Bodog Poker has is kicking off the action in the world of online poker this November with their Bodog Poker Open IV tournament series.

the thing that makes this set of poker tournaments special is that there will be $65,000 in Added Money that the poker room supplies. That's a great deal of Overlay. And if you believe that money is where you find it, Bodog just made life a lot simpler.

Combine BPO IV generosity with the 110% Sign-Up bonus they offer, and Bodog is certainly worth a visit.

The Durrr Heads Up Challenge is underway! The first man to step up the to virtual tables is high roller Patrik Antonius. All of the action will be unfolding at Full Tilt, so make sure that you have Full Tilt installed on your computer so you can see these two go at it on four different tables, for stakes of $200/$400 in No Limit Holdem or Pot Limit Omaha.

Chris Ferguson is the type of person who likes to challenge himself. Despite being a World Series of Poker Champion and respected High Stakes player, he once took $1 and turned it into $20,000 using his skills, and solid bankroll management.

Now he's completed a second challenge, taking $0 and turning that into over $20,000. His challenge was for $10,000, but he just kept going.

Bankroll Management is an important skill for any poker player, and especially so for no limit cash game players. For insights on how Chris managed his bankroll during his challenges, and general guidelilnes for moving up or down in stakes read through our article on bankroll management tips.

Before being a card game, poker can be presented as a betting game. In every form of poker, players make bets. And there are a lot of bets that can be made: Calls, Raises, Re-raises, Value bets, Blocker Bets, Semi-Bluffs, etc.

The second article in the series addresses the point at which betting escalation often occurs, the first preflop raise.

While many players naturally flock to the bigger online poker rooms, Unknown Poker was originally founded on the premise that smaller poker rooms offer a different type of play, and several advantages over the larger rooms . . .

Many people play poker for social reasons. (That is a fundamental reason for having games, in fact, and online poker is no exception.) When you play at PokerStars, the community of players is so large that you will seldom play with the same person twice. But at a poker room like Bugsy's Club, there are so few games going on, and so few players playing, that you'll begin to get to know your poker-playing buddies fairly quickly, because you'll run into them again and again. If you play poker for social reasons and want to make some friends online, then a smaller poker room is definitely the way to go.

Another advantage to fewer players--it's easier to gather data on how they play. Using Poker Tracker and other tools, you can easily track the play of your opponents at Party Poker, but since you're probably only playing with your opponents occasionally, you won't be able to gather a ton of data. But at Noble Poker, where you're playing the same players over and over again, you should easily be able to gather a ton of information about your opponents' play very quickly.

Most poker portals also claim that there are more "fish" and softer games in the larger poker rooms. I would suggest that having a lot of fish in the water also means there are going to be more sharks circling. Many smaller poker sites are branches of online casinos or online sportsbooks, and the players at the card tables decided to just try poker on a lark. They might be casino gamblers looking for a change of pace, or they might be sports bettors who've had a few drinks and thought they'd give the poker room a try. (Because let's face it--how hard can it be? They've been watching it on tv now for 3 or 4 years.) These inexperienced players can be a gold mine when they turn up at your table, and they will turn up at your table fairly often in the smaller internet poker rooms.