Erick Lindgren plays online exclusively at Full Tilt Poker. Erick Lindgren holds a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet and two World Poker Tour (WPT) Championships. Awarded WPT Player of the Year 2004, Erick has banked over $7.3 million in career tournament earnings.

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Ernest Wiggins is from Washington DC, and is appearing on The Big Game as one of the Loose Cannon online qualifiers. He became interested in poker after dating a player, and now competes on a regular basis. So far his experience of live poker has been confined to local cash sessions at home games with friends, where he usually turns a nice profit. He’s serious about making money on the show, and is looking at his time in the spotlight as a chance to prove himself as a true contender and one of the best upcoming cash and tournament players on the scene.

With a guaranteed first-place prize of $9,000, the Big Little Tournament is the best chance for players to turn a small buy-in into a huge score.

Play for a piece of $100K for just $2 + $0.20 every other Sunday beginning this July and win your share of $800,000 in total guaranteed prize money. Each of these Turbo No-Limit Hold ‘em tournaments will be held on the following Sundays:

• July 18th
• August 1st
• August 15th
• August 29th
• September 12th
• September 26th
• October 10th
• October 24th

Register Now to play for your share of $100,000 in each Big Little Tournament.

How to Register

If you don’t have a Full Tilt Poker account, download the free game software and set up an account. Once you’ve done so, log in to Full Tilt Poker and follow these steps to register for The Big Little Tournament of your choice:

1. In the game lobby, click on the Lobby menu, select Choose Lobby View and then click Standard View.
2. In the Browse area, click on Tournament, then select Guarantee, Hold ‘em, No Limit and Micro.
3. Scroll down the game list to find the Big Little Tournament of your choice by time and buy-in.
4. Select that tournament and click Register Now.

Unless you have a monster draw or are slow playing a big hand, calling is often the wrong play at the table. In fact, it often times takes a stronger hand to make a call than it does to make a raise.

“You raised with that?” is a question I hear a lot after showing down a hand. You can make a raise with any two cards (sometimes less than that), but it takes a real hand to make a call.

When I’m in late position in an unopened pot and someone in front of me puts in a raise, I’ll always say to myself, “Hey, I was going to do that!” The fact is opening a pot with a raise is a good idea because it puts you in control, while cold-calling a raise is not a great option for a variety of reasons.

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Full Tilt Poker recently released a revolutionary new form of online poker: Rush Poker. If you’re not familiar with the game, I encourage you to give it a try. Instead of the players sitting in a 6 or 9-handed game, they are seated in a game that has up to 2,000 players in it. All players are seated at a normal table, but as soon as you decide to fold, instead of waiting for the hand to finish and playing the next hand against the same players, you are immediately seated with a different group of players and play your next hand. This allows players to play around 300 hands per hour instead of the usual 80.

The excitement level isn’t the only thing that makes this game different than normal online poker. Playing against a different group of players each hand means you will need to make a few other adjustments to your normal ring-game strategy to succeed at Rush Poker.

One big mistake that is tempting to make is to play too tight, waiting for only premium hands. It’s easy to find yourself folding any marginal hand, as you will have a chance to get a monster the next hand with no waiting. But, you must not forget that you’re still paying blinds.

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If you then finish in the top 200 in a Big Game Final Round qualifier, you’ll be invited to send in a casting video, explaining why you think you should be on The Big Game as a Loose Cannon. Impress them and you’ll be going to Las Vegas.

PokerStars is putting up $100k of their money to buy you into this game.  You will be playing a session of $200/$400 NL Hold’em with some of the biggest names in poker - like Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso and more. I really like the idea of having someone sit with 100K and be able to keep potential profit, and be able to come back for another go-round if they want to. Sounds like fun.

Freeroll Tournaments

Full Tilt poker Freerolls are your chance to compete for big money. Each offers 250 places in their weekly $1k Freeroll tournament. If you finish in the top 250, you will be automatically qualified in the $1k Freeroll, taking place every Sunday at 14:20 ET and paying 90 places.

Generally you’ll notice more bad beats in freeroll tournaments then real money tournaments, but that’s because the players in freeroll tournaments didn’t put up their own money to play.

If you haven’t done so already, download Full Tilt Poker (in my opinion the best poker site for freerolls) and install the software on your computer.

When you get down to the tournament bubble, it’s often going to change your play. Perhaps you’ll play more aggressively to try and take advantage of some of the tighter players aiming to sneak into the money, or perhaps even play tighter yourself to make the money. Watch the above video to get Allen Cunningham’s advice on how the tournament payout structure can help inform your game when you reach the bubble with a medium-sized stack.

This May 19, 2010, it announced it had completed the challenge with nearly two months in advance and made the details of his earnings. The sum of $ 54,000 has been pocketed directly on tables and a nice $46,000 were added through the FPPS: loyalty points PokerStars.

“The secret to being successful it to continually try to play, always work on your game and try to improve. If you do this, and if you put in enough hours, you also have the chance to build up a big bankroll.“

The German player has detailed the progress of his challenge on the Boku87 Challenge Blog. Asked about a possible challenge to the future, the German replied: “Maybe, but certainly not this summer. If I try a new kind of challenge, it will not be until October or November.

PokerStars is celebrating the stars of summer by giving all players in the US & Canada the chance to win a Harley Davidson Sportster and Mustang Convertible. All players who make their first real money deposit of $25 or more, or reload their existing account for the same amount, from May 13-May 30, will be awarded two tournament tickets.

Players making their first real money deposit must use the bonus code ‘Summer’. Those reloading their account should use the code ‘Celebrate’.

Players must use the correct codes listed above when making their first deposit or reload. Players can choose to take the cash alternative if they win ($10,000 for the Harley Davidson, $25,000 for the Mustang). See the Summer Celebration page for more. (available in English & French)

If a poker player wants an edge, he must move with the times. Today, a style which was successful only a year ago can already be outdated; tomorrow, he could be the sucker.

However, in the poker world (as in the fashion world), there are timeless classics: the little black dress for a woman; the pinstripe suit on a man; tight/aggressive play at the table. Admittedly, this type of player is less likely to knock somebody’s socks off, but he is also far less likely to be knocked out of the tournament himself.

Dan Harrington described this style in his tremendous book, “ Harrington On Hold ’em” and, as a result, it quickly became the worldwide standard. Today’s truly smart tournament players, however, were soon tearing up the rule book and, as a result, modern poker has no dominant strategy.

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The ability to bluff big pots effectively is one of the key skills that separate good players from great players. It is no accident that the games played at the highest stakes feature some of the most daring bluffs: big bluffs are a central part of the game.

Most players mix up their play well for small bets – they’ll bet out or raise with nothing on the flop with about the right frequency – but most players don’t mix up their play well on big bets. Some players never mess around when they put in really big money on the turn or river. Other players can never resist the big bluff when they see a lot of money in the middle. Striking the right balance between value bets and bluffs when you are putting big money in the pot is crucial to playing top-level poker.

When you are playing against world-class competition, bluffing too often is a bigger mistake than not bluffing enough. You will get called very often and you will look to everyone like you are spewing chips. You will wonder why they are calling you so often, but the reason will be somewhat simple: your opponents will be getting 2:1 odds on a call (if you are betting the size of the pot) and they will infer based on your betting frequency that you’re bluffing more often than that.

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Some time has elapsed since the previous update. Now I have reached 200,000 VPP and received the first milestone bonus to the order of $3,400. Everything also went pretty well at the tables and now I already have $62,200. With a remaining period of more than four months for the remaining $37,800, I am very confident that I will make it. Supernova Elite will now no longer be necessary - I think that I will be ready before I reach 600,000 VPP.

PokerStars.com will bring you regular news about how the challenge is going, and ‘Boku87’ himself will be posting blog reports on this page, charting his progress.