Wed, 04/20/2011 – 03:10 – PokerPages Staff

The latest episode of the High Stakes Poker game show aired on GSN on Saturday evening.

Team PokerStars Pros Jonathan Duhamel, Jason Mercier and Barry Greenstein featured alongside Mike Baxter, Julian Movsesian and Bill Perkins.

Perkins, who has dropped over $350,000 during the session thus far, got involved in the first notable hand of the evening after flopping top pair.

Movsesian led out for $18,800 with bottom pair and Perkins jammed all-in for $46,500 with his pair of queens.

Movsesian made the call but failed to find any salvation on the turn or river as Perkins shipped the $128,000 pot.

Baxter then got the better of Greenstein to the tune of $400,000 during two consecutive hands.

Greenstein re-raised to $15,000 post flop and called down bets of $35,000 and $75,000 on the turn and river with top two pair but Baxter tabled trip fours to win the $261,000 pot.

Baxter won another six figure pot after flopping trip nines. Greenstein eventually abandoned ship on the river with two pair after a final $65,000 bullet.

2010 World Series of Poker champion Jonathan Duhamel and Mercier were both involved in the final hand of the evening.

Mercier bet $2,300 pre flop with 10-9 suited and Baxter (Q-10s) and Duhamel (6-5s) both came along for the ride.

Mercier re-raised to $13,900 with top two pair post flop and Duhamel completed with a flush draw. Baxter folded top pair.

An Ace on the turn prompted a $44,000 check-raise from Duhamel but Mercier responded by moving his $183,000 stack into the middle. Duhamel went into the tank before folding.

Tue, 04/19/2011 – 03:25 – PokerPages Staff

There are three main types of poker played commonly in casinos.  Our guide will briefly outline the poker rules. 

The oldest form of poker is draw poker- and it is still popular today.  This game involves a blind hand of cards being dealt to participants and bets being placed.  Players then view the cards and are allowed to exchange them after another round of poker betting.  This is called the ‘draw’ phase.  Five-card draw is the most common variant with one round of card changes and different rounds of betting allowed.  There are numerous other variants depending on the casino.

Also popular is stud poker. Seven-card stud is the most popular variant.  It involves seven cards with four face up and three with which to make the best hand.  There are normally a few rounds of poker bets involved with stud poker, and the combination of other players knowing most of their opposition’s hands leads to some tense games.

The most popular form of poker is community card poker.  Texas Hold‘em is a type of community card poker.  This game features five community cards being revealed throughout the game.  Each player has two cards with which to make the best hand out of a group of five card.  Community card poker leads to diverse and complex strategies.  This is one of the reasons why the game is so popular throughout the world.  The majority of poker tournaments play variants of Texas Hold‘em.

Want to learn more?  PokerSchoolOnline is the Internet’s #1 source for poker related learning.  One excellent way to put what you have learnt to the test is by playing free at PokerStars.net.