Here are some basic poker tips for anyone looking to enhance their gameplay and increase their chip stack. Even though it involves elements of luck, poker is a game of skill.
Tip 1: Play to Learn
Poker is one of the most popular games in the world, not only for its intrinsic connection to money, but also for the multitude of strategic nuances that come with the game’s intricate balance of math and chance.
The best poker players will still tell you that they don’t know everything about the game. To some degree, the more you play, the more there is to learn.
“The more you know, the luckier you get in poker.”
-Doyle Brunson, poker champion and best-selling author
Doyle Brunson played professional poker for over six decades, until his death in May of last year at 89 years old. If you want to learn poker from a master from the absolute pinnacle fof the game, check out his books, Super System and Super System 2.
The moment you start thinking of yourself as an experienced poker player, you’re opening yourself up to untold vulnerabilities. Don’t get cocky– It never hurts to acknowledge that you could be missing something, especially in a game that’s so deceptively complicated.
Tip 2: Play the Opponent
You may have heard the standard poker advice, “Play the opponent, not the cards.” This is more than just stock advice – It’s a system to live by. Poker is not a game about your hand. Your hand is merely a single aspect of your strategy, while your opponent has the power to bring you victory or defeat depending on how you deal with them.
The “Showdown” event in which players must reveal their cards to determine a winner is rarer than it seems, especially on a player by player basis.
Consider that an average player in a Texas Hold’em ring game (9 seats occupied), will only participate in 2 showdowns per 100 hands dealt– That’s only 2%. But the other 98% of the time, that player still had cards in their hand. What they did with their chips in those other 98 hands matters far more than the showdown hands.
When you’re able to spot the patterns in your opponent’s betting habits, you can truly start to play the opponent. You can always make guesses about the cards they’re holding, but you’ll never know for sure until the rare moment of showdown. With your hands, the best you can do is to play aggressively when the odds are in your favor.
In the same way that you want more chips in the pot when you have the nuts, you want to see more cards with fewer chips when you think you might have a losing hand. More community cards (turn, river) might turn your hand around and make you a winner, but no matter what you’re doing to the pot, you don’t want your opponent to know your position. Assume that every player is playing from that same place of mathematical responsibility, betting hard when their hand is strong and softening up when their hand is weak while also trying to hide their intentions.
Remember – Chances are that neither you nor your opponent will have a chance to see one another’s cards. That means that whoever played the other more effectively will take down that non-showdown pot. Only 20-25% of hands in a ring game will even make it to a showdown at all, so patterns tend to matter more than hands.
Tip 3: Chase with Caution
Whether you’re calling preflop with a couple of low suited connectors or holding out to see the suit you want on the turn, chasing a draw is generally a risky move.
“Chasing” in this context means that you have most of a good hand. If the cards you want fall, then you’ll almost always have the winning hand. If they don’t, you’re sure to lose if it comes to a showdown.
Some draws are worth chasing. For example, let’s say you have 5♠/6♠ and you get to see the flop with no preflop raise. If you see a flop of 3♥/4♣/10♦, you’re in a good position to chase your straight if the price is right.
Any 2 or 7 will make your straight, so if you can see the turn, go for it. Additionally, there’s currently no chance of someone drawing out a flush on you to beat your straight. However, by calling instead of raising, you’d run the risk of revealing that you’re on a draw and trying to minimize the bet. Therefore, when chasing a straight like this, you’d better be ready to commit some chips to the chase, then ditch the cards if it loses economic reasonability.
Be very careful with draws in every situation. Someone with a made hand is almost certainly looking to price you out and take the pot before your draw hits, and they’ll almost always recognize when you achieve the hand you were drawing for.
With straight and flush draws, it’s better to play against others who are chasing draws than to chase them yourself. If you are chasing, present your betting actions as having the made hand already.
One unlikely advantage to chasing straights and flushes can come from playing in early positions on the table. This will help mask your intentions, lending legitimacy to your check and waiting to see how the rest of the players will act before you decide to pay for your draw.
Join the Sweepstakes
There’s still over two days of play time to accumulate Tickets for the 44th Weekly Sweepstakes event that wraps up at 7am PT on Thursday, July 11th!
The total prize pool for each weekly Sweepstakes is 113K $GALA!
Win as many chips as you can each day to gather entry Tickets… G
As technology continually advances in leaps and bounds, ownership has been revealed as the single most empowering benefit to web3 tech in the gaming sector. The freedom that comes with web3’s application in the gaming world has led to an all-out gaming revolution.
At Gala Games, we are at the forefront of this revolution, leveraging the power of web3 to empower players with true ownership of their in-game items. One of the most significant benefits of this ownership is the ability to trade assets on secondary markets like OpenSea, creating a dynamic and flexible gaming ecosystem.
Limited-Time Primary Sales and the Power of Secondary Markets
Primary sales of Gala Games items are often limited in supply and time, creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity for our players. However, once these primary sales conclude, the items don’t simply vanish.
The Gala Games OpenSea Collection page
Thanks to the secondary market, users can continue to buy and sell these coveted assets. Platforms like OpenSea facilitate this by allowing players to list and purchase Gala Games NFTs, providing access to items that are no longer available through primary sales.
Bridging from GalaChain to Ethereum
Originally minted on GalaChain for use within our gaming titles, Gala Games NFTs are designed for seamless interoperability. They can be easily bridged to Ethereum, where they become tradeable on OpenSea and transferable through Ethereum wallets. This flexibility ensures that players can maximize the utility and value of their assets across different platforms and applications.
When you’re ready to take an item from the secondary market into its game and play with it, it’s easy to bridge the item from Ethereum to GalaChain through your Gala account, using your connected Ethereum wallet. Learn more about connecting your Ethereum wallet here.
A New Era of Player Freedom and Control
The traditional gaming model often locks players into a single title, especially when they’ve invested significant time and money into acquiring in-game assets. However, with web3 ownership, this is no longer the case.
Players now have the freedom to explore new games without losing what they’ve accumulated in previous games, even if they leave a game behind altogether. We’d hate to see you say goodbye to any of our games, but we want to ensure you have the freedom to do so without hurting your Gala Games collection. This paradigm shift promotes player freedom and control, breaking the cycle of being entrenched in a single game and encouraging exploration within the gaming ecosystem.
Browsing Celestial Claim NFTs from Echoes of Empire on the secondary market
Unlock Web3 Ownership
At Gala Games, we believe in the power of web3 to transform the gaming industry. The tradability of in-game items is a cornerstone of this transformation, providing players with unprecedented freedom and control over their digital assets. By leveraging platforms like OpenSea and the interoperability of GalaChain and Ethereum, we are creating a vibrant and dynamic marketplace that empowers players like never before.
Those were the days, weren’t they. You’d spend all week or month just dreaming about what you’d do with that allowance money when it finally came in. Even if you were flat broke, you knew that allowance was coming, and you couldn’t wait to blow it all on candy, arcade tokens, or fireworks. At the risk of revealing my age, we had some pretty awesome priorities with our allowance in my day.
Mint Allowances on GalaChain
GalaChain is making allowances cool again. When you have a GalaChainAllowance, that item or those tokens are as good as yours. You can even think of them as being reservedfor you until the exact moment when you’re ready to mint them.
This system we call Mint Allowances today is the evolution of the Treasure Chest system we used to use, back when everything we created was minted on Ethereum and GalaChain was only a distant vision. We created a way to reserve tokens for minting, allowing the owners to mint whenever was convenient for them. Back then, this minting event came at a cost, but thanks to GalaChain, minting tokens from a GalaChain Allowance is now free.
When you purchase a Gala item, it’s typically minted directly to you immediately, fulfilling the purchase. However, when you receive various tokens as rewards, your inventory will generally show them as a GalaChain Allowance, meaning that you can mint the tokens at your leisure. They’re set aside to be yours, but they’re not technically yours until the minting event.
I’m cooking up some savory rewards in that Common Georgia Cookery from The Walking Dead: Empires. It’s a GalaChain Allowance (not yet minted).
Other Kinds of Allowances
The idea of allowances also lends itself well to in-game activity. You can give various dApps (such as individual Gala Games) permission to use a certain amount of your tokens. This is why you’re sometimes asked for allowance permission when you launch some of our games. This is a convenient and secure way that allows you to spend your tokens in the game without returning to the store every time.
On GalaSwap, if you decide to create a project token using the Project Token Creation Tool, you’ll be asked to allocate a “Burn Allowance” of $GALA in a quantity of your specification. Upon Founder’s Node approval of your new token, the Burn Allowance will be burned and its value used to establish the initial trade value of your new token on GalaSwap.
That’s about all there is to it! Now, when you see Allowances in your Gala account, you’ll know that you’re ready to mint and doing a great job collecting Gala rewards!
We are thrilled to announce a special summer sale in Common Ground World, featuring over a dozen NFTs marked down for a limited time. This is a unique opportunity to grab your favorite NFTs at discounted prices, but hurry—these deals are only available for 48 hours!
Make sure to visit the Common Ground World store starting at 11am PT on June 21 to take advantage of these fantastic deals. With only 48 hours to save, now is the perfect time to enhance your collection with these unique NFTs.
Don’t miss the Kimchi Craze competition, starting next Tuesday at 10am PT!
Every two weeks, members of the team come together for a live Common Ground World Town Hall, hosted on our Gala Games YouTube channel. We invite all players and community members to tune in, participate in the live chat, and stay informed about the latest developments in Common Ground World (CGW), our beloved farm simulation game formerly known as Town Star.
Event Details
When: First and third Friday of every month at 8 AM PT
Live Updates: Get the latest news and updates straight from the team.
Community Interaction: Engage with fellow players and team members in the live chat.
AMA Session: Submit your questions for the AMA portion of the Town Hall using this form.
New NFT Releases
We’re thrilled to announce the release of new NFTs for CGW. These unique items will enhance your gameplay experience and offer exciting new opportunities for your virtual farm.
Small Seaweed Farm (Rare): Available today at 11 AM PT
Wishing Well (Rare): Available tomorrow at 11 AM PT
In addition to the new releases, we’re upgrading and offering special discounts on some of our older NFTs. These upgrades come with significant price reductions and will be available for 48 hours starting today at 11 AM PT.
We’re committed to keeping our community informed and engaged. Don’t miss out on the live Town Hall event, the latest updates, and the chance to grab these exclusive NFTs. Whether you join us live or catch the replay, there’s always something new and exciting happening in the world of CGW.
