That play money tournament was not a great success either. Four players signed up but i was the only one there when it started.

I like to win but this is not the way i want to do it :)

Bwild: The other one was yesterday (sundaynight at europe). Not much of a success, only two players registered and Fencer sat out the whole tournament. Well at least i won 1 dollar from him :)

Fencer: Nice, i have signed up for this one dollar event tomorrow.

Will there be any activity on Brainking club at Pokerstars? I've been a member there for about a month and absolutely nothing has happened. Would be great to play some tournaments against BK players.

Hrqls: Yes, you are correct. First is the lowest possible straight, second the highest straight. The third is not a straight at all, you cannot loop around like that.

Hrqls: Yes A2345 is a straight.

You always use the best five card hand from each player to determine the winner. Whatever cards are left over do not matter at all. So in your example both players have the same straight and the pot will be split between them.

Minimum amount to play in BK poker is the size of big blind. (Unless it has been fixed recently. You really should be able to play until you lose all your money.)

And about the side pots: you cannot win anymore from any player than you put in the pot yourself. For example P1 calls 10, P2 raises all-in 50, p3 raises to 100, p4 calls and then P1 folds. Main pot will be 10+50+50+50=160. Whoever has the best hand in the end will win this. P3&P4 will also be playing for a side pot of 50+50=100.

Apart from fixing bugs and introducing tournament play, here is a couple of things that might make the poker experience here more enjoyable.

The pace of the play is sometimes quite low. To improve that you should be able to choose your action before it's your turn. There should be buttons to check, fold, check/fold and maybe call also. Then when your turn comes, if the action you chose before is still suitable you'll do that. You can always fold so thats easy. If you chose check you'll only check if that is still possible. If you chose check/fold, you'd check if its possible and fold otherwise. Calliing before your turn is a bit problematic, because there might be raises after your decision to call.. But theres plenty of solutions for that also..

Another thing to help speed up the play is to fold timed out players. Now they will check if that's possible and that really should not happen.

Another thing that really needs some improvement is the showdown phase. It goes so fast that sometimes there are people asking "why did i lose?" Even if you are paying close attention to the game, you might have hard time noticing what hands everyone had. I think it would be a good idea to post the hands to the chat area after showdown.

And one more UI thing. I'd like to see somekind of slider and/or +/- buttons to adjust the betting amount without needing to type in the numbers.

Here's couple of very basic pieces of advice, which many of the players here don't seem to get.

1) Don't be afraid to fold. There's no reason to play crappy cards.

2) If you think you're winning, don't just call or check. Bet or raise instead to make others think if they really have good enough hand.

With just these two simple steps many players in here could improve their game.

Gordon Shumway: 1) I've played at completely different sites then. I know Pokerstars and Full Tilt have timeouts before you can join with lower stacks.. but those are the only sites i know to have such rules. I've playd more tournaments than ring-games so i might be mistaken.

2) With players who can manage their bankroll in cash games what you and Mr. Miller say might be true.

But at BK the games are like "long term tournaments". Every entrant has limited amount of chips to spend. And we have very limited amount of players, and players can't really choose which kind of games to play at. You have to play whoever has joined the table. HIghrollers who would rather play with higher stakes have to play with beginners, because there just is not enough players for higher stakes game.

At least Grand Casino Helsinki which i have mostly played at has "one night, one stack" rule. It states that if you return to a table where you played before you must begin with same stack that you had when you left (or min buy-in, if its less than that). But of course its not very strictly enforced.

Anyways i don't really see why this rule should be used at BK. Its not used anywhere i've played at online.

Bwild: Most casinos, at least the ones i've played at, do have rules for not "banking" your winnings.You're supposed to play with same stack all night, at least if you don't move to different kind of table.

But mostly onlinepoker ring-games don't have such rules. Its usual to see people go with their winnings and return with lower buy-in. I haven't played any high stakes games, so i'm not sure if its frowned upon there. But atleast with lower stakes online play it's very common thing to do and nobody seems to be bothered.

Fencer: "If you have chip and a chair you can win" is one the most famous lines in poker. In 1982 WSOP Jack Strauss actually came back to win the tournament after being down to just one chip.

You're just not supposed to be out of the game before you really are out of chips. Of course there will be sidepots like in any other all in situation when someone does not have enough to pay BB.

Fencer: I'd say there are two critical issues in no limit poker:

1. Sometimes betting order goes out of whack in the first betting round.
2. You can't raise all-in if you have less than bb chips. Also you'll be kicked out of table for not having enough to play if you don't have atleast as many chips as bb.

With low blinds these are just annoying, but with bigger ones it becomes a real issue. These certainly have to be fixed before tournamet play is introduced. In late stages of tournament blinds will be so big that these bugs could have serious effects on the outcome of the tournament.

ellieoop: If the card in hand is high enough :) If the board is AQJ97 and one player has 54 and another player 62 ( all of the cards same suite) the pot will be split. Only 8, 10 or K of that suite would improve on the flush already on the table.

coan.net: Yes thats exactly how it works. Every player makes best possible 5 card hand out of the 7 cards available to them. It does not matter if the cards are your private hole card or community cards on table.

For example, player A has A2 and player B AJ

Cards on board AK495 -> B wins, Both have pair of aces and King, J decides for B

If board cards are A8992 -> B wins again, both have pairs of aces and nines, and fifth card is J vs. 8. The pair of deuces does not help playerA at all. There's no such thing as three pairs :)

AQ299 -> split pot, both have same best hand, AA99Q. Deuces do not help A this time either.

Of course the examples assume theres no flushes.

Czuch: Yes it will help. On daily basis house should collect rake the same amount it inserts new chips into the game. Of course there already is a lot of money and over long period of time the best players will get large portions of it. But if the overall amount of money in the system does not increase, also the money a single player can have is limited.

Another option to keep the game interesting would be to reset everyones chips back to 1000 for example weekly. At the time of the reset the player with most chips would be announced the weekly champion. And after resetting the chips everyone could compete at same level again.

Pedro Martínez: Yes its not bad yet, but if we keep adding money to the system infinitely like we do now, the highest stacks will also get bigger infinitely.

And if we can agree that it is more fun to play with players who have similar amount of chips, we come back to my favourite subject: flooding the market :)

If money just keeps coming into the system and no money gets out, the difference between rich and poor will get bigger. However the amount of players is limited, so there will be less players you could have a nice game with. Poker here has been online for only few days(?) and the highest stacks already are in the 100k range. Imagine how many chips the best players will have for example after a year of playing?

Czuch: If someone makes you consider putting all your chips in on every play, you are either going to lose all your money or you are going to fold a lot of good hands

Exactly. And thats not very interesting poker.

And a good way to prevent this happening is not allowing very different sized stacks in a table.

Gordon Shumway: Of course the size of your stack compared to others is very important when considering betting. If 1000 chips is all you have you have it is very hard playing against someone witk 100k chips. Players with 100k chips can force you to go all in all the time, and someone who has lot less does not really want to call with all of their chips, unless they have a very good hand. And with 1000 chips its nearly impossible to bet 100k stack player out of the game if they have any kind of a hand. This is why maximum buy-ins should be in use.

To keep the game balanced everyone at the table should have similar amount of chips available! All the real poker sites have minumum and maximum buy-in limit in ring-games.

And no there is no games with high enough blinds. 100/200 are the highest and thats nothing for the 100k stacks allready around.

Czuch: Agreed. Maximum buy-in shold be installed, people with huge stacks can just bully around at lower stakes tables now. Also there should be games with bigger blinds for the highrollers.

(21:38:17) puupia calls 10.
(21:38:17) puupia runs out of time (30 seconds).
(21:38:17) puupia folds.

I managed to call on the last second and then time out. Lost the 10 chips to pot.

Bernice: Of course flooding the market is a problem. If money just keeps coming into the system and no money gets out, some players will sooner or later have huge amounts of chips. New players with their puny stack of 1000 chips have no chance whatsover playing agains someone with for example 1 million chips.

To keep the game balanced the play money economy needs to be balanced. I say rake should be put into use before market is flooded with chips!

To keep the game interesting people should have similar amount of chips available. I think tables should have maximum buy-in instead of minimum wich is in use now!

I just found out one another "bug". If you have less chips than minimum raise, you cannot raise. But you should always be able to raise all-in, even when you have less chips than min raise.

Fencer: Of course you can do it wich ever way you wish.

But if you do it the commonly accepted way, maybe you could attract some poker players.

Fencer: I'm not sure if such thing as official rules even exist for Texas Hold em :) Anyways, i can't think of anyplace where minimum bet works otherwise.

Same players should never have to pay bb or sb two rounds in a row. Currently this happens if new player arrives between dealer and blind positions. Button should be moved before considering new players.

Also, on most sites i've played at new players are not dealt any cards before they post big blind. Arriving players can choose to put in amount equal to bb in their current seat or wait untin they are sitting in bb position. This is done to avoid people constantly sitting out and moving around trying to avoid blinds or gain better position.

Fencer: http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-rules-no-limit-and-pot-limit

Minimum raise is not correct. In no limit and pot limit re-raise always has to atleast equal what was raised before in current betting round. For example: blinds are 5/10 and someone bets to 50 chips. The bet was 40 more, so if someone wishes to raise that he/she must raise atleast 40 more to 90 chips total.