

The software is by far the room’s biggest attraction and highlights everything a 3D poker room should be. Not only have the avatars been created with full animation, but users will have control over how they view the tables, their cards, and even the room itself. The characters provide over 20 different fully functional movements from stacking your poker chips to dancing and mocking your opponents at the tables. The layout of the room provides a full table view, top view, and even a side angle and these options can be switched instantly with the click of the mouse, without interruption to your game. You will still find all of your main features such as; your pre and post- flop statistics at the tables, hand history files, preferred seating and multi-tabling. The graphics are top notch and due to the design of the program, PKR Poker is only available as a download and does not offer Mac compatible software.

Competition

As we just mentioned above, the room’s biggest feature is their incredible software and because of this they tend to attract plenty of new and “fun” players. You will find the ring games and tournaments to provide plenty of soft games especially in Omaha. During peak hours it’s not uncommon to find viewed flop percentages averaging between 55% – 62% right up to the $5/$10 games.

Support

If you have any problems with the software, creating and account or funding your player account you can reach PKR through email, live chat or you can call them using one of the toll free numbers they have on their website.

Deposit Options

Visa Electron, MasterCard, NETeller, Click2Pay, Firepay, Visa, Visa Delta, gift cards and pre-paid MasterCard, Maestro, Switch, and Solo.

Withdraw Options

NETeller, Click2Pay, Firepay, Check

Speed of Play

If there is one thing that should immediately strike a player new to online poker, it is the speed of the game. A typical live poker game rolls along at an average rate hovering somewhere around 40 hands played per hour. Online poker is absolutely blazing past this at an average of approximately 110 hands played per hour, almost a 200 percent increase. Clearly online poker is faster than a live game, but whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends entirely upon why you are playing. If you are primarily playing for a profit you are quite likely to want to take advantage of the speed of online play so you can get more hands (and therefore a higher earning potential) in any given day. If however you see poker as a very social game, the speed with which an online game progresses can make a simple game of poker seem far too mechanized.

Flexibility

For poker players who frequent some of the popular online poker rooms, there will never be a shortage of players looking for a game. Day or night, fellow poker players from all over the world want to play just as much as you do. If you limit your play to live games you must live very close to a casino to even come close to finding such a rich supply of games as can be found over the internet. Even if you factor in back room games, it is impossible for live players to have access to the flexibility and convenience offered by online play. Nobody wants to get together just to satisfy your need to play a few hands, and you probably do not feel like going to a casino every evening after work.

The Poker Experience

Unlike so many of the games offered in casinos (live and online) poker is far more than simply gambling. When you have a seat at a poker table your mentality is much different from that of a slots or craps player. You know you are not simply gambling, but engaging in an elegant game of skill, where your ability to read the man across from you is worth more than the cards in your hand and your fate can be reversed at any moment through daring maneuvering. Go to an online poker site and some of that magic seems lost. The game you know and love seems too broken down into mathematical strategies and odds. It can start to feel eerily like you are facing off against lady luck rather than pitting yourself against another human.

In the end of the day most poker players could use a healthy balance of online and live poker games. If you enjoy playing in casinos on vacation, you can keep sharp year round anywhere you have an internet connection. If your focus is making a regular profit in online games you still can’t deny the appeal of a live casino game, even if you only indulge yourself occasionally. Your best bet is to take advantage of both types of games and get the best of both worlds.

Carbon Poker is part of the growing merge network, along with sites such as Iron Duke Poker and Poker Nordica. Carbon offers many unique features that you can’t find at other poker rooms and has top quality software and graphics. The initial deposit bonus is lucrative, the competition is soft and many of the guaranteed prize pools have consistent overlays, all of which make Carbon Poker a profitable poker room to play at.

Initial Deposit Bonus

Carbon Poker standard bonus is 100% matching bonus up to $500 but if you sign-up via emergedpoker.com and use coupon code “4KP500” you will get an increased 200% up to $500 bonus. To release your bonus you must earn Comp Points by playing in Carbon Poker tournaments and ring games. Tournaments award a fixed amount of Comp Points, which is shown on the tournament details screen when you register and ring games award comp points to every player dealt cards in a raked pot. Every 250 Comp Points you earn is equivalent to $1 of your bonus. The bonus is then released in $10 increments.

Promotions
Royal Flush Bonus – Hit a royal flush with your pocket cards in any texas hold’em ring game and earn a bonus of 100 times the big blind.
Bounty Grand Master – Climb the Bounty leaderboard to win monthly prizes and Bounty Tournament accolades.
Refer-a-Friend – $25 for your friend, $25 and a $2500 freeroll entry for you.
Freerolls – Earn Comp Points to qualify to play in daily $1000, weekly 2K & 10K and monthly 50K freeroll tournaments.
Live Tournaments – Qualify for major tournaments, such WPT and APPT events and the Aussie Millions.
Multit-table Tournaments.

Carbon Poker has many low buy-in tournaments running throughout the day. The majority of the tournaments are in the $0-$15 price range, so its perfect for the low buy-in player. The games that do have a higher buy-in are usually guaranteed tournaments with consistent overlays in the size of the pot. This means that there is more money in the pot than the amount collected by Carbon from the players. Therefore, these events are basically “money added” events. Carbon offers tournaments of all game varieties, as well as specialty tournaments such as shootouts and bounties.

Sit and Go Tournaments
If you are hoping to play in a lot of sit’n’go tournaments, Carbon may not be the best place for you. The games take quite a while to fill and it is very rare to see a sit and go running with a buy-in of more than $20. A large amount of the sit’n’go tournaments that do run are bounty tournaments, which award half the buy-in to the prize pool and half to the player who knocks you out. If by chance you are into low buy-in bounty tournaments then Carbon Poker could be your poker room of choice.

Ring Games
Carbon Poker offers a wide variety of ring games, but the limit and no limit hold’em tables are the only ones where you can consistently find games at various low limits. The average pot, hands per hour and players per flop percentage can all be viewed in the lobby before joining the game. You would be surprised to see how high some of the players per flop percentages are, which could translate into Carbon being a profitable poker room for a tight aggressive player.

Game Variety
Hold’em
Omaha H/L
Omaha Hi
7 Card Stud H/L
7 Card Stud Hi
RAZZ
HORSE
5 Card Stud
5 Card Draw
Ace to 5 Lowball Triple Draw
Deuce to 7 Lowball Triple Draw
Badugi

Carbon offers as wide a variety of poker games as you are going to find at an online poker site. However, just because they are all offered it doesn’t mean you will be able to find players at them. It’s very rare to find a game at Badugi, Triple Draw, Stud H/L or any of the Stud tables. If you do find a game, it will likely be short handed with low limits. Even the Omaha games vary in number of players, but hold’em will always have several games at the low levels.

Carbon also gives you the option of playing games other than poker. These include casino games such as blackjack, roulette and caribbean stud, as well as video poker and backgammon.

Software & Graphics
Carbon Poker’s software is unique in the industry, with crisp graphics and lots of extra features that will keep you entertained. The lobby is easy to navigate with 3 menu’s across the top, to make it easy to find what game you are looking for. The tables are resizable with no loss in the quality of graphics, which makes it easy to multi-table or multi-task. Carbon does not use avatars, but they do offer a wide variety of unique options. These include: rabbit hunting which allows you to see what cards would have come after the hand is over, the option to expose one or two cards and even the option to “deal it twice” on certain tables.

Competition
Carbon is still a relatively new site and in general new sites mean softer competition. The players per flop percentages are quite high, at around 40-50% and even around 70% at the micro-stakes. This means that a solid player could easily build a bankroll at Carbon Poker and then move to a bigger poker room once they have outgrown the smaller limits.

Support
Carbon Poker offers both email support and live chat support. The live chat support is a nice feature, as it allows you to contact someone quickly in case of an emergency. The email support is also very accurate information and fast response times, usually within the hour.

Deposit Options
$10 minimum with eWalletXpress, Click2Pay, PIC-Club, Moneybookers, EcoCard and EntroPay.

$25 minimum with Visa, MasterCard or Fonelinx

$100 minimum via wire transfer.

Withdraw Options
EWalletXpress, Click2Pay, PIC-Club, Moneybookers, EcoCard, Fonelinx and personal check.

The minimum withdrawal at Carbon Poker is $50.