When you join a poker tournament, you will be facing a range of opponents at the different tables. You will be going against different moods, different habits, different aggressiveness, and reading these things can spell your success.

Loose players

You can either have loose-aggressive or loose-passive poker players. The loose-passive ones are quite easy to deal with. They will be calling on a lot of bets but will rarely push to raise without strong cards. It will be difficult to bluff against these players since they can use a whole range of cards against you and you will not be able to assess the situation accurately. Be patient and value against these players.

The Loose-aggressive kinds may come as two types. You will have players who are loose-aggressive because they lack experience and over estimate what they have. There are also the experienced ones who raise using a wide range of hands while only pushing a big chunk of chips when they have the monsters.

Tight players

The tight-passive poker players will most of the time wait for premium hands and will play in fear resulting to them just calling instead of raising. If you are playing against these players, bet often so you can steal the blinds. When they bet against you, you are most likely beaten and you should fold.

Tight-aggressive players choose the best hands to play and play these cards strongly. You need a strong hand or the best of implied odds to go against these players in a tournament.

Other factors to look at

You need to know the levels of experience of your opponents. You can judge this by looking at how they play their cads especially when out of position. You should also observe how they size their bets.

You will also meet straightforward and tricky opponents. Some players will bet to make others feel that they have strong hands while others can just check even when they have monster hands. You need to take note of their style as you go along the rounds and adjust accordingly.

This has to be the best ever Phil Ivey commercial… in the world!

Much respect for the one and only Phil Ivey; a guy who doesn’t need the advertising millions Full Tilt Poker offers him – still open to do great comedy for the company that he helped make big.

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Howard Lederer is greatly known by the nick name the Professor. No one knows the origin of the name but one thing is sure that it certainly sticks to him.

Howard Lederer grew up in New Hampshire in the United States. During his growing up years he spent much of his childhood on the family room floor playing games. His main focus was always on card games and they seem to captivate him right from childhood. One of the propelling reasons could be that his family played all sorts of card games together as they strongly believed in the adage that a family that plays together stays together. And one of these games was most popularly played was poker. Howard Lederer had a goal of beating his dad at the game who was an ace poker player himself although not a professional one as Howard Lederer would prove to be. But this zeal of Howard Lederer to defeat his father at the game of poker stoked his competitive streak at a very young age. This helped him later on in the game of poker to strike ahead and strive really hard for success without allowing failure to stop him or come in the way. To this day, Howard believes his father was instrumental in his success and never ever intentionally lost a game to him like most fathers tend to do to make their sons happy.

Howard Lederer thought of moving to Las Vegas in 1993 as this was essential if he wanted to move ahead in the game of poker and take it to the next level. His main focus remained on cash games until 2002 and that was when WPT tournaments became a monthly event. Howard Lederer participates and enjoys all forms of poker his preferred is always the big buy in no limit hold ‘em tournaments. His ambition is to play against the best of poker players for years on end until probably he retires. What he looks forward to are great innings in the game of professional poker.

The cashes that Howard Lederer has to his credit are 71. This has gone on to fetch him a total winnings of $5,051,841 altogether. The other achievements that Howard Lederer has in the field of poker are the First Place Finishes which stand at 10 and 2 WSOP Bracelets. His ProRank 1 Position remains at 2446.

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There’s been some high profile final tables in the history of the World Series of Poker; but the one that’s the most famous of them all must be the one where Johnny Chan beats down on the very unfortunate Erik Seidel. Erik is, even today, being haunted by this one hand; and he openly talks about being confronted with it almost every single poker tournament he enters. That’s what you get when the best poker movie ever chooses to depict you as a fish…

Obviously, Erik Seidel has millions to comfort him now, so he’ll be okay.

It does show you how different the world of poker is today;; in a good way.

Greg Raymer goes by the nick name of Fossil Man. The nick name came about from the habit that he has of collecting fossils. These fossils he uses to protect the cards. This was a habit that began in college whilst he was playing nickel dime with his college buddies. He started playing real small and eventually moved up to bigger stakes until he found himself playing at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. This is where he played in weekly tournaments and participates in cash games and start making a fair deal of money for himself.

Greg Raymer was able to earn enough name and fame for himself when he went on to defeat as many as 2,575 other players and was able to win the first spot in the 2004 World Series of Poker main event. This fetched him earnings of as much as $5,000,000. The money that Greg Raymer had to pay to participate in this online tournament was a measly $160 and the wins against that were fabulous.

After this win in the year 2004, Greg Raymer has cut down on his playing. He is a family man and prefers to spend quality time with his wife and daughter. Greg Raymer lives in Raleigh in NC, in the United States.

Greg Raymer has got thirty cashes to his name and a total winnings of $6,747,662. His First Place Finishes have been 3 and he has a WSOP Bracelet to his name. At the ProRank he has got number one and his Position is at 1911. The ProRank 2 Position that he holds is at 23119.

Greg Raymer is forty six years old and is married to Cheryl and has a daughter called Sophie. His first brush with poker was in the year 1992 and he went on to play BlackJack then. His favorite poker game is No Limit Texas Hold’em.

He had a one time ambition to be the number one at poker. When he was thirty-nine years old he was lucky enough to be able to achieve this dream of his. The most recent game of poker that he won was at EPT London Season 7 UKIPT London Season 1. This was the EPT No Limit Hold’em Championship and his ranking here stood at 92^nd. The earnings that he got himself were $14,658 on Sep 29, 2010.

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I’ve never been a huge fan of Annette Obrestad; she’s a great player, but she’s a very irritating and unfriendly person at the table. I was at her table on two occasions during the 2010 World Series of Poker; and she was being extremely rude to two older gentlemen on two occasions.

The fact that she is a great player is unquestioned though – and this hand from the Main Event makes her look pretty solid…