23-year-old online poker player Dario Minieri won his first bracelet at the 2008 WSOP.

2008 was a big year for internet players getting more press and attention. Online poker rooms are giving more sponsorship deals to successful internet players, banking that these players will do well in the live tournaments. Since 2003, amateur players have made a big splash at the WSOP. But that didn’t work very well this year. The professional players made a comeback, with 11 big-name pros winning bracelets, and most events having one or two big names at the final tables.

Dario Minieri was one bright spot for the big-name internet players. He won his first bracelet in the $2500 No-Limit Holdem 6-handed event. Most players at the WSOP are internet players to some degree, but the big-name internet players were not a force at the biggest poker tournament in the world. I guess the new generation of player isn’dt ready to dominate yet.

1. Never draw to low end, or sucker end, of a straight. You’ll get the card you want only to be beat by a bigger straight. Draw to nut straights only, if you’re getting proper odds.

2. Play more aggressive when you have position on your opponents. Being last to go gives you an edge against everyone else; take advantage of this and win free chips.

3. Don’t call a raise in the big blind just because you have something invested. Your position is poor and you’re most likely up against a good hand that has a higher winning percentage.

4. Make large bets when you think you have the lead. Don’t let your opponents draw cheaply on you. Bet half the size of the pot so draw hands will be making a mistake to call.

5. Read hold’em books and document your play. Organization will make you a winner.

Learning to play Texas Holdem is only educational to a degree. You can read books and follow strategies that other professionals write about, and most of this information is good. But playing poker the way someone else tells you to will only take you so far. To become an elite player you have to develop your own style and a skill-set that fits your own persona. Originality is a powerful weapon if you have the intellect to develop some at the tables.

The best poker players are able to make decisions based on more than just their cards and what mathematics and strategy may dictate. A good poker player is factoring every piece of information available during a game, and playing at a level above cards and bets. Learn what’s successful for you and play your game. Following your instincts will add an important factor to your game, on top of the strategy.

1. Learn patience – learn to play calm and not through emotion. You have to learn to face adversity and bad luck and still continue to play to the best of your abilities.

2. Learn to trap – read and practice the skill of trapping aggressive opponents into dumping chips to you. Slow play big hands and let over-aggressive players bet large sums into you.

3. Learn which game is best for you – learn the appropriate size of game your bankroll can support, and when you’re at a game that’s hard to beat. Be diligent about finding a beatable game.

4. Learn positional play – learn how to use position to your advantage, and to help you make decisions about opponent’s actions.

5. Learn to put opponents on hands – practice the skill of guessing your opponent’s hands through betting patterns and physical gestures. Remember how players play certain hands so you can recognize it later.

For no-limit limit holdem the most important skills a player can have are patience and hand-reading abilities. Having patience includes good starting-hand selection, as well as waiting for trapping situations and the nut hand. It also includes having the sense to fold second-best hand when certain players make large bets. A patient player always plays in the proper-sized game for their bankroll, and they don’t tilt out when they experience a run of bad luck.

Having the ability to read hands includes using betting patterns and memory to guesstimate what an opponent might be holding. It means that certain actions from certain players will point to them holding certain cards. This ability comes with experience and continues to improve the longer one plays the game.

If you can train your abilities in those two skills, you should have success in today’s over-aggressive no-limit holdem tables.

Another new innovation in poker was announced last week by mobile entertainment company I-play. Starting this month, I-play will be launching ‘Win at Texas Hold’em’ presented by Daniel Negreanu.

‘Win at Texas Hold’em’ is a series of 2-3 minute clips in which Negreanu divulges secrets and tips for playing winning poker. The videos are divided into five categories and include Beginner, Advanced, Bluffs & Tells, Tournament Tips and Winning Secrets. The videos will also include specials video blogs shot by Negreanu at the Venetian Hotel & Resort in Las Vegas, that will run through a vast array of poker tips from basic fundamentals to more advanced topics such as tournament play, tells and bluffs.

The videos are already live on the Sprint and Cingular networks and will be available throughout North America over the next couple of months.

The ever-changing poker promotion industry has taken another new turn recently. The announcement of Virgin Games’ plans for a crossover tournament in a live casino has gained a lot of attention.

Virgin is the first online company to hold a live event for its players, which will be held at the Broadway Casino in Birmingham, U.K. on November 24th and 25th. With so many online sites only concentrating on the high-roller player in their promotions, Virgin has created something for the average guy or gal to have the opportunity to play in a big-league event for a low price.

The structure of the event has the lower-limit players in mind, and the buy-in is only 105 British pounds. There is no direct buy-in and all participants must qualify their way to the event online. The two-day event will have $5000 added to the event by Virgin, and they are adding bounties that include wine, Virgin vouchers, Experience Days and player points. The event will have a party atmosphere with the hosts throwing around freebies all day.

The professionals have created the Professional Poker Tour that requires all participants to earn their way on the tour by placing in the money and participating in enough events throughout the year. This keeps the lower-limit players out of the picture of those events. This is the first tournament that will require that everyone win their way into the event. The professionals will not be able to just buy in, and the event has the potential to have more amateurs in a big event than ever before, thus increasing the average guy’s chances of placing well.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of online sites recognizing the value in the huge number of low-limit players that are out there learning the game. Providing an experience that can show an average player what it’s like to play in a big event is priceless, especially since the number of professionals will be much lower than the average big tournament. If it’s successful we will get to see more of this sort of thing, and we may see online sites hosting more land poker tournaments to promote their brand.

Charity poker tournaments have been all the rage over the last few years with many professional sports teams leading the way. It’s nice to see NBA and NFL superstars use their celebrity status to fill as many seats at the tables as possible, but smaller non-profit organizations have also tapped into poker’s popularity to raise funds for various charitable organizations. It would make sense then that the online poker world would also follow suit.

Bodog Poker, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Ultimate Bet were some of the first to jump onto the scene, with online tournaments being held for causes such as the victims of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

The causes benefiting from online charity poker tournaments range in size from very personal to global. It’s nice to see that so many large and small charitable organizations have turned to hosting poker tournaments to raise much-needed funds. Equally nice to see are the many professional poker players getting in on the act as well by hosting online and real-world charity tournaments.

One pro poker player in particular stands out: Barry “the Robin Hood of Poker” Greenstein. Greenstein donates 100% of his net tournament winnings to a variety of charities, with the biggest beneficiary being Children Incorporated, a charity that provides for more than 15,000 children in 21 countries. The most recent pro poker player to take the high road is the 2007 World Series of Poker Champion Jerry Yang. Yang won the WSOP Main Event and pocketed the big $8,250,000 cash prize. Yang pledged 10% of his winnings to three different charities ? the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Feed the Children, and the Ronald McDonald House.

For obvious reasons, most people don’t mind taking on the short stack when they’re in a poker tournament. The thinking here is that the short stacks are easier to eliminate. But not so fast. You need to put a little more thought into these battles.

Short Stack: A player who has a small (or the smallest) amount of chips at the table is said to be have the “Short Stack” or be “Short-Stacked.”

If you’re constantly making the mad dash to take on the short stacks because you think you can eliminate them, you’re really just giving them a better chance of adding to their stack and improving their position. How? A lot of players tend to go all-in quite often once they have the short stack. When they go all-in they could have a monster or it could be a bluff at the pot – most likely it’s a monster. If you want to avoid feeding them your chips, you should avoid calling an all-in by a short stack unless you’re holding premium cards.

And I know what you’re thinking…why not bluff, right? Wrong. Attempting a bluff versus a short stack may seem like a good idea, but it’s not always so. If you’re pretty sure a short stack has missed their draw or they’re also holding junk cards, a bluff is a good way to steal the pot. However, if your bluff is called by a short stack, you’re usually better off folding because they probably have something that you won’t be able to beat. Remember rule No. 1: Don’t feed the short stack chips.

On the other hand, if you’re playing against an aggressive player who has a short stack you should use this to your advantage. If you believe that your opponent is on a draw and the cards just dealt did not improve their hand, you should check and allow the aggressive player to bet into you with a bluff. An aggressive player will usually do this in an attempt to steal the pot. Now’s your chance to pull off a check raise and steal the pot from the short stack.

If the opposite is true and you’re playing against a short stack who is a tight player, you can use this to your advantage. If you know they’re not going to play until they hit a monster hand, you should continually pepper them with bets and raises. If they truly are tight you should be able to steal a number of pots. But watch out when they call because they likely finally stumbled onto their monster hand.

What if you’re the short stack? Playing short also lets you turn some bad games into good ones. If your opponents are all skilled loose-aggressive players, you may be a big underdog playing deep. By the same token, you may actually have an edge if you play short. Learning to play short stacked makes you a more flexible player…and that type of skill gives you deeper insight into the game (and gets you deeper into a tournament).

Examining short stack play offers insights into how stack sizes change things. It’s insight that many No Limit Texas Holdem players who have played deep for years never get.

If you’ve been playing poker successfully for the past few years then surely you must know by now that there’s nowhere in the world that can match the money you can make per hour at an online table.

The reason for this is simple. In a land casino you’re pretty much committed to playing one hand at one table. Playing multiple tables at a land casino is not only impossible (unless you can turn your poker game into a game of musical chairs), it’s also not allowed.

In an online poker room, however, you can play as many tables as your computer can handle. If you average about $50 an hour at one table you could bump that up to $200 per hour if you can maintain the same level of play at four tables. (Word to the unwise though: You can just as easily lose four times your regular amount if your average result at one table is losing $25 per hour.)

But before you get lured into the idea of being able to make more money by playing at more tables, take a realistic look at evaluating how good a poker player you really are. While you may be constantly winning while playing at a single table (and are confident your game can handle the next level), playing two tables a try may be your next step in the process. Once again: exercise patience.

Then again, if you’re okay with playing multiple tables and walking away holding only some of the chips you started off with, then playing multiple tables is only going to gut your stack even faster. And that’s not a good strategy to employ.

Here’s what you need in order to play well on multiple tables: Excellent concentration, good decision-making skills and plain old good poker skills. Since you’ll be flipping back and forth between tables you’ll have less time to study other players, your own cards and the boards, and every decision you make will have to be done faster. Because of this you may want to avoid playing No Limit tables during multiple table play. Successful No Limit play usually takes more skill and knowledge of the other players than Limit Poker. In Limit Poker if you stick with the correct odds and play tight, consistent poker you’ll be able to conquer multi-table play.

Oh and one last tip: When playing multiple tables, turn off the sound on your computer. That annoying buzz that tells you it’s your turn to play when you’re busy at another table can grate on your nerves after awhile.