Big or Small Poker Rooms

With so many ways to spend your gambling dollar, it's hard to decide where to make your millions. For the gambler who likes to spread his roll across a variety of casino games, a strong internet poker room that offers other table games and betting options is the best choice.

There are some advantages to picking a big room with a diversity of games:

Big rooms can afford to offer the best bonuses and promotions anyway, especially poker bonuses and blackjack bonuses.

Everyone's trying to hit the big score, whether you're playing 500 man freerolls, or betting mountain's of black chips in Bobby's room at the Bellagio. But it's more likely you're doing the former rather than the later, so it's also about fun. Would you rather play poker over the internet with a bunch of guys from your hometown, or at a truly international poker room and casino? Whether It's casino en ligne to the French, online poker to the Germans, or however the heck you spell Chinese poker (not to be confused with the actual game, which is a blast), meeting more people from more places makes for more fun.

A Big room will have synergy between it's gaming options outside of poker. Sure, it's fun to start with pocket rockets and flop a set of the big boys, but doubling down eleven after eleven isn't half bad either. Variety is the spice of life.

A room with both an active poker player's club, and casino player's club is going to reward it's most loyal customer's with vip service, and a whole host of frequent player rewards. Choose a room that let's you build up a lot of player points quickly, and let's you trade those points in for cool swag.

Big rooms are more secure. A small room may be able to offer you a big initial bonus, but generally the terms are restrictive, and if the room folds, you've put yourself at risk.

You don't have to wear shades!

The world of online betting has changed. Where once the real action available was online poker, (poker en ligne as the French would say), now there's online sports books, online casinos, online backgammon, online bingo, there's even online virtual horse racing (as differentiated from the betting on actual horses via the internet).

Party poker hits all the bullet points. It's the biggest room around, it's got great customer service, and pretty sweet sign-up bonuses. Party has a very secure random number generator, and is certified by Kahnawake gaming commission. If you're ready to run with the big boys, take a look at the rules for H/L Omaha:

Omaha Hi/Lo

Omaha Hi/Lo is very similar to regular Omaha, but the pot is split between a high hand (the same as in ordinary Omaha) and a low hand (which is based on five cards, which start at eight or below.
Each player is dealt four 'hole' cards face down, and five 'community' cards that everyone can see and use. Each player must use two of their hole cards, as well as three of the community cards, to make their hand.
The game's divided into four rounds of betting, and the betting moves around the table in a clockwise direction. The betting starts from the position next to the dealer button, which moves one place to the left after each hand.

The Blinds

Ahead of game starting, the two players to the left of the dealer post 'blind' bets, so-called because they are made before the players have seen any cards. The blinds make sure that there is some money in the pot to play for at the initial stages of the game.
The player to the left of the dealer posts the 'small blind', and the player to his left posts the 'big blind'.

Pre-Flop

Each player receives four cards that only they can see, called 'hole' cards. After this, the first round of betting is started by the first player to the left of the big blind. This player, who is known as 'under the gun', can:

Call
Equal the amount that was bet in the big blind,

Raise
increase the amount bet, or

Fold
Give-up his cards and stake in the game.
Eventually the betting will come back to the player who made the big blind (the first full bet), that player can check or choose to stay in the game without adding anything further to the pot. If an opponent has raised, the big blind player has three options: he must fold, call, or re-raise.

The Flop
Three 'community' cards are dealt face-up on the table. These cards can be seen by all players and used to make their five-card hand. A second round of betting follows.

The Turn
On the turn a fourth card is dealt face up on the table. The third round of betting follows.

The River
The fifth community card is dealt. This is the final card and is followed by the final round of betting.

The Showdown
If there is more than one player left in the game, the next stage is the showdown. At this point, the players turn-up their cards and the player with the highest hand wins half the pot and the lowest low hand wins the other half. The same player can have both the best high and low hands. However, if none of the players has a low hand, then the highest hand wins the entire pot.

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