There are a millions of poker gifts out there for the holidays this year. I’ve found a couple of good ones that might make the poker player in your life jump for joy on Christmas morning.

At http://www.church-of-texas-holdem.com/poker-supply-poker-gifts.html  they have a collection of cool t-shirts to choose from. They have them for the ladies and even your kids.

http://www.poker-wear.com/poker_gifts.htm has a wide selection of poker gifts. My favorites include a framed collection of poker cards and chips from 20 Vegas Casinos and the “GSeat”, which is a gel seat for your butt to save you during those long sessions.

My favorite gift is the “PokerPadz”. It’s a mouse pad that looks like a poker table, with enough room to use your mouse and to shuffle chips. It’s a great way to get the live game feel when you’re playing online. This gift has been out for a couple of years.

There once was a time when playing poker meant getting five or six friends together, buying a bunch of snacks, and getting permission from your wife to have the boys over for the evening. Today we can play poker 24/7 for just about any stakes from the comfort of our own home. Phone companies now have recently added versions of the game for your cell phones. Even Facebook has a poker application.

That just about covers any time, except when someone is in the air at 20,000 feet. Cell phones and internet service don’t work up there. So should airlines start to provide Texas Hold’em with their in-flight entertainment? If it’s possible to play poker just about everywhere else, it only makes sense to expect that it will eventually be offered to customers. The airline could rake the games, and if you win you could get credit towards your next flight.

Humor me for a minute here while I go over some of the more basic poker betting terms. (I was at a friend’s place last night and a poker game broke out and it SCARED me to learn that only two of the six players seated at the table knew the first thing about “calling”.) Clearly, there are still a LOT of people out there who need to get back to the basics…

To call is to match a bet or a raise. A betting round ends when all active players have bet an equal amount or no opponents call a player’s bet or raise. If no opponents call a player’s bet or raise, the player wins the pot.

If no one has yet opened the betting round, a player may check, which is equivalent to calling the current bet of zero. When checking, a player declines making a bet; indicating that he does not choose to open, but that he wishes to keep his cards and retain the right to call or raise later in the same round if an opponent opens. In games played with blinds, players may not check on the opening round because they must either match (or raise) the big blind or fold.

To raise is to increase the size of the bet required to stay in the pot, forcing all subsequent players to call the new amount. If the current bet amount is nothing, this action is considered the opening bet. A player making the second (not counting the open) or subsequent raise of a betting round is said to re-raise.

To fold is to discard one’s hand and forfeit interest in the current pot. Folding may be indicated verbally or by discarding one’s hand face down into the pile of other discards called the muck.

An ante is a forced bet in which each player places an equal amount of money or chips into the pot before the deal begins.

A blind or blind bet is a forced bet placed into the pot by one or more players before the deal begins, in a way that simulates bets made during play. (All poker betting terms courtesy Wikipedia.org)

This just in…a great opportunity for all you poker aficionados who are itching to get in on another big tournament: Bodog Poker has announced in a press release that they’re sending four poker players to Copenhagen:

Qualifiers have just started and players are being offered the chance to win a seat at the EPT Scandinavian Open for as little as $1 USD. Four semi-final winners will receive a $10k buy-in for the EPT and an additional $2k USD for travel and accommodation.

“Bodog’s presence in the U.K. grows bigger by the day and offering up tickets to an EPT event is just another way in which we hope to further cement our position in the U.K.” said Calvin Ayre, Founder of Bodog Entertainment. “Poker is a lifestyle, and this is another chance for Bodog’s European players to get a real taste of the highlife. We’ll be taking Bodog players to Europe’s oldest kingdom to compete with the elite of European poker, and we’re confident that they’ll match the success of our previous buy-in winners.”

Earlier this year, Bodog WSOPE qualifier Matt McCullough finished third in the Inaugural WSOP Europe Main Event, taking home £381,910 ($550,000+). He also knocked out 11 time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth and Scandinavian Gus Hansen in the process.

For a chance to win a seat to the EPT Scandinavian Open, players must register at Bodog Poker and play in tournaments titled “EPT-Scandinavian” under the “Daily” and “Special” tabs of the Bodog poker software. Qualifiers run daily and semi-final tournaments will run every second week starting Sunday, Dec. 16 at 8:15 p.m. GMT.

Players that have just started playing poker almost always have a ton of leaks in their game. It takes years to become a really good poker player, despite the common opinion of new players that they are already good. The most common mistake that new players make is that they play too many hands. They don’t yet understand starting-hand winning percentages and think they have an equal chance to win before every hand.

The other common one is to call too many bets when all they have is a draw hand. Novice players believe they will hit their draw too much because they don’t know the probabilities of the draw hitting. They don’t understand pot odds, and that calling large bets with drawing hands puts them in a negative wagering situation. And novice players play their cards too much, and not the player, which is rarely enough to win.