The World Series of Poker has been the leading poker circuit for decades now and over the years many poker players have won millions in WSOP tournaments. Back when the WSOP started the prize pools and playing field were much smaller and this makes the results somewhat interesting. Some of the top earners in the WSOP aren’t really even close to being the best players in the world, but since the prize pools the past seven years have been huge compared to the rest of the years the results are swayed.

Jamie Gold – $12,064,976

Jamie Gold only has one WSOP bracelet in his career which came in the 2006 Main Event. It was a massive prize pool and was big enough to put Jamie in first place for the top earners in the history of the World Series of Poker. Jamie is also the only player who has broken the $10 million mark in earnings on the WSOP circuit.

Peter Eastgate – 9,119,517

Peter Eastgate of PokerStars is one of the youngest professional poker players right now and has years of playing poker in front of him. Peter won the most recent WSOP Main Event which was in 2008 and the first place finish was enough to put him second on the list of top earners. If Peter continues playing like he did in the 2008 Main Event he’ll easily become the highest earner on the WSOP circuit.

Jerry Yang – $8,250,000

Jerry Yang of Absolute Poker Cheats isn’t the most well known poker player, but he won the 2007 WSOP Main Event and is ranked third on the all-time earners list for the WSOP. The Main Event bracelet which Jerry won has been the only WSOP bracelet which he has won in his career thus far. I’m sure we’ll see more of Yang in the future and he could also have a shot at becoming the all-time top earner with one more major win.

Joe Hachem – $7,940,210

Joe Hachem is one of the more popular and recognized poker players around the world due in large part to his 2005 Main Event WSOP bracelet as well as his many TV appearances on poker television shows. Joe only has the one WSOP bracelet thus far, but he is definitely a good enough poker player to add to that at anytime.

Allen Cunningham – $6,673,828

Allen Cunningham of Full Tilt Poker has won five WSOP bracelets in his career and finished in the money a lot more times as well. He is easily one of the best poker players of all-time and sits in fifth of the all-time earners list in the WSOP.

As you can see out of the top five WSOP earners of all-time the top four have only won one WSOP bracelet each. The reason the top four are the top four is simply because they won the WSOP Main Event recently when the prize pools have skyrocketed.

Phil Hellmuth who is the most successful online poker player of all-time with eleven WSOP bracelets sits seventh on the all-time earners list. Most people would logically think he would be on top of the list, but since his wins came years ago the prize pools were much smaller.

One of the most important skills you’ll learn while playing poker online as a no limit poker player is how to control the size of the pots you’re playing in. When you have the nuts you have no concerns about the pot size because you’ll want it to be as big as possible, but for every other hand you play you’re going to need to control the size of the pot. We’re going to look at some tips you can use in different situations to help you control the pot against your opponents to assist you in maximizing profits and minimizing losses.

* One of the most common ways to control the size of the PokerStars pot and also to get a free card from your opponents is to lead out betting. If you’re in an early position and you have a draw where you want to see the turn and river for as cheap as possible you’re going to want to lead out betting. If you lead out with a small bet chances are most opponents are going to just call unless they have a monster hand. You can sometimes even win the pot by your opponents folding, but you could also lose your money by getting raised. If you’re raised then you need to determine whether it’s worth calling or not at this point for a draw.

* When you have already made your UB.com hand and you’re sitting with a high pair or two pairs, but are worried about whether or not your hand is good you should bet out. A small bet in this situation will help keep the pot small or will let you know that it’s time to fold your hand because someone has you beat. If you’re raised you can assume you’re beat at this point and if you’re not raised then you’ve kept the pot small enough to make it worth continuing playing the hand. You don’t want to check with high pair or two pairs because if one of the opponents makes a large bet you’re going to be lost as to whether they have a hand or are bluffing. It’s less likely for an opponent to bluff the pot if you’ve already lead out betting the pot so keep that in mind.

* If you’re near the end to act after the flop and someone has made a small bet into the pot and you have a good draw you want to chase your best option is to re-raise the pot. The reason being is because generally most players will just call the raise and then check the turn unless they have the nuts. This means you’d get a Full Tilt Poker free card on Fifth Street because of the small re-raise you made after the flop which could help you hit your draw. These little bets will help you control the pots you play in and will also give you the best chance at hitting your hands.

Controlling the Spade Club pot is really important when you play NL because anyone can bet anything at anytime. In order to stop players from abusing the all-in bet you need to make sure you’re willing to bet out first and not be afraid of seeing some re-raises once in awhile.

If you want to try and play a new structure while playing internet poker you should look at playing heads-up poker tournaments. These tournaments have grown in popularity and thousands of poker players everyday play them on Poker Stars. This is the best poker room to join if you want to play heads-up tournaments as they have them starting every couple of minutes. You can play heads-up tournaments with regular blinds which are every ten minutes or with turbo blinds which are every five minutes. If you’re new to heads-up tournaments then I would suggest playing in heads-up tournaments with a regular blind structure as it’s less hectic and gives you more playing time.

The strategy that works best when you’re playing heads-up Texas Holdem is to quickly establish being the aggressor on the table and don’t allow your opponent to do so. Any two cards can win any pot in heads-up poker so you don’t need to play your cards as much as you play your opponent. Right from the beginning of the match you need to begin watching how your opponent bets and pick up on any patterns you can find. Sometimes poker players will always follow a raise up with a bet and if you catch onto small things like this you can trap and bluff your opponents easily.

Since you aren’t always going to be getting cards in heads-up matches on PokerStars.com you need to be willing a lot preflop so that you give your opponent a false impression of strength. By raising the pot preflop they may assume you have a pretty good starting hand so if the flop comes out with high cards then you can follow up your raise with a bet. Often the other player will fold if you make the bet big enough and often a good bet size if the size of the pot.

When you do have a hand you need to try and slow play your opponent into betting until the river which at that point you obviously need to bet. You will also need to keep looking for hands that could beat yours and if any appear then you need to make a small bet to see where you stand. There is no point trying to slow play your opponent to find out that they outdrew you because you didn’t make any feeler bet.

Heads up poker on pokerstars.net is a lot faster then your typical full table game so you need to pay close attention to the game and not have any distractions. You also don’t win as much money in these poker tournaments, but that’s because you only need to beat one player. If you begin getting good at playing heads-up tournaments and you’re winning money then you should consider playing in tournaments with 4+ players as they pay more. The tournaments can start with as little as 4 players and there always needs to be an even amount so that everyone has a heads-up player to play in the first round. If you win you move on and if you lose then you’re out of the tournament.

Among the monster pre-flop combinations that get your adrenaline pumping, there are some trouble hands to watch out for. These won’t be potential issues all the time, but there are situations where even the most enticing hands can be a recipe for disaster.

The first thin you need to do is Download Full Tilt Poker from the official website. This first hand is two cards making up what will be the inside of a straight, or at least one of the two to the inside, and it’s not the highest possible straight out there. This is incredibly dangerous when there’s more than six people at the table, as well. Take J, 8 for example. If the betting is light pre-flop, you’re likely going to go in with this hand to see what you can pull later. If you hit a straight, say Q, 10, 9…you think you’ve got it made and will bet accordingly. However, if an opponent played K, J before the flop, you’re going to be taken to the cleaners. You’ll think the entire time the other guy is betting up two pair or maybe a set, and you’ll miss the trap until it’s way too late. This is the kind of hand that can put you out of a tournament.

OK, how about A, Q? This has to be one of the strongest hands to bet early, right? Not so fast, and you know what’s coming. Exactly, if you take this up against A, K, there’s a 66 percent chance you’ll get drubbed through the hand and lose it in the end. The odds say it’s 3:1 against you. It’s one of the hardest FullTiltPoker.net hands to fold, but if you get that sense that you better not take the chance during high pre-flop betting, then don’t take that chance.

One more for now, but there are plenty of others to explore in future poker articles. J, J. This hand is almost worse than a low pair if for no other reason than how much it hurts when you’re convinced you have to fold it. If you are holding this hand on PokerStar.com and someone bets up against you, either they’re bluffing (which you can handle) or one of two other less than desirable results – A, K or A, Q….which means you’re only going to beat that person just over the majority of the time (not exactly odds to go all-in against) or they have a higher pair, which puts you at a 4:1 underdog and likely wishing you’d folded when you had the chance.

As long as you resign yourself to the fact that roulette is 100% random, every time, you’ll at least have fun playing the game. That is, of course, unless you’re actually trying to win money. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the game to an extent, I just think there are other options just down the carpet in the onlie casino that’ll better suit your desire not to lose your shirt if you take the time to study them and embrace their up sides.

Look around, you’ll find endless simulations conducted on roulette spins to debunk any possibility of patterns or weighted numbers. It’s not like blackjack online were you can get a good strategy and make money in the long run. Those are all rumors and lies, and none of them hold true. Perhaps back in older times when wheels were constructed in a poorer way, maybe then the door was opened for a few “sticky” numbers. But not today. All you have to use to your advantage in today’s game of roulette is your ability to know when you’re beat and walk away.

I took the opportunity to look into some of these simulations, just to see what results they yielded. And what I found was eye-opening, and confirmation of what I’ve been saying.

First, it’s incredible how thorough these casino game tests are. We’re talking 10,000 different spins. That’s more cause for Tommy John surgery than any left-handed MLB pitcher has to deal with.

The results of each spin are stacked and documented, and then at the end the numbers are boiled down for you (thank goodness) into an easy-to-navigate chart of how many times each number came up. From there you can do your own math in terms of figuring out how many times red came up, how many times each combination came up, etc…

Turns out, no number was hit more than 311 times, in this one test anyway. And no number was hit fewer than 245 times. Those numbers are impressively and reassuringly close to the mean and median of the test. Even the 0 came up 258 times. Most numbers came up nearly the same number of times, between 260-270.

In case you were wondering, that test was for single zero roulette. I’ve found tests for double zero roulette, as well, and the results are extremely comparable. Double zero came up 257 times. Single zero came up 259 times. The high and low on that test were 244 and 314. Just about the same as the single zero test. If you are looking for a deceing online casino gambling site, we recommend checking out Golden Casino.