The tricky part is when someone else has already raised. Do you re-raise? Flat-call? Well, as with all things pertaining to poker strategy, the answer is: it depends.

When to flat-call

There are a few situations where flat-calling someone’s preflop raise with a big pair is smart. The main scenario is when the stacks are relatively short (20-60 big blinds… so usually in a tournament) and our image is tight. If you were to re-raise in this case, you might as well turn your hand over after doing so. We surrender all value for our hands as our opponent knows we’ll only be re-raising here with premium hands. (Note: so one way to make money in this situation is to re-raise with garbage sometimes since they give you so much credit).

Flat-calling hides your hand better and allows you to extract maximum value for your hand in subsequent betting rounds.

Another spot in which flat-calling can be very smart is when one of the players yet to act has been very aggressive. A re-raise could dissuade them from their aggressive ways and encourage them to relax for a hand. Flat-calling allows them to think “hmm… yum yum,” and possibly come over the top therein trapping themselves.

When to re-raise

Generally speaking, re-raising with big pairs is smart if:

• The stacks are very deep
• You’ve been very aggressive

In each case, flat-calling surrenders value on your hand. One common mistake players new to the ways of playing very aggressively make is to suddenly change pace when they finally have a big hand. Sure, they’ll raise their Ten-Sevens and Nine-Eights all day, but as soon as they get pocket Kings, they just smooth call. Hellllooooo!!! The whole point of raising the Nine-Eights in the first place is so opponents give you zero respect when you finally make a raise with a big pair!

For a long time, Party Poker limited players to four tables at once, which helped their games stay very soft. Poker has changed a lot since then. Players have demanded to be allowed to play more tables, so sites like Party Poker that were once incredibly soft have now gotten tougher due to the sharks getting a little too greedy. Of course, the nature of poker is that the games will get tougher over time. Losing players quit while winning players continue to stick with the game. So allowing players to play more tables is not the only cause for games being tougher than they were three years ago.

As a new player, the transition to playing more than one table at a time can be a little challenging. When players treat it as an “arms race” of sorts to try to play more tables and more hands than all their friends, the results are usually unsavory. The first key to multi-tabling online poker is to take it one step at a time.

A small anecdote is that I’ve been playing online poker for five years. Sure, there are plenty of guys who have played far more hands than I have, but I’m still about as seasoned as you can get. That in mind, even for me it’s tough to play more than 6 or 7 tables at once. The effects of playing a lot of tables lead you to making “rushed” decisions. If you have a very strong foundation of poker strategy, this is not necessarily a bad thing. But new players usually don’t have a very solid understanding of the game. For that reason, it is very important to make sure you’re not playing so many tables that you cannot take the adequate amount of time needed to make the right decision.

Remember, online poker is absolutely huge. There are millions of hands dealt per day in which hundreds of thousands of people participate. Huge sums of money change hands every hour. It’s safe to say that it’s going to be like this for a long, long time. There’s no point in trying to hurry yourself. Play at the pace you are comfortable with. Don’t try to be someone you’re not by 30-tabling like the 19 year old Swedish kid with a YouTube video does. All of the most successful poker players in the world got to where they’re at by approaching the game in a smart manner and taking it at the pace that was right for them.

Playing Too Many Hands

New players almost always overestimate the strength of their hand in poker. This is particularly the case with small Ace hands (such as Ace-Six). The problem with these hands is that they really don’t lend themselves to creating the scenarios needed to win a big pot. Most often, you’ll completely miss the flop with these hands. When you do hit the flop, it will be on a flop like Ace-Ten-Five where you’re liable to either win a small pot or lose a huge one by getting too involved against someone who has an Ace with a better kicker.

Other commonly overplayed hands are suited hands (Jack-Three is still junk even if it is suited), and hands with a face card and a large-ish number card (like King-Nine or Queen-Eight).

It shouldn’t suggested that these hands are always bad or that they should never be played; another thing beginners would be wise to learn is that poker is a game of scenarios. A hand that should be folded in one scenario can be played for all of your chips in another scenario. The point is that these hands are overvalued by beginners generally speaking.

Not Betting for Value

Many new players gain a perfectly decent understanding of hand values but have no idea of how to extract the maximum amount of money for their hands via betting. For this reason, it is generally recommended that new players play games with limit betting rules. Limit betting allows for a fairly cheap education on hand values while only having to make simple betting decisions (”bet” or “don’t bet”). No-limit betting games are quite a bit more complicated. Not only do you have to determine if you should bet, but you also have to determine how much you should bet. The problem many new players have is that they have no clue how to answer that second question.

The knee-jerk response to the question of “how much to bet?” is to bet according to hand strength (ie: if you have a big hand, make a big bet, if you have a mediocre hand, make a small bet). However, it should be remembered that poker is a game of relativity. You could have a sure-thing winner, but you’re only going to win as much money as you’re able to get your opponent to put into the pot. If your opponent doesn’t like their hand, they’re not very likely to call a huge bet. So in no-limit betting games, it’s not only important to have a good sense of the value of your hand, it is also important to have a good sense of your opponent’s likely holdings so you know how much you can try to extract from them.

This isn’t really an exact science that can be taught easily. Mastering the game takes a lot of practice, patience, and studying quality poker strategy advice books and articles.

When two variables are accounted for, 1.) size of online poker room and 2.) ease of competition, I believe Party Poker is the best online poker room to play at. Sure, there are a few places where the games are a little softer and other places where there are more games to choose from. However, it’s hard to top Party Poker’s perfect blend of size and ease of competition.

No American Players

The fact that Party Poker doesn’t have any American players helps make their games generally a little easier. Poker has been popular for over five years now in the U.S. Most American players have been playing for a while now, so they’ve gotten to be pretty decent. At Party Poker, you see more of a “newbie” cross-section of the poker playing world. Most of their players are from Europe, where poker is still developing in popularity. They also have a nice handful of players from Latin America who generally speaking aren’t that good at poker.

Advertise to the Right Players

Online poker rooms that are larger than Party Poker like to use well-known poker pros in their marketing. This “play with the pros” approach to marketing tends to attract more serious players who aren’t as likely to spew away their money. Party Poker uses almost zero pro-based marketing. As the name of their room suggests, they tend to maintain a “fun, friendly, care-free” vibe in their advertisements. Since they don’t take themselves too seriously in their marketing, people who don’t take the game too seriously are more likely to choose Party Poker for their online poker playing needs.

Great First-Time Deposit Bonus

Almost all poker rooms offer players a first-time deposit bonus. The size and clearing-rate of this bonus can often be the difference between a winning or losing player while they’re first getting started. A good Party Poker bonus code should give you 100% up to $500 on your first deposit. Party Poker is well known for their bonuses being fairly easy to clear. This means that they release the bonus money to you without requiring a whole lot of playing time, whereas some online poker rooms make you grind it out for hours to get a few dollars of your bonus.

Remember, poker is all about value. To win, you need strong skills and easy competition, and of course, a little luck. New poker players can aid their development greatly by starting out at Party Poker in favor of a tougher, less-inviting online poker room.