Month: April 2019

The Three Bets Every Roulette Player Needs to Know

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Roulette is a casino classic, featuring simple rules that mean players can focus on fun – not tactics. Roulette is a French term for ‘little wheel’, referring to the traditional wheel it uses. Players elect to place bets on the numbers featured (from 1 – 36). Bets can be placed on a variety of combinations, such as on a solitary number, on a particular combination of different numbers, on whether the number is even or odd, black or red, or even low (1 – 18) or high (19-36).

Need-to-Know Bet Number One: Inside Bets

When you take a look at a Roulette game, you’re bound to notice its iconic segments. Each of these segments contains a number, plus additional information such as colour. Any bet placed directly onto a number in these segments is known as an ‘inside bet’. It’s worth noting that, because of the intricacies of these bets, online software can be the fairest way to place inside bets. Overall, there are seven different kinds of inside bets: straight; split; street; six lines; corner; trio and basket.

A straight bet covers just one number, and a split bet straddles the border of two neighbouring numbers. A street bet can be made by placing a chip on the end of a row of three numbers, while a six-line enables players to bet on two adjacent lines. A corner bet sits on a shared corner of four numbers, and a trio is a three-numbered bet that includes zeros. A basket bet can be made by placing a chip on the shared corner between 0 and 1.

Need-to-Know Bet Number Two: Outside Bets

Outside bets are all to do with ‘groups’ of numbers, rather than the specific numbers themselves. This can include betting on colour (red or black), odds or evens, high or low (19 – 36 or 1 – 18), ‘dozens’, which means betting on one of the three sets of dozens available. These are numbers 1 – 12, 13– 24, and 25 – 36. It’s worth noting that 0 is never included in the dozens. The final type of outside bet are columns, where you bet on which column the winning number will be found in.

If you’re a keen roulette player, then you may have heard of the lesser-played ‘snake’ bet, which traces the layout of the odd numbers (coloured red) on the table, which creates the image of a snake. Even less commonly, the black snake bet is played, which follows the even numbers across the table. All of these numbers can be bet on with a straight bet, as described in ‘inside bets’ above, but it’s worth knowing that the black snake features two split bets, across 17/20 and 26/29.

Need-to-Know Bet Number Three: Announced Bets

Not to be confused with ‘called’ bets, announced bets are mainly only used in French Roulette, although they can crop up in other versions of the game. ‘Neighbours of Zero’ is a popular bet which offers players a higher chance of winning by enabling 9 chips to be placed in positions encompassing 17 numbers. ‘Thirds of the Wheel’ keeps players on high numbers but offers high rewards if risky losses are avoided. Meanwhile, ‘Orphans’ covers numbers in positions away from 0, and represents a high-stakes bet.

Should You Bluff In Poker?

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Bluffing is a critical strategy in poker, because you wont always have all the cards you need. If you don’t do it right, it can be very risky and you can lose quickly.

Keep in mind that poker is a game of deception and delusion, not just understanding card values and combinations. Every professional poker player already knows the value of a hand. Two main things separate professional players. These are the ability to run a convincing bluff, and knowing how to spot your opponents’ bluff.

The Purpose of Bluffing

The idea behind the bluff is to get players with better hands to fold. The other option is you don’t bluff it all, and fold yourself. This means losing, and of course is not the best option. But if you always bluff, your behavior will be predictable.

In cases where you do have the best hand, bluffing is particularly useful in getting your opponents to raise bets. So there are two primary purposes of bluffing: firstly to win despite having a bad hand. And secondly, to win more from opponents even when you have the best hand.

Knowing When To Bluff

There are many variations of poker, such as Texas hold ’em. It is important to understand that the variation will largely determine when bluffing is appropriate.

Carefully assess the overall situation to determine if it’s time to bluff. With some variations of poker, only two cards may be dealt. It makes no sense to bluff and go all in at this point. After all, even if you had two aces, more cards will be dealt. And anything can happen from that point. If you choose to bluff so early, other players will see you as impulsive and unprofessional. This in itself may be your tactic, but I’m referring more to cases where inexperience may show.

Generally the most suitable time to bluff is when all cards have been dealt. Weaker and less experienced players will typically have folded, if they have a weekend. But this isn’t the only consideration. Understanding the behavior of your opponents is critical. Poker is a game of understanding your opponents, just as much as it is a card game.

If you are particularly new to poker, you would benefit from learning some of the more credible poker forums.

Be Committed

If it is your intention to bluff when you have a week hand, you must appear confident. But also understand that other players will be trying to read you too. They may interpret your apparent confidence as a bluff. So before undertaking any bluff, first consider the type of bluff you are making.

Are you trying to win with a week hand? Or are you trying to increase the stakes when you have a strong hand?

You can’t always know every card your opponents have. Unless you have some mechanism to count cards, or even see through cards, you’ll have to rely on observing your opponents. Every professional player to some degree at least observes the cards already in play. It isn’t going to give a massive edge, although it depends on the circumstances.

For example, some variations of poker allow you to see some of your opponents cards. You may see an ACE face up. Your opponent may be attempting to bluff you. They can do this by betting large, and acting confident. On the other hand, you may have three aces that none of the other players can see. This means your opponent can only have two aces. This would be virtually a perfect situation. You can trick your opponent into believing that you believe they have multiple aces. Effectively you would be tentatively increasing the stake. In most cases, you would intentionally looked concerned. But this may work against you depending on your opponent.

For example, say you behaved overly confident that you had the better hand. This may make your opponent nervous, encouraging them to act even more confident. And they may do this by betting unreasonably high amounts. This is because typically inexperienced players will be very high amounts as their method of bluff. Alternatively, more experienced players will gradually increase bet sizes, to keep more players in the game.

The Best Times To Bluff

There are no hard rules regarding the best time to bluff, with some exceptions. It makes no sense to bluff very early in the game, unless it is part of your strategy to gradually increase the stakes because of a good hand shaping up.

The best timing will depend on your opponents, and their behavior. The less predictable they are, the more difficult they will be to beat. The same can be said for you. You can observe a player’s nervous ticks. You could even fake nervous tics, to make other players believe you have a bad hand.

When To Not Bluff

Do not try to buff too early in your position. There is simply too much action yet to happen.

Focus on blocking individual players, rather than the whole table. Inexperienced players behave as if they have completely unbeatable cards. But an inexperienced player will carefully consider each individual player’s position.

Do not call when you are bluffing. Be committed to the decision you have made to bluff. Calling is one way of saying you are not confident.

Playtech’s Best Roulette Games

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Everyone on this forum will have their favourite roulette game. Indeed, most of us have that game that is a bête noire, a game we love to hate, but we can’t get enough of playing. Moreover, some will have a favourite software provider for the games – NetEnt, Microgaming, Playtech and so on.

Below we have picked what we think are five of the best from Playtech. As it’s a subjective opinion, we have put each game in a specific category.

Best Virtual Roulette for RTP – Club Roulette

There seems to an industry-wide standard for RTP of European style roulette games from the big software developers, coming in at 97.30%. It’s obviously very comparable to the house edge you would see in most land-based casinos, so not a bad option. It should be noted that some Microgaming versions are down at 97.00% for RTP, but almost all Playtech and NetEnt virtual European roulette games are at 97.30%.

Best for casual players – Penny Roulette

In some casinos it’s difficult to find cheap roulette options. You can start playing penny roulette here at Casino.com, an option that seems to be dying out at most casinos. It’s European roulette, so it has that higher level RTP listed below. The best part about Penny Roulette is that it can be played for up to £500 a bet, so there is that option to adjust if you are a high roller. Obviously, betting 1p is not going to change your life, but it is the perfect game if you want to practice your strategy or simply want to play on an ultra-low budget.

Best for high rollers – Age of the Gods Roulette

The purists might not love Age of the Gods Roulette, but it’s simply a high-quality roulette game with the added incentive of a progressive jackpot. Some will point to the RTP rate – it’s 95.73% – as a reason not to play, but you must remember that a percentage of the wager is going into the jackpot fund. Progressive jackpots are awarded randomly, but the chances are increased exponentially by playing for a higher bet. If you are a high roller, playing a £10 stake will give you a much better chance of triggering the jackpot than a £0.20 spin. Remember – the Age of the Gods jackpot can potentially be worth millions.

Best for Social Gaming – Football Roulette Live

Admittedly, there is still some way to go before we can celebrate the fact that social live gaming has hit its zenith. However, Playtech must be applauded for trying to create something different. If you haven’t experienced Football Roulette Live, it’s essentially a live dealer table fronted by a croupier who engages in football chat. Players will engage in conversation using interactive stats boards, live updates from football matches and so on. It was introduced for the FIFA World Cup last year. There are some wrinkles still to iron out, but the idea is a brilliant one. Incidentally, the roulette game on offer is Live European Roulette.

Best for Pros –Premium French Roulette

Members of this site know the rules of roulette, know the stakes and know when they are getting value for money. So, playing Premium French Roulette – with La Partage Rule – means they get half the stake returned if the ball lands in single zero slot. It’s quite difficult to find games with the La Partage Rule at online casinos, so make a note of those that do – especially in the live dealer tables.