It is a sad fact, it is not possible to be great at everything. In poker be it the win a lot of pennies free poker sites type or big cash it is why people become experts or specialists in their particular games.

It is the same as in the "normal" world where in our professions and hobbies and business we aim to find our niche and focus our efforts on becoming as good as we can so that we get promoted and earn more money.

So how does this relate specifically to the world of poker games?

Simply this, some people are great cash game players, while others are great tournament players. Of course, there are players that are great at both cash games and tournaments though they are few and far between.

Most players specialize because they are more successful at one than the other.

How do you determine whether cash games or tournaments are your speciality? It might not be that clear at first. You obviously need to try your hand at both, but here are a few suggestions that may help you to figure it out.

Should You Focus On Cash Games?
If you're a patient player who looks to play only in clear +EV situations, then you may prefer cash games. Full-ring games are all about waiting for premium starting hands and extracting the most value from them in the most favourable situation possible. Thus, cash games are good for players who don't deal with variance very well.

The biggest mistake a beginning cash game player can make is playing too many hands. You don't want to commit too many chips in marginal situations.

The opposite can seem to be true in the late to middle stages of a tournament.

Should You Focus On Poker Tournaments
It is correct to play tight in the early stages of a tournament, but once the blinds start to escalate you'll need to loosen up your starting requirements. Once you're low on chips, you'll need to look to move all-in to survive. You may also need to put yourself in situations that may –EV in certain occasions. If you're one of the big stacks, it's also correct to start playing looser to bully the other players. It's all about accumulating chips to either survive or thrive in tournaments. It's not for the faint of heart or those who can't deal with variance.

The biggest mistake a beginning tournament player can make is not pushing all-in enough when they get low on chips. Because the price of blinds increase as the tournament goes on, your chip stack can easily get whittled away.

Tight players can't win tournaments.

Poker Game Specialization Conclusion
If tight is right for you, you would be best served to focus on playing cash games. However, if you're an action junkie, you should consider concentrating on tournaments. With that said, it is possible for tight styles to work in tournaments with a few adjustments, and a loose style can work in cash games can work under certain circumstances.

Ideally do your testing in free online poker that way you can learn to play poker for free and find your style while not losing lots of money in the process!

This article is by NoPayPOKER, the perfect learn to play poker for free site for beginners to play free poker games without risking any cash. For more experienced poker players the draw is in the ability to fine tune game play and techniques in a totally no risk zone while collecting free online poker cash at the same time.

In this free poker article we discuss how to play with big pairs like AA, KK, QQ and JJ

With the best hand, AA it is very important to look for big raise or re-raise if someone raises before you. It is a mistake in strategy with AA to just call a raise because you are missing the opportunity to get more money into the pot with the best hand and more important thing is that you are giving players with weaker hands the opportunity to improve their hands on the flop.

Your goal is to force others to fold or to think you are bluffing with one big card or two big cards and call your big raise. It is important when playing with AA not to slow play with small raise so you won't allow your opponents to improve on the flop and maybe on future streets and also you will thin out number of opponents.

Once the flop has passed it's a good idea to go for a large raise not allowing your opponents the chance to call flushes, straights or drawing hands for minimal chips. Try and remember there is the chance that one of the opposing players has made a better "flop" and you may no longer have the best cards. The chances are you should still be the front runner and let the pot grow unless you're positive someone else now holds the better cards.

Raising before the "flop" with cards such as King / King, Queen / Queen or Jack / Jack is a good idea. Imagine if a player has an Ace with a lower card, the odds are on your side that you will face better cards than this before "the flop". By raising will lower the amount of players who want to see "the flop"- you want to cap the amount of players who your playing against with either of these card duo's as the opposition can effortless end up with better cards by receiving an Ace on the "flop".

On the flop there will be two situations: you will face overcards or you won't. If there are no overcards on the flop, you should continue to raise. Second situation with overcards on the board is more difficult for you but I suggest to raise a 3 or 4 times a big blind and then evaluate you situation after opponent responds to your raise. If he just calls be patient and cautious because it is unlikely that you will win a big pot any more in this situation. If pot gets bigger you must be prepared to let the hand go.

Although it's not an exact science playing with big pairs if you go for right raises before flops you have a better chance of taking the money. One thing to think about though is the possibility that the opposing players could have better cards than you; especially if they're playing strongly, gambling and raising too.

I look forward to seeing you at the free poker tables soon!

So you're in a free poker tournaments and have just been dealt pocket aces and make a decent sized raise, you get re-raised all in, call, and your opponent turns over 9/2. Even before the flop you sense your fate. He makes a set of nines and you get a black game over box.

Im sure I am not the only one who has met this fate (and thrown my computer mouse flying across the room) and I wont be the last.

Wherever you play your poker, you are bound to play against donks day in day out. I have found that I have experienced more donks on free poker tournaments site, NoPayPOKER.com. I know the reason for this is because NoPayPOKER is a totally free poker website where you never have to spend a penny of your own hard earned cash and it does attract many types of players from all over the world.

This does not mean there are not any good players at NoPayPOKER, in fact there are some very good players, far better than me. I started playing poker at NoPayPOKER roughly 9 months ago, and although I am not the best player in the world, I have still managed to bag myself about 22k in FreeD. It isn't millions, but at the same time, its money, and free money at that! I actually started winning my games in the last 3/4 months.

After playing for a while I noticed that every final table I was on had the same bunch of players on them. Coincidence? I recently came to the conclusion that it is not a coincidence, as these players constantly on the final tables are not donks.

I have developed a few techniques to try and avoid being donked, but a word of warning, they are not fool proof.

It's guaranteed that there is a freeroll running every thirty minutes, and what is also guaranteed is that if you want to play the first hand then you will have to go all in. Some players will play any two cards on the first hand. There are reasons for this. Some players going all in first hand take the view "win big early or go home early".

By this I mean if they can double or treble up first hand then they have a bit of flexibility over the hands they play from then on. On the other hand some players are just genuinely bad and don't know how to play the game. My advice would be to avoid playing the first hand, unless you have pocket A's, K's or Q's.

My second point would be to establish who the good and bad players are on your table.

This can take ten or fifteen minutes in a free roll as there is a lot of table moving at the start. You need to see a few hands to work out how people are playing. If you spot a player who is doing some big raises, bluffing and being a pain in the backside, then I would suggest avoiding them. What tends to happen is they will win a few big hands, then loose a few, and then go on tilt. Figuring out how each player plays is key if you don't want to get donked. Whilst playing on other sites I have taken notes on players to build up a profile of good and bad players. I wouldn't necessarily go to these lengths on NoPayPOKER, but I do keep a mental note of bad players.

My next bit of advice is one of the most important when playing any type of poker. Always play the cards, not your feelings. This can be extremely difficult but key to making the money. Do not hold grudges against players on your table.

Finally throughout your time playing poker you have no doubt built up a whole catalogue of skills and tactics in which you use to good effect. However, my last point would be to throw these out the window when playing with donks.

Remind yourself where you learnt these skills, other poker sites, casinos, private games, etc.

What separates these from NoPayPOKER brings me full circle to my initial point. You learnt your poker skills whilst playing with your own money. It's much harder to go all in first hand with 10/3 when you have just bought in for $100.

People always say it's much harder to play poker against bad plays than good ones. All your bluffing skills, positional play, squeeze play forget, because a donk will call anything.

To summarise;
(a) If possible, don't play the first hand
(b) Establish who the good and bad players are at your table
(c) Remember who the donks are (maybe create a list)
(d) Play the cards not your feelings
(e) Forget your poker skills when playing donks

Adopting these tactics will not win you free poker tournaments, but should help you in avoiding an early bath and should at least get you into the money.