My friend is such a Poker babe addict. Yes, you read that well, one of the reasons why he plays Poker in the internet is because of international babes.

He would usually search for Poker Reviews relating to Poker babes and one of the thing funniest thing about him is that once he like a Poker babe, he will get so addicted to her that her every picture and accomplishments will be posted all over his website. I can see why he is so addicted to Jennifer Tilly, because aside from being a successful actress, she is also a hot woman with great Poker skills. Also known as The Unabombshell in the world of Poker, Tilly was born in Harbor City, CA on June 27, 2005, Tilly won a World Series of
Poker bracelet (and $158,625) in the Ladies No Limit Holdem event, outlasting 600 other players. She followed up this accomplishment on September 1, 2005 by also winning the third World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament held at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. She is definitely the hottest of the hottest. If i only i am a homo, i will stalk her. Thank God I am not. Laugh out loud! Another
Poker babe my friend likes is Chantel McNulty. I do not really know much about this
Poker babe, all i know is that this 22 year old Texan is perhaps better known for her recent boob job and erratic love life than her Poker skills. McNulty cashed twice in the 2006 WSOP: finishing 23rd in the $2,00 Pot Limit Texas Hold'em Tournament and finishing 56th in the Ladies No Limit Texas Hold'em She prefers limit cash games to tournaments. She may be hot but i do not like her. Real hotness for me is about great
Poker skills and external beauty. If you only have external beauty then i do not think you deserve the title of a real
Poker babe. The last one of my friend's type is Brandi Hawbaker. Aside from the fact that few articles are written about her, i do not like her. Well my friend said he likes Hawbaker because she is a great
Poker player who had placed a few Poker Tournaments. I made a research about her and found out that Cardplayer.com also refers to her as Brandi Rose, but all other sources are referring to her as Brandi Hawbaker. Brandi is new on the
Poker scene and is already the most viewed player on the Hendon Mob database. She is rumored to be from Nashville and a stripper at Club Paradise in Las Vegas. She is also known to have appeared in a few movies according to IMDB, but nothing has been confirmed. I noticed this girl when i was browsing through some

Poker babe pictures and her picture in which she was showing her right boob with the Fulltilt logo covering it distracted me. At first, i thought this girl is hot and pretty but after seeing more pictures of her, i got into a conclusion that she is just hot. She cannot be considered as a Poker babe.

I do not know what is up with my friend. He has a fetish for hot girls playing
Poker. Anyway, who am i to say what his fetish should be or should be not. All i can say is that, hey Tilly is really hot!

The World Poker Tour announced late last week that it had settled a lawsuit involving some of the top Poker players in the world. Well I know this is a big story but I hate it when most Poker writers sensationalize stories as if it is their is the most important thing in the world. Hello? Can you please avoid doing that? You are not helping the Poker industry, you are making things worse.

Anyway, the suit revolved around the standard World Poker Tour release that all players are forced to sign before participating in a WPT event. According to the original suit filed on July 19th, 2006, the seven players were seeking to enjoin the WPT's "continuing violation of federal and state antitrust laws", plus they were also seeking "treble and punitive damages."

Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem both removed themselves from the lawsuit a while ago. Joe Hachem has been playing World Poker Tour events for a while now (he won the Five Diamond World Poker Classic in December of 2006). It is unknown why Raymer removed himself from the lawsuit, as I haven't heard of him playing any WPT events since the suit was filed.

Bloch, Duke, Ferguson, Gordon and Lederer announced that they had settled with the WPT just a couple of days ago. The settlement of the suit apparently involves a modification of the player release. The WPT will not be paying any sort of damages, and they are denying any wrong-doing in the matter.

I think that the suit was settled for three reasons (just my opinion of course). Here they are:

1. One of the "principal claims" (a term used by Phil Gordon) of the lawsuit was that the WPT and its host casinos were conspiring to eliminate, and prevent the creation of, competing televised poker tournaments. Gordon once stated that "there is no realistic possibility of a competing tour". I would say that the European Poker Tour has debunked this theory, as it has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success and growth over the past couple of years. It would be a pretty hard argument to make that the World Poker Tour has completely stifled any competition, because it's just not true. The European Poker Tour is booming; just look at the numbers.

2. The World Poker Tour is fading. I mean, let's be real here - the World Poker Tour's business is weakening. Numbers are down. Look no further than the attendance numbers for the WPT Championship, which is the signature tournament for the World Poker Tour. This year there are 545 entrants; in 2007, there were 639, and in 2006, there were 605. The WPT has moved from the Travel Channel to the Game Show Network, and they are getting paid significantly less per episode. Their stock is trading at just $1.56, giving it a valuation of just $32 million dollars; well off of its all-time highs of over $25. I don't think that the World Poker Tour is in much of a position to continue to battle it out with some of the biggest names in the game - they need all the star-power that they can get at this point.

3. There was not much support for the lawsuit in the Poker community. Daniel Negreanu famously spoke out against the lawsuit, sparking a memorable war of words between himself and Greg Raymer. The players involved in this suit might say "how would you know how much support we had?" I would say that actions speak louder than words, and it seems to me that no one else was boycotting the WPT events while this lawsuit was still active. Other players may have been quietly supportive, but they sure weren't showing it. Plus, two of the original seven plaintiffs withdrew from the suit.

So at the end of the day, the nearly two year old lawsuit has been settled, and we finally get to see Phil Gordon make his triumphant return to the World Poker Tour. We will also get to see Annie Duke play without any shoes on, and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson take a full minute before making every decision. Order has been restored in the universe.

Internet and players of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) are being warned of Trojan horses that steal credit card information or virtual characters whose items are also being sold for real money.

Internet security firm Fortinet reported that the "Poker Trojan" is being used by criminals to steal user credentials from popular poker sites, which include FullContactPoker.Com (www.fullcontactpoker.com) and CheckRaised.com (www.checkraised.com).

Poker Trojan has a built-in root-kit that that plugs itself to downloadable software from these sites. When installed in a PC, the Trojan launches the root-kit that starts scanning for credit card passwords and sends these to its source or author.

So far, there have been no major reports of Online Poker players falling victim to Poker Trojan.

Meanwhile, players of online games are warned of the return of key-logging techniques to steal virtual characters as several versions of Trojan horses that have key-logging features are spreading through the Internet.

Instead of invisibly saving the typed-in usernames and passwords, the MMORPG Trojans send the captured data to its author. After gaining access to the usernames and passwords, the criminals activate the stolen character and sell either it or the character’s items for real money.

Fortinet Threat Intelligence Team Leader Guilluame Lovet said there are two key points for targeting online video games, first of which is that it is a social activity involving money that will later on be a target of cybercriminals. The second point is that MMORPG players are willing to pay real money just to empower their own characters in the game, which online criminal syndicates find attractive and lucrative.

"Whether or not such a spectacular reduction of the factual frontier between real and virtual worlds is a worrying issue can be debated, but either way it’s inclined to send a little chill," Lovet said

Just by deciding to play Online Poker is already a gamble. Though it is convenient and offers more advantages than playing Poker table, it is still open to many kind of attacks or problems. One of which is online security.

Collusion is a problem that is unique to Poker as opposed to other games like blackjack or craps, since Poker players play against each other and not the casino itself. Collusion occurs when two or more players seated at the same table work together as a team, often using the same bankroll. Colluding players know what their team members’ hands are (often through subtle signals), and bet with the purpose of maximizing their team’s profits on any given hand. Though collusion is a problem in real cardrooms, it is a much more serious problem for Poker Sites. Using tools like instant messaging and telephone conference calls makes collusion a serious risk to Online Poker players. What if all the players in an online game are all cooperating to bilk an unsuspecting Web patsy? How can you be assured that you’re never a victim of this attack?

Last, but not least (especially in terms of our story), there is a real risk that the software behind an Online Poker game may be flawed. Software problems are a notorious form of security risk often overlooked by companies obsessed with firewalls and cryptography. The problem is that a software application can introduce truck-sized security holes into a system. We spend a great deal of time in our day jobs finding and solving software security problems. It is only natural that we turned our attention to Online Poker because we are investing so much to it and it is for this reason that we deserve a secured gaming platform.

The easiest way to learn how to strategize correctly when it comes to playing Poker is by substituting each technique into something that you can remember easily.

The need for you as a student of Poker, to observe and take notes on your opponents cannot be stressed enough. If you have good starting hand requirements, you will fold a great majority of your hands. This will give you plenty of time to study your opponents and see how they play. Most Online Poker tables allow you to “right click“ a player's avatar and fill in notes about him, that will be saved on their server, and thus, there for you to browse when you see the player again.

However, during the course of a game, you can fill up a huge amount of space. This can become cumbersome, and make the notes almost not worth reading, as they become a jumbled ream of random thoughts. I think you would agree then, that a good way to organize these notes would be most helpful!

Recently, I stumbled across and purchased a book by champ Phil Hellmuth, titled Play Poker Like the Pros. In it, I found Hellmuth's strategy for characterizing Poker players as animals. This organizational strategy is both humorous and effective, and after adding it to my game, I have been able to cut down on the endless reams of note taking.

Hellmuth classifies Poker players in 5 general catagories, only 4 of which most of us will ever get the chance to play against. They are the mouse, jackal, elephant, lion and eagle. Their Poker characteristics are as follows:

The Mouse

The mouse is an ultra conservative player who plays very strict starting hand requirements (see Hellmuth's Top 10). The mouse will bet, but rarely ever raises a bet or reraises. The mouse almost never bluffs. If a mouse actually does raise or re-raise, it probably means they have an almost unbeatable hand. The mouse's weakness is that he or she is simply too predictable. When the mouse starts to raise, good players typically fold their hands, and in the mouse loses out on some chips they may have won, had they not earned themselves such a stodgy reputation. This character type is also referred to as a rock For the record, mice tend to make more money than they lose, espeically at low limit loose games. Their pots are not always the largest in the world, but they take down way more pots than they lose, due to their conservative play.

The Jackal

I have found jackals to be pretty common animals in low limit, online poker rooms. This type of player plays alot of cards, and bets and raises with abandon. He is the direct opposite of the mouse. The jackal's chip stack often resembles a roller coaster ride, as it will climb when he has great cards, and then fall back to near nothing when he has a string of bad cards. You can make alot of money off a player like this. Do not ever be afraid to call a jackal, because since they play loose, you will catch them bluffing with trash often. A jackal is destined to lose his money if he ventures far beyond 50 cent ante poker, where good players see him for the loose player that he is and take advantage of his weaknesses.

The Elephant

The elephant is what most Poker players refer to as a “calling station.“ The elephant has loose starting hand requirements, and so he plays in alot of pots. As a result, he ends up in alot of hands that he or she has no chance of winning. The elephant is content to call his hand to the river, even when common sense tells him hes beaten. This type of player does not lose all of his chips at once, since he generally prefers calling to raising, but over time, the elephant contributes most of his chip stack to the other players. Hellmuth notes that there is no point in trying to bluff the elephant, but if you have good cards, you know he will pay you all the way to the river. I have found from my experience, that this “animal“ is the predominant one found at online low limit tables. Watch a few games, and you will notice the huge number of online players who play practically every hand, and call to the river with complete trash. The elephant will beat you occasionally simply because he is willing to draw till the end. On the whole though, this is yet another player who is easy to make money off of.

The Lion

The lion is rare in low limit games. He has good starting hand requirements, but will occasionally take a calculated risk on cards not on his “list.“ The lion plays aggressive Poker when he is ahead and folds when he is behind. Occasionally the lion will bluff in an advantageous position, but his bluffs are rare enough that the other players must respect him. The lion is an excellent Poker player, and makes his living taking chips from the mouse, elephant and jackal. A tight player who takes the occasional risk or bluff to keep from getting labeled a “rock“ would be a good example of a lion.

The Eagle

The eagle is a character that most of us will never reach or even play against. The eagle represents the pinnacle of the Poker world. He or she has studied the game for years and is now in the upper ranks of the Poker world. Hellmuth considers an eagle to be one of the top 100 players in the world. If you reach this status, the rest of us will be watching as you take down pots on one of the several televised Poker
events!

So how can you as a Poker player put these characterizations to use? As I noted before, endless note taking can be tedious and even pointless if you do not keep them properly organized. The “animals“ offers a great way to organize how you think about the different players at your table. Rather than saying “this player plays alot of pots...he called to the river with a pair of 7's...he never folds to a bluff...“ and so on and so forth, you can simply put “elephant“ in your notes about this player.

Amazing in its simplicity and effectiveness. Granted, all of the players in the world will not each be perfect fits for one category. However, this system offers a great place to start in organizing your thoughts about how each player plays and what strategies to use against them. It takes hardly any time at all to jot down a characterization in a players notes, and the payoff when you see this player again can yield huge profits.