There’s no denying that a mental edge can make a big difference in a poker game. The best mental edge you can have is when your opponents are intimidated by you. The best way to intimidate an opponent is show that you have far more playing experience than they have. A great way to display this is to learn how to do some chip tricks.

When you start shuffling and twirling your chips at the table, all the other players will immediately form an opinion that you’re a skilled and tricky player. Sometimes players will even comment, saying things like “oh, oh we got a pro at the table”. That means they’re intimidated by what you’re doing and you’ll most likely be able to force these players off of pots the whole game. You can really intimidate them if you wait until you win a big pot before displaying your first trick.

The poker room always wins when it comes to poker because they take their money up front. They collect a small percentage of every pot from the cash games (called a “rake”), and usually levy an up-front charge for any tournament they host. It doesn’t matter to the house who wins the games or tourneys; as long as the game keeps running, the house keeps raking.

The higher the stakes you play the higher the rake will be. Most poker rooms will have a cap on the size of the rake so players aren’t bled dry at higher stakes. That’s how frequent players are rewarded in poker. The higher you get raked, the more comps you can get from the house.

Many online sites offer cash returns called “rake backs” as rewards. So don’t worry about the online sites being rigged to cheat you; they’re getting paid regardless of the table play.

The World Series of Poker Circuit has seven events planed for 2008. There are tournaments planned right up until the WSOP 2008 begins in May. Here’s the lineup for the events, and where and when they’ll be played.

Grand Casino Tunica                 1/3/08 - 1/22/08

Harrah’s Rincon San Diego        1/27/08 - 2/7/08

Horseshoe Council Bluffs           2/18/08 - 2/27/08

Caesars Atlantic City                  3/5/08 - 3/15/08

Caesars Indiana                          4/2/08 - 4/16/08

Caesars Palace Las Vegas         4/20/08 - 5/1/08

Harrah’s New Orleans                 5/9/08 - 5/21/08

The winners from these $5000 buy-in events will also get a seat into the WSOP 2008 Main Event in Vegas. All the events have various buy-in tournaments, the same way the WSOP does. So anyone can go and play. The schedule for the WSOP 2008 is still being worked on, but the dates for the event have been announced as May 30 to July 17.

There most certainly is a right way to bluff. The right way is to make moves at pots that are still small, or ones in which no other players are showing any interest. Ideally you want to be in last position and everyone has checked it to you. Or you’re head to head and your opponent has backed off the hand after you called a bet.

Another good time to bluff is when you’re playing against a tight player. If you get a call against a tight player you know that they’re slow-playing a big hand.

The wrong way to bluff is to make over-sized bets when the situation doesn’t call for it. Try not to bluff into hands with multiple players; your success rate drops greatly when more players are in the hand. If you’re in a tournament with a big stack, you can afford the odd bluff.

Every strip poker game I’ve played started off with someone needing to set the rules. Winning at strip poker is not about cash – it’s about getting your opponents out of their clothes. So if you’ve managed to find a couple of members of the opposite sex to play strip poker with, you want to structure the game so you get to the action within the first ten hands. It’s been my experience that the longer the game goes, the more likely someone is going to chicken out and ruin the game.

Make sure you have an ante and a fast-blind structure. Target the least shy of the group to lose first, so they will actually go through with it, and the rest should follow suit from there.

Even if you have to get down to next to nothing to break the ice, once one person is naked your chances increase dramatically of seeing more nudity. Sort of a titillating takeoff on “Everybody into the pool!”

Finding your poker face is something that must be done if you’re going to play poker and expect to ever win. You don’t want to be giving away information to an experienced player if you can prevent it.

Learning how to control your actions involves more than just being able to sit still when you hit your full house on the river. Many opponents will ask you questions like “how much is your remaining chip stack?” or “will you show me if I fold?” to gauge your reaction.

The best poker face is a sterile poker face. If you can keep your movements to equal pauses between actions, and dictate your action the same way each time, you will have a killer poker face anyone would have difficulty seeing through. Keep your actions equal regardless of the hand you hold, and leave the Hollywood stuff for the more experienced professionals.

If your attempts at hosting a good home poker game have failed, here’s a little checklist that should help you cover all your bases so it doesn’t end up being you, two pissed-off buddies, and your girlfriend playing.

1. Plan for no shows – invite ten players but expect five or six to show up. Be prepared to handle the ten if need be, but bear in mind there are always no-shows.

2. Make sure you have enough chairs and chips – your home game should have a buy-in limit; do the math and make sure you have enough chips to run the game if everyone buys-in for the maximum.

3. Provide drinks and snacks – soft drinks and munchies are de rigueur, not food that will affect the action like pizza or wings.

4. Blind structure – have the blinds increase over a time limit that will force the action of the game to end around the time you wish it to end.