Kilty Larkin’s

Not everyone who plays card games is a gambler. At least, that was the belief before the advent of the Internet. In the pre-internet era, playing card games was a sole preserve of the rich and the idle. In fact, the modalities of playing card games ensured that only those with ample time, money and resources could sustain the hobby. You needed to be a member of a card club or group, you needed to visit the club frequently, you also needed to have a regular group of players. It was all fine for the idle rich. But most professional people didn’t have the time and the convenience of indulging in such elaborate affairs. Casinos too demanded a stiff entry fee, ample time and the convenience of visiting and playing for hours. It was not accessible to many people. Whether the games were played for money or not is an altogether different question, but given a choice, most players indulged in these games in order to make a quick buck.

But the advent of the internet changed all that. These days, with online card games being all the rage, the participants have increased a million fold. For one thing, the internet made it possible for people spread all over the globe to get together and play games. Suddenly, it didn’t matter if the urge to play struck you at some odd hour. When you got online to access online card games, you could be sure of finding at least a few people to play with. And in games where other players were not required, you could play against an automated dealer.

Online card games truly democratized the gambling sphere and anyone with a computer, an internet connection and a credit card could get online and play to their heart’s content. Nearly all conventional card games have morphed into online card games. A look at any of the thousands of online card game sites will reveal that early all regular card games like poker, bridge, canasta, cribbage, euchre, hearts, rummy, solitaire, spades and whist exist as much loved and often played online cad games. Of course, the staunch favorites whether offline or as online card games have been blackjack and poker!

Today, there are online card game sites that enable multi player games where none of the players could be in close proximity with each other. And the convenience and the ease of accessing online card games have made the industry a serious money spinner (or loser as the case may be!). Online card games today constitute a multi billion dollar industry. And at the rate at which people continue to get online to indulge in online card games, the day is not far when there will be a virtual Vegas on the net that is as profitable, if not more, than its offline counterpart.

I’ve been indulging in online casino gambling ever since this form of gaming gained widespread popularity several years ago. Like all gamblers, I’ve had some great sessions that I’ll remember for a long time. You know the kind I’m talking about: the dealer is busting left and right, I’m drawing five-card 21s, and the number of credits in my account just keeps growing and growing. But I’ve also had horrible sessions where the opposite happened and nothing went my way. These ups and downs are all part of the game; the key to long-term success in online casino gambling is to try to smooth out the peaks and valleys in order to gain some consistency. This is where a good betting system comes into play.

I know a lot of gamblers who would immediately dismiss any betting system as useless before they even review how it works. But you’d be doing yourself a huge disservice by engaging in online casino gambling without arming yourself with some kind of strategy first. You see, online casino gambling differs from traditional gaming establishments in a very important way: they sometimes offer slightly better odds or free credits to induce you to play on their websites. As a gambler, you know that even the slightest variation in odds will affect basic playing strategies for games such as blackjack and Jacks or Better video poker. In addition, because some gaming websites offer free credits, you don’t have to bet as big to come out ahead. Combining these factors means that for online casino gambling, you have to toss everything you thought you knew about blackjack, slots, roulette, poker, and craps out the window and learn a whole new strategy.

Of course, in order to develop a workable basic strategy for games of chance, you’d either need a PhD in mathematics or you’d have to work through hundreds of thousands of hours of simulations. The good news is there are enough math and computer wizards interested in blackjack and other games that we’re in no danger of running out of strategy guides tailored to online casino gambling. The bad news is there’s no real way to verify the claims about someone’s system without actually purchasing the strategy and reading through it first. What I’ve discovered is that many of these guys are making money from selling their systems rather than using their own advice to win at online casino gambling. That should give you some idea of how “valuable” their systems really are!

But if you dig in and do some checking, you’ll find that there are a few choice strategy guides out there that are quite effective at helping people earn a fairly steady income from online casino gambling. The best places to start your intensive research would be forums where gamblers hang out. Usually, at least one member of the forum has tested a particular strategy guide and would be more than happy to give you an honest review of the system. Once you find one that works, you’ll never look at online casino gambling in the same way again.

No matter what you do, you won’t be able to eliminate all the risk involved in online casino gambling. There will always be a chance that you can lose your money. But with the proper strategy guide in hand, you can reduce your risk to a fraction of a percent, which would give you the edge over the house. Start researching strategy guides now, and make your next online casino gambling session a winning one.

Having a poker party seems to be one of the hottest trends among young males in the 18 to 24 age range. Unfortunately, not as many women are into the game and have become quite exasperated with this addiction.

Poker is definitely a guy’s game. The only women who seem to be interested in poker are either trying to hook up with one of the male players, or she is a certified cheater! I don’t know if part of poker’s appeal has to do with the word itself. Young guys are amused quite easily and can be painfully immature. Perhaps there is a sexual connotation in the word itself that they just can’t get enough of, that they feel will invoke them with some sexual prowess previously found lacking. Whatever the appeal, women in general are not enamored with poker itself or with the young men who have fallen prey to it’s vice. The sooner men get this through their heads, the happier we all will be.

So, in the name of peace and harmony, here are a few pointers:

If the boys want to have a poker party, odds are that they should be prepared to spend the evening without female companionship. You could always hire a few beauties - but that’s another story, and another gamble! I don’t know what it is - perhaps a combination of things: from entirely too much testosterone in one room, gorging themselves on way too much pizza and beer, indulging in smelly cigars and telling way too many dirty jokes, but when these men return from a poker party they are best advised to head straight to bed, perhaps stopping only for a cleansing shower, and then calling it a night. No woman in her right mind is going to want to spend the rest of her evening with a guy who’s been reduced to the lowest common denominator by an evening of poker.

In fact if you want your lady friend to care about your gambling skills at all, the only way to bring it up is by buying her something really lavish and then nonchalantly slipping into the conversation that you bought this special gift with your poker winnings. Simply bragging will get you nowhere and will only dig you into a deeper hole, falling out of the good graces of your lovely lady.

Never ever admit that you were cleaned out in a game. You will never be allowed to gamble again, if you want to keep your girl. She will not feel sorry for you and will ban all forthcoming poker parties that you may have in your plans. Also realize that she will never forget about it.

When the smoke clears , we all need to realize that some games are best left to the boys. Let’s keep it that way and then everybody will be happy - so let’s have a poker party!

3-card poker, sometimes called tricard poker, is one of many variations in the poker genre of card games that have recently begun to rise in popularity in casinos throughout the United States. 3-card poker is actually not a game in itself, but refers to two different poker variants both involving three cards; the first being ‘Pairplus’, and the other being ‘Ante and Play’. Players can play either of the two, or both.

Pairplus is the simpler of the two 3-card poker games, and probably one of the all around simplest poker variants available for betting at a casino. Players make a bet and get a payoff on any cards that give a pair or better, a pair being two cards of the same numerical ranking, such as two jacks or two nines. The payoff on a pair is a 1 to 1 ratio, and a royal flush, the best hand possible, usually pays off at least 40 to 1, sometimes more.

Ante and Play is a slightly more complicated version of 3-card poker. Before getting their cards, players must make a small ‘ante’ bet. After receiving their cards they may then choose to fold and lose their original bet, or make an additional ante equal in size to the first bet and keep playing. If a player chooses to continue playing and makes the second bet, there are three possible outcomes. If the dealer does not make a queen high or better, he doesn’t qualify and the player’s bet is returned with an additional 50 percent. If the dealer makes a queen high or better, but the players hand is of higher value, than the player’s bets are returned in double. If the dealer’s hand is a queen high or better, and of higher value than the player’s hand, the player loses both bets. Certain especially good hands will earn the play a bonus payoff, regardless of what hand the dealer may have. For example, a straight flush will often give the player a five hundred percent return on his or her bets.

The 3-card poker variants are a fun and easy to learn variation of poker. Because of their mild learning curve and fast paced nature, they are especially popular in the casino environment as they are ideal games for gambling. Though, since there isn’t as much strategy involved as with other poker variations, they are not often played outside of casinos.