Viruses: Computer viruses are the most well known of the internet threats. They can infect your computer with any number of outcomes. Some viruses will change your settings and slow your computer down. These are nuisance viruses that are designed purely to cause trouble. Some viruses, known as Trojans, disguise themselves to infiltrate your computer, sending back information to the person who created the virus. These viruses are aptly named after the famous Trojan Horse which allowed the Greeks to infiltrate the city of Troy and throw open the gates to allow the bulk of the Greek army in to sack the great city. Just like Troy, your computer can fall if these viruses are allowed to infect it. The most damaging viruses of all are the ones that are simply designed to cause as much destruction as possible, deleting important files and turning your computer into a useless wreck.

To protect your computer from the threat viruses prevent, you will need antivirus software which will detect viruses and stop them from infecting your computer. A few examples of antivirus software are listed below.

Symantec: Symantec is a well-known software company and their antivirus program, Norton Antivirus, is just as famous. You can buy just the antivirus program, or you can bundle it with several other computer protection tools in one of several packages that Symantec offers, adding a firewall and several other tools to your arsenal. The Symantec software will automatically update your antivirus protection, so your computer will always be protected. Symantec does have several drawbacks, most notably the expensive price and the fact that their products have been known to slow down computer performance.

Avast!: Avast! is an antivirus program that has grown in popularity due to its effective protection and its price, which is free for non-commercial home use. Avast! will not just stop viruses, but other threats which do not qualify as viruses, malware. Avast! also does not effect your computer’s performance. There are some sites that offer Avast! while trying to charge for it, so if you get Avast! make sure you get it at www.avast.com. Avast! also offers a professional version of their software, which does come with a price tag, albeit cheaper than many other antivirus software. Like Symantec, Avast! automatically updates to offer constant protection.

Adware: Adware is a term used to describe computer threats that do nothing more than display ads on your computer. These threats are not dangerous to your computer, merely to yourself, as it is frustrating to constantly be closing ad windows as they pop up.

Ad-Aware: Ad-Aware is a free anti-adware program designed by Lavasoft. Ad-Aware scans your system and notes items that could be considered adware, than allow you to decide whether to delete, quarantine, or ignore them. You must manually begin Ad-Aware scan, although if you spend a little bit for the upgraded version of Ad-Aware you will receive round-the-clock protection from adware.

Spyware: Spyware is another computer threat that is similar to adware, indeed, the term malware exists to denote any form of malicious program that harms your computer, be it adware or spyware. Whereas adware will simply display ads on your computer, spyware will try to steal information from your computer. Spyware is dangerous in that it can steal your personal information, such as bank accounts and passwords, and put this information to use for the sole benefit of the people behind the spyware.

Spybot Search and Destroy: Spybot Search and Destroy is a free program that will scan your computer for any forms of spyware and delete them from your computer after receiving your permission to delete the threats. Spybot is a well-respected program known for its efficiency and ability to detect some forms of spyware that bough and paid for anti-spyware programs will not.

Phishing Scams: Phishing scams are a very popular way for crooks to make lots of money. The scams work by sending out emails to thousands of people, attempting to entice the recipients into entering their personal information in order to steal from their accounts. One example of this is an email that appears to be from eBay expressing a concern about your account. It then asks you to follow a link to a website that looks like it is an eBay webpage and enter your account information. If you enter the information then you will have given access to your eBay account over to a couple of crooks.

Sometimes the crooks will be clumsy, not even disguising the URL so that instead of reading www.ebay.com it will look something like this www.geocities.com/…/…/www.ebay.com/, using some free domain as the base for its fake ebay site. However, you cannot count on the criminals being clumsy so if you receive an emal asking you to enter your account information for whatever site they are pretending to be, don’t click on any links. Instead, if the email says it came from ebay, forward the message directly to ebay expressing your concern that you were just contacted in a phishing scam. Most sites will thank you for informing them and work promptly to shut down the website linked with the phishing scam.

Virus Hoax Scam:

This scam is designed to cause trouble by making you damage your computer. This scam works through email, as someone will start a chain letter that says something like this, “The XYZ virus is going around, search your computer for a file named thisfile.xyz. If you find this file your computer is infected and you need to delete this file.” The file that is listed will actually be an important system file and you will severely damage your computer by deleting the file.

Most antivirus company websites, such as symantec, will also have a listing of viruses and virus hoaxes, so you can visit them to see if you are indeed at risk. Also, the website www.snopes.com offers information on many different subjects, computer viruses among them. When on their main page click on the computers category and then choose computer viruses to see a list of viruses and virus hoaxes.

Always be careful when dealing with potential threats to your computer.

One fine example of this occurred in a nine player sit and go I was playing on Poker Stars. I had been getting horrible cards, I went almost an entire level without seeing a single face card. After a long period of folding, I finally pick up a hand, pocket queens. I was on the button, so I had a good hand with good position. However, the second player to act pushed all-in, and at this time his stack was only slightly decreased from his starting stack. Another player called, so I made the proper move for this stage in the tournament: I threw my hand away. As it turns out, I would have won the hand, as the raiser had Q-8 and the caller held A-K with unremarkable community cards. One player revealed that they had folded A-Q, and after careful deliberation, I revealed that I had held pocket queens.

Why did I do this? Firs, the other players were starting to realize that I was playing tightly, so by revealing that I had not given in to the temptation to play a big hand in a bad situation, they would come to the conclusion that I truly do only play good cards, and I wouldn’t be making any dumb plays when I held good cards. I wanted to cultivate fear in them, fear that would cause them to fold when I did raise, as my style relies on aggressively forcing other players out of the pot when I enter a hand.

Shortly after revealing that I had pocket queens, I started to pick up hands I was willing to play with in good position. I used these hands to my advantage, raising when I came into the hand, either winning the pot outright or isolating myself against one or two opponents. If I did get callers before the flop, I was always able to make them fold after the flop. My stack was growing, and I became a powerful force at the table without winning a truly big pot.

At one point I looked at my stats, and saw that I had seen eleven flops, and had won ten pots. A couple of those wins came preflop, so that slightly skews the numbers, but the only time I saw the flop and didn’t win the hand was when I was playing for cheap from the blinds. Every time I raised before the flop, I won the hand. I had accomplished my goal of getting the other players to fear me. Also during this time, I had only made it to one showdown, this occurring when I was in the big blind and called the short stack’s all-in, as they only had five more chips than my big blind. I won that pot for the very small win and an elimination.

This is a good example of what can happen if you consider all the information that is available and decide to give your opponents some information in order to gain an advantage. Controlling information is vitally important in poker, and sometimes it is not a bad idea to give some information away.

One very important principle of preflop play is to never look at your cards until it is your turn to act. Instead, you should be watching the other players look at their cards, as the moment they first see their cards is one of the moments where it is easiest to spot a tell and discern whether or not they are pleased with the hands they have been dealt. Even the most imperceptible of faces can sometimes reveal its owner’s thoughts. If you are able to spot a tell before your opponent has even started to think of what action they are going to take, you already have the advantage, especially in a short-handed game where you know most of the players.

Once it is your turn to act you can put to good use the information you have already attained. If you believe that a person acting behind you has caught a good hand, it is best to fold all but the strongest of hands. If a person in front of you limped in or made a weak raise, the alarm bells should be reverberating inside your head, and you should get out quick. On the other hand, if you see weak cards reflection in your opponents’ reactions, then making a strong raise could be advisable.

If you aren’t able to get a definitive read on your opponents, you must then rely on playing good positional poker, using the strength of your cards and your position at the table to see you through. In addition to reasoning out what your actions should be, you should also try and deduce what your opponents’ reasoning could be. After all, just because an opponent raises that doesn’t mean they have a good hand.

If you’re sitting in one of the blinds and a player on the button raises after action was folded around to him, he could easily be making a play to try and steal the pot. This is a situation where the more you know about your opponent, the better you will be. Is your opponent the kind of person who would try and steal the blinds with a junk hand, or are they the kind of person who only raises if they do indeed have a good hand. If you know your opponent and can identify what moves they are willing to make, then you have more information to make your decisions with. If you think that your opponent could be making a play, than the correct decision would be to reraise, seeing how he or she reacts to the pressure being boomeranged onto them.

While preflop play may seem simple at first glance, wait for good cards, play in good position, and the like, there are many different facets of play to be aware of. If you keep an eye on your opponents, understand how they play, and can deduce the reasoning they use for some of their plays, you can play in such a way that makes them uncomfortable and try to win pots when you know more about your opponents than they do of you.

In poker, it is a frequent sight to see players make inappropriately sized bets for what they are trying to accomplish, and as so often ensues, they lose control of the hand. For instance, say that you are in a fairly loose game and are holding K-10 unsuited on the button. One player limps before you, you call, the small blind also calls, and the big blind checks to see the free flop. The flop comes 10d-7c-3h. You have the top pair and likely hold the best hand, as it is likely that anyone with A-10 would have raised the pot preflop. The action is checked to you, but what do you do?

Obviously, you’re going to bet here, but how much? There are a few weak draws possible, and given the loose game so far, it is possible that an opponent did see the flop with a weak hand that could have found a draw. It is tempting to make a big bet here to try and force everyone out to pick up the pot, but in this situation that could easily backfire. While you have top pair, it could easily be beaten if someone is holding an ace and hits it on the turn. Also, given that the game has been fairly loose, you should be expecting callers.

In this situation, making a smaller bet is advisable, as it allows you to get out of the hand less expensively if the turn card helps one of your opponents. Your bet will signify that you have a hand, making it possible to take the pot on the turn if nobody improves their hand, and your bet will not commit too many chips to the pot, making it painful to let go of the hand that you have if one of your opponents shows aggression on the turn. If you make a bet near the size of the pot, you’re going to want to continue with the hand even if an ace comes on the turn and the chances become very good that you are beat, simply because the pot is large and contains a lot of your chips.

This is a good example of how if you bet too many chips, you force yourself into making painful decisions that you could have avoided by making a smaller bet. You need to tailor the size of your bets to the situation in each hand. In the example, you had the best hand on the flop, but could easily be beaten as the hand continued to the turn and the river. With the looseness of play making it likely that you’re going to be called, making an intimidating bet is not the right decision. Instead, save the intimidating bets for when there are a number of dangerous draws and your opponents are capable of folding if the odds are not with them.

Know what the situation is before you make your bet. Anticipate your opponents’ actions. Be aware of how strong your hand is compared to the likely holdings of your opponents. Poker is about making the correct plays at the correct time, and there are a lot of factors to consider whenever you make a decision.

It’s human nature to either want to keep playing poker when you’re losing or quit when you’re ahead. Nobody wants to finish the day as a loser. But to be a successful poker player, you have to learn to let go of these emotions and think about the long run.

You can’t judge your success as a poker player on one session, or even a weeks worth of play. There’s way to many variables that can occur in a short period of time that can influence your results one way or the other.

You have to play upwards of 20,000 hands before you can conclude your approximate earn rate. This goes for every time you move to a new limit or switch to a different poker game. The more hands you play, the better you can zero in on your long-term win rate.

Even as a winner in the long run, it can still be hard to take a big loss without wanting to quickly win it back. That of course is always a bad idea and often makes the situation much worse. I find that one way to overcome this is to chart your daily wins and losses. After you get a lot of data, you’ll find that as long as you’re a winning player, the losses should look like a drop in a bucket compared to your long run results.

On June 24th, thenut21 placed 2nd in the PokerStars Sunday Million event for $158,000. Before the win he was primarily playing $200 and lower sit&go’s as a break even player (according to sharkscope). However, after his win he decided to start playing $5,500 heads up sit&go’s.

This is where a lot of players go wrong. When they suddenly win a lot of money, they think they’re much better poker players and can play higher stakes.

Thenut21 proceeded to lose $80,000 over the next two days playing heads up sit&go’s. Maybe even more with cash games. He hasn’t played on pokerstars since.

So just because you have the money to play a certain limit doesn’t mean you can. Without the experience, you’ll be out of your league. The only thing a big bankroll will do is cause you to go broke at a slower pace.

I’ve written a complete guide to poker bankroll management that every player should read. It covers beginner to advanced poker money management concepts and will help you develop your own money management strategy.

I came to this conclusion today, when I set down at a $200 heads up HA game (holdem / PLO mixed game) on full tilt. My opponent had $50 and I had $200. After 30 minutes of back and forth action, I busted him. My profit was $10. Yeah, the other $40 was diminished by the rake.

A much better option is playing heads up sit&go’s. They play out like sit&go’s. There’s a bunch of different varieties, like turbo’s, for faster action, or non escalating blinds, which play out more like a cash game. There’s a fixed rake for heads up sit&go’s that almost guarantees you’ll pay less then in heads up cash games.

The only time when heads up cash games would be clearly a better choice is if you’re playing $2,000NL (or a limit equivalent) and higher. The rake is capped at a certain amount that should have little effect in comparison to the pot sizes.

The reason you’re getting called is because your over bet is very suspicious. Why would you bet so much if you wanted a call? You would have had a better chance to get your opponent to lay down his hand by betting a normal amount or even value betting.

So instead of over betting your losing hands, why not over bet your winning hands? Next time you make a full house on the river, over bet the pot to make it look like you’re trying to get your opponent to fold. The bet size will make your opponents think twice about the hand and possibly call with less then marginal hands.

Here’s an idea, why not bluff at the pot by throwing in a value bet on the river? You’ll trick your opponents into folding, by making it look like you’re begging for a call. If your value bets are 1/5th of the pot, you’d only need to win 1/4 of the time to show a profit with this play.

Not every poker book is available, but they have a nice selection. It seems like some of the newer and more popular books aren’t indexed though. I’m not sure there’s a reason behind this or if it’s just a coincidence.