Poker Stars is holding satellite tournaments awarding seats in the Casino Pride Poker Festival taking place Septembe 2 – 4, 2011 in Goa, India. With a guaranteed prize pool of INR1,000,000, the Casino Pride Poker Event takes place in the SOL Poker Room of the docked cruise ship, Casino Pride.
Poker Stars online satellites into the Casino Pride Poker Event include freeroll tournaments taking place at 9:30 am and 11:30 am ET daily, with a freeroll final happening August 22. Feeder satellites with buy-ins starting at just $0.55 or 10 Frequent Player Points (FPP) leads to one of three different satellites, each offering a slightly different prize package for the winners.
The top prize packages for the PokerStars Casino Pride Poker Event are valued at $1,726 and include the buy-in of INR25,000 into the main event, a three-night stay plus breakfasts at the Taj Vivante, a 5-star hotel located in Panjim, Goa, transfers to and from the airport and $750 cash to apply toward travel expenses. The satellites for these packages cost $215 and take place every Sunday through August 21.
Alternatively, players can win value-added seats, which include the INR25,000 main event buy-in and stay in a local 4-star hotel. The satellites for these packages cost $109 to buy-in directly and are happening every Tuesday and Thursday until August 23. Satellites running every Saturday and Sunday until August 21 with $66 direct buy-ins are also taking place for just the INR25,000 main event buy-in alone.
The action at the Casino Pride Poker Event is made up of three tournaments with cash games taking place throughout.
Since 2006, when the World Series of Poker introduced it into their line-up of events, HORSE has gained popularity in the poker community. HORSE involves playing four variation games – Holdem, Omaha Hi/Lo (Eights or better), Razz, Seven Card Stud, and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo (Eights or better). The eights or better refers to the low hand in that particular game must consist of an eight or lower to make a low hand.
For detailed instructions on how to play each game, visit the following pages:
The game can be played at any limits (limit, pot-limit or no-limit), but the most popular and most found online is limit.
Limit simply means the game has a fixed limit to the amount players can bet, and a prescribed number of raises. When it is your turn, you may only bet or raise by an amount equal to the minimum for that round. The standard bet in the first two betting rounds of a limit poker game is equal to the game’s lowest limit. The standard bet in the final three rounds of a limit poker game is equal to the game’s highest limit. Usually, there can be no more than one bet and three raises per round of betting. Once the third raise has been reached, betting is said to be ‘capped’.
Normally in HORSE, the game type rotates when the blinds progress, unless stated otherwise. For example, if the blinds are every twenty minutes, the game type changes every twenty minutes.
The game begins with the dealer dealing one card face-up to determine where the dealer button will be. The first player to the left of the dealer button is the small blind and the second player to the left of the dealer button is the big blind. The players post their blinds and the dealer deals, beginning with the small blind.
There are no blinds while playing Razz and Seven Card Stud (both Hi and Hi/Lo). For Razz, all players post an ante (An ante is a forced bet in which all players put an equal amount of money or chips into the pot before the deal begins) and the player with the highest card brings in based on what the blinds are for that level. For Stud, all players post an ante and the player with the lowest card brings in. See links above on how to play each individual game.
One strategy for playing Horse is to take the utmost advantage you can gain from games you are good at, while avoiding taking crippling blows in games you are weaker in. Obviously, the absolute best strategy for HORSE is to be good at all the games. A good player becomes familiar with all games in HORSE. A player cannot master HORSE without knowing all the games involved. This requires a lot of practice and a good amount time, effort, and energy. To be successful at HORSE, players will have to play any and all of these games with a large degree of skill. Players who are weak in any of these games will fall by the side of the road and be quickly overshot by more skilled players.
When first learning HORSE, play low limits or play in a tournament with a small buy-in. Several online poker sites offer HORSE freerolls on a daily bases. If you are weak in any of the games, you can also focus some time learning that game by playing it, reading books, reading articles, or visiting poker forums such as the one here on Holdem Poker Chat for strategy threads.
There are several types of poker games – even one for the worse hand! Yes, there is a game for the lowest hand in poker, and it is called Razz Poker.
Razz is a Seven Card Stud poker game where instead of the highest hand winning, the lowest hand wins the pot. The object of the game is to make the best lowest five-card hand out of the seven cards dealt to you. Unlike split-pot hi/lo games like Omaha and Stud, Razz doesn’t have an “eight or better” component to its play. In an hi/lo eight-or-better game, the winning low hand cannot have a card higher than 8 in it to count as a low hand, but since Razz is a game with only a low hand winning, any hand can win, including hands with low pairs or face cards, but highly unlikely.
There are no blinds while playing Razz. Instead, all players post an ante (an ante is a forced bet in which all players put an equal amount of money or chips into the pot before the deal begins) and the player with the highest card is forced to bring in.
Each player is deal three cards, two face-down and one face-up. The highest face-up card on third street has to make the forced bring in bet. This starts the action and the play continues clockwise. On all subsequent rounds, the lowest hand showing acts first. If there is a tie for low hand showing, the first active player clockwise from the dealer begins in the forced bet. Players acting after a bring-in have the right to call the bring-in as it is, even or they may raise the amount needed to bring the current bet up to the normal minimum, called completing the bet.
The lowest hand wins the pot at showdown. Aces count as low. All flushes and straights are ignored and do not apply to Razz. The best possible hand in Razz is A,2,3,4,5 (also known as a wheel). In order to figure out the best low hand is to start with the top card and work down (An eight low beats a nine low for example). If the top card is the same rank, then you move to the second card. An example would be 8,6,5,4,3 would beat 8,7,5,4,3 (the player with the 8,6 low would beat the 8,7 low) . One player has an eight-six low and the losing player has eight-seven.
Razz requires more skill than luck and takes a good amount of patience. Razz players not only have to understand the odds and probabilities of their own hands, but also have to pay more attention to their opponent’s hands and the cards on the board around the entire table. A player needs to pay attention to what cards have been folded as well as current cards on the table.
As far as starting hands in Razz, it will depend on your experience of the game. As a beginner, a player should not play a hand unless their first three cards are low cards with one being no higher than 8. If a player holds three cards that are three cards to a wheel then the player should raise or re-raise. Before you make a decision on your own starting hand, always look around the board and see what everyone else is showing. This is extremely important to be a successful Razz player.
