When it comes to banquet halls, there are many to choose from in different price ranges and styles for a Poker party.  Choosing a banquet hall needs to be one of the first tasks on your check list in order to stay within your budget for everything including party supplies, entertainment, casino chips, food, etc. Picking a place to hold a gathering is not as easy as one might think; a lot of preparation and time must be spent in details of laying out the poker tables.

A hall should be chosen for location relevancy, occupancy capacity, price (if important), casino equipment, and design. Some common things you will want to look for in any banquet hall are the following:

1. What is the maximum capacity?  How many Poker tables does it hold?

2. Time limit: Make sure you understand how long you will be renting the hall and how much it costs if the poker party games run over in time. If there is any chance the event could run over in time, make sure the space is available at the time. Many places who rent out halls typically have more than one event daily/weekly.

3. What is included in the banquet hall rental? This is very important to check the specifics on. In other words, you might be renting the hall for a good price, but then it might not come staffed with knowledgeable casino workers. Make sure if you are looking for the event to be staffed by the hosting employee’s crew, you understand the conditions and what the limitations are. This is often a big and common problem if not addressed immediately.

It is important to discuss all details before you commit to utilizing a banquet halls service for a poker theme party.  Without doing so, you might end up with a bigger bill than anticipated, problems and possibly a rocky event.

I had a guy at my table yesterday that just kept getting enough of the cards to have me beat.  Problem was that he had better position than me most of the time, or when it really counted.

When I had a pair, this guy put down a higher pair.  When I thought I had a chance of beating him with a straight he pulls out a higher one – damn.

Then I suddenly woke up and realized what he was doing – he was folding when he didn’t have the cards or when he wasn’t in position to benefit from everyone else making their call first.

Maybe he just read me well I don’t know.  But it was really tough having him play after me and he had me beaten most of the time.

I tried to semi-bluff him a few times and got away with it, but the pot happened to be small when I collected it.  Of course this guy had then folded early and hadn’t committed much.

It was very irritating playing with him, but you had to admire his skill at reading the situation, he knew exactly when to up the play, when to play it cool – to not commit too many chips and just play along and see what would happen.  Also when to get out early and watch the play.

But not only that, this guy played his position very well, he was always conscious of where he was relative to the dealer, so that he could process the information on the table, work out who was doing what and then make his decisions and play accordingly.  If he was not in a good position he would often fold or just put a few chips in to see what would happen.

I was too slow to realize that he was that good.  Too slow to see what he was doing and to react, it cost me dearly and before I woke up I had lost a sizable chunk of my chip stack.

Heh there fellow poker players.  Has it been as good for you over the past few weeks as it has been for me?  What a run of luck I have had, you wouldn’t believe the cards I’ve been getting.  Santa couldn’t have brought me a better present.

So I’m just trying to ride it for as long as I can, because I know for sure it is coming to an end some time.  It always does!  The laws of probability say that all things even out, so the run of good cards will come to an end sometime.

We can’t always get good cards, so when you get them you gotta play them as well as you can and earn as much as you can.  An obvious statement I know – but just how well do you manipulate your opposition when you get good cards?

But I’m getting too deep and meaningful for today’s blog, all I really wanted to do was tell you about my great run of cards.  How has it been for you?  Feel free to write to me and let me know how its been going for you.  I am really interested in knowing how good your cards have been and how long your luck has run for.

I’m happy to be ending the year on a high.  I hope you are.  May next year be a good one, I wish you all the luck for 2009.  Looking forward to bringing you more great poker tips next year.

Poker Joe’s is a new online poker community which just went online recently. Even though being so new they make it their goal to bring you the best online poker sites, reviews and the ability to discuss poker strategy by creating a fun place to associate with your poker pals online from all over the world.

So make sure to check them out, I hope this will help you improve your poker game and help you learn the many different approaches to one common goal we all have.  WINNING!!

Visit Poker Joes Player Pages

Pacific poker has grown tremendously in player volume during the last year.  It is one of the top eight sites when it comes to player volume.  At peak hours there can be around 2200-2500 cash game players and 4500-5000 tournament players (figures as of March 2005, these have grown since then).

Pacific’s software quality is not as good as other online poker rooms, it isn’t possible to play at multiple tables and it’s very slow with disconnections at times.  The games at Pacific Poker are first class however, which is the main reason to play there.  The site is packed with loose and profitable games for the serious player.  At the highest limit tables you can find games with 45-50 % of players seeing the flop.  Behind Pacific is one of the largest online casino sites, Casino-on-Net, and many casino gamblers play on Pacific.

Pacific Poker is known for hosting the softest games on the Internet. For some reason, players there love to call and see flops with all types of holdings. If they then happen to get a draw – number of outs isn’t that important – they often take it all the way to the river.

Pacific Poker is also known for providing one of the industry’s slowest and ugliest pieces of poker software, which doesn’t even allow you to play on many tables simultaneously. But luckily, this has changed.

A while ago, Pacific Poker decided to upgrade the platform and today it looks a lot better than before, and more importantly, you can play against fish on many tables at the same time. At the same time, Pacific Poker opened its doors to the rakeback community, which is great for all serious poker players.

Today, it’s hard to find a better poker room.

If you’d like to know more about how to cash fish in the Pacific, I’ll provide many useful poker tips here on pacificpokerreview.net.

Good luck!