Ever since Google started to roll out its Google+ project on Tuesday, many of its users have been particularly excited about its group video chat service Hangouts. I agree, but not just because it’s fun and easy to use. The real kicker is the technology that powers the service. Even in its infancy, Hangouts is an interesting cloud service. But in the not-so-distant future, it could evolve into a standards-based video conferencing solution that runs natively in many browsers and on a whole range of devices.

Google has been quiet about its plans for Hangouts, and hasn’t revealed all that much about some of the components powering the service either. However, there have been some key developments in recent months that indicate what makes Hangouts work and where things are going:

The cloud

Making video chat work at scale can require a lot of resources, which is why there has been a movement towards peer-to-peer (P2P) solutions to offload video and signaling traffic between the clients involved. Skype makes use of P2P for that very reason, as does Chatroulette. However, P2P can introduce latency, which can be especially bothersome if you chat with 10 people at a time. That’s why Google went down a different route for Hangout.

“To support Hangouts, we built an all-new standards-based cloud video conferencing platform,” explained Google Real-time Communications Tech Lead Justin Uberti in a blog post on Tuesday. He added that Hangouts uses a client-server model which “leverages the power of Google’s infrastructure.”

Browser integration

Hangouts currently requires you to download the same plugin that also powers video chat within Google Talk. However, Google is working on making both Hangouts and Google Talk itself work in the browser, without the need for any plugins. This will be done in part through a new framework for realtime communications (read: text, voice and video chat) dubbed WebRTC that the company open sourced in May. WebRTC is supported by Mozilla and Opera, and Google started to integrate the framework into its Chrome browser earlier this month. “Work has started to move Google Talk completely to WebRTC,” it says on the project’s web site.

At that point, users won’t need a plugin anymore to use Google Talk, and the same should eventually be true for Hangouts. Here’s what a Google spokesperson told me via email about the connection bewteen the Google+ video chat service and the framework: “A lot of the technology in Hangouts feeds into the WebRTC, and we contribute a lot of feedback to help shape the WebRTC interface. At this point though, our plug-in and the protocol are different efforts.” He refused to reveal any future plans, but trust me, the writing is on the wall…

Open codecs

Google Talk and Hangouts currently use technology Google is licensing from Vidyo to facilitate video chats. Video is transmitted in H.264/SVC, with H.264/AVC and H.263 being used as fallback solutions. However, there are strong sings that Google will eventually switch to open codecs.

Google open sourced its VP8 video codec last year as part of the new WebM video format, and real-time communications were one of the big issues that VP8’s programmers wanted to improve with the codec from the onset. In fact, VP8 is already being used by Skype for its group video calling feature, and Google’s WebM project manager John Luther wrote in February that VP8 is an “exceptionally good codec for real-time applications like videoconferencing.”

So when will Hangouts be switching from H.264 to WebM? Google+ Project Lead Bradley Horowitz indicated on This Week in Google on Wednesday that his team is already testing alternatives to the current codec. A Google spokesperson didn’t want to discuss any future plans for Hangouts when I asked about the codec issue, but here’s a clue: WebRTC is based on the VP8 codec, which means that H.264 could get displaced as the default codec for Hangouts as soon as the video chat service rolls out its native browser integration.

Device integration

This is where things get really interesting: Hangout’s cloud-based architecture and its upcoming browser integration will eventually make it possible to deliver an optimized group video chat experience to a whole range of devices. Desktop users will get to view full HD video, users on mobile devices will receive optimized streams to deal with bandwidth issues. And Google TV users could see Hangouts appear on their TV sets sooner than they think, thanks to the fact that Google TV in fact comes with a full-blown Chrome browser.

A few companies have started to bring multi-person video chat to mobile devices, but cross-device video conferencing is still in its infancy, and Google could have a good chance here to capture the market early on. Of course, the company didn’t want to comment on the specifics of bringing Hangouts to mobile devices, but what Google’s spokesperson told me wasn’t exactly a denial either:

“Again, we can’t comment on future product plans. However, Google Plus heavily invests in mobile products as we believe you should be able to share and communicate, whether you are on the web, tablet, or phone.”

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Post-IPO strategies for LinkedIn
• The Case for Increased M&A in 2011: Actions and Outlooks
• The Future of Workplaces

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In Texas Hold’em real money and free online poker games intermediate connectors such as 8,7 and 7,5 are played as they are the best hands with which you can hit a Straight with. With 8-7, you can form four Straights (three of them nuts), and with 7-5 you can form three Straights (two of them nuts). The difficulty is, as ever, how to play them to the best effect so in this free poker tips article that is what we will give you some pointers on.

Intermediate connectors aren’t played as strongly when they Pair. For instance, should you have 8-7 and the Flop comes K-7-2, you will be justifiably concerned with the King and you may fold.

Also, it is likely that you can flop Two-Pair. With 8-7 and a Flop of 8-7-A, you can get a player with A-K in trouble.

If both of you continue until the end, and your opponent’s hand doesn’t improve, he will slow it down trying to show it down. If the hand does improve it will be obvious as when he bets and you can just pay him off. He can pair his kicker or not, and whether he does, you still have a good showdown hand.

The best play (in your interest) is for your opponent to call all-in or move all-in on the Flop (during tournaments). However, this is only the case if the difference in chips between you and the all-in’er is large. If you have almost the same amount of chips, your 8-7 may not be good enough because your opponent may be willing only to call you with something like A-8 or, worse, 7-7.

Or he might call you with A-K and suckout when he pairs his Ace, his kicker, or when, say, a 10 hits the Turn, and another 10 hits the river then his Two-Pair is better. If one stack is small and the other large, and you’ve got the little stack then you have a good hand someone holding an A-K might be willing to call. If you have the large stack, your all-in opponent might be anxious for a call with his A-x (without Two-Pair) until he knows you have him steamrollered.

Usually you continue playing Two-Pair until you hit a Full House. With this hand, play it as you would play a made 5-card hand – value betting, pretending to bluff, slow-playing (pick your choice). However, should the Board comes 8-7-5, you may be willing to play it more slowly because if the Board comes 4, Six or 9, your Two-Pair might be almost unplayable.

Through the Flop, bet substantially to push a Straight draw out. Should your opponent calls, it may signify a Straight draw. Should your opponent moves all-in or pushes you all-in, then call – or not call.

Still you are the favorite over a Straight draw. You might also be able to hit a Full House later on. But also you can choose not to call because your opponent may have a made Straight. In an 8,7,5 board, the probability of a Flopped Straight is fairly small as players don’t play 9,6 or 6,4 very much.

But you should be careful in a Board of 8-7-J or 8-7-4, because their connectors are consecutive numbers, i.e. 10-9 and 6-5, and players, especially experienced ones, play these more often.

However, even if the Board comes something such as 8-7-4-5-Q, providing you are sure, or even half-sure, that your opponent does not have the Six, bet a small bet on the river. Should your opponent has 9-8 or Q-x, you may be paid off.

Should your opponent had the Six, you may be pushed, but you can fold without losing much. The thing is, you should keep your aggression most of the time as part of your image, and you will do this by value-betting. If your opponent didn’t have the Six, he may think that you had the Six, and he may fold, too.

And finally, here’s an addendum to our earlier example. Should you have 8-7 and the Flop comes K-7-2, you may fold. But you can also call a bet – you hope that your opponent had A-K – and if an 8 comes and you bet big, how will your opponent know you had another 8 in the hole? So long as you feel your opponent does not have K-8 or K-7 (not likely) both of you can get it all-in on the Turn – and you’ll emerge almost a victor.

This can be a fairly complex subject and if you’re not quite getting it then go play internet poker for free to master it the only real way you can which is to do it for real but learn to play poker free so that any mistakes you make don’t cost you anything apart from time.

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No matter what sort of of poker you play, free online poker or money games you’ll get times when a good strong hand becomes more marginal. When this occurs decisions that would have been good earlier on might become bad.

For example, that Straight might be strong now yet becomes weaker if the Board pairs or there are 3 of the same suit and an opposing player bets big. Bad calls are more linked to bad hands, however. For example.

BLINDS: 40k/80k

PREFLOP:

A has Ad-Jc, raises to 250k
B has 2h-2d calls 250k
C has Ks-Qs, is on big blind, calls 140k (pot 880k)

FLOP: Ah-2c-10c

A and B and the ones to focus on. Now A raises with A-J from early position and B calls with a pocket pair which has evolved into a Set. B has position over A, plus A may make the very bad decision to bet the high pair but QUESTIONABLE kicker at this step. His kicker is questionable because there are two more players in the pot who may have higher kickers (or even Two-Pair with A-10).

C checks

Note that there is also a Straight draw (which C has) and a Flush draw (which everyone thinks everybody else may potentially have). So now A will attempt to protect his strong (but questionable) made hand with an overbet:

A bets 1m
B raises to 2.67m
C folds
A to call all in 1.67m (Pot 4.55m)

First, A staked 250,000 on the hand, now 1 million that is approx. 40% of his total stack, and now he might be on the edge. Should he call? Now he might think that the reraise from Bs all-in doesn’t imply that B is on a draw (B can’t call an overbet with a draw), but it could imply a good hand like A,K or A,10. It also is not an attempt to knock A out of the hand as A has 3-1 on a call, but calling will give him the knock-out.

Is 3-1 a good proposition, however? He has 3 outs to pair his kicker and a small percentage for running outs to get a Straight or a Flush. His chance of winning is just about 14%, and the fair proposition for a 14% should be about 7-to-1. (He is only getting about 2.7-to-1.) And, when it comes to unlikely Set, he is almost drawing dead, while he needs cards for a running Full House. At this stage his A-J has already been a bad hand. So he has all the ingredients for a bad call all-in, which he makes.

A calls all-in (pot 6.22m)

The turn and the river of 5s and 8s, respectively, won B the pot. A’s call will be a good call had it been A-K (you decide if A-Q will be every bit as good). He is able to put B on an Ace with a lower kicker after which make progress with an overbet in which B’s decision will be an all-in (then A can call as a big favorite) or a fold (then A wins the pot). But no; he chose to overplay a marginal hand and that cost him heavily. At the very least, he decided to call all-in when calling all-in would be too dangerous.

Teaching your mind to think like this in poker takes a while to learn. Don’t lose money learning, go practice and play poker online free hard at free poker games sites first, then, and only when you feel very confident in your understanding of the game, should you move into lower stake money poker games.

In this free online poker tips lesson we are going to examine a situation you may find yourself in during a heads up game where you and your opponent both think you’re got the best hand and so try to slow play each other. Trap versus Trap as it’s known.

To illustrate this situation we will learn by example. For the example we’ll use a truly critical hand example, a WSOP final table head to head.

The Set Up:

BLINDS 100k/200k, ante 30k

PREFLOP:

1) A has Ks-10s, raises to 400k
2) B has As-Ad, calls 200k
3) A’s raise is standard for K-10, which is not as weak in short-handed play as with a complete table.

B could have reraised A, but A might fold. B may be worried providing the Flop came up paired like J-J-7, but B thinks that a continuation test bet will detect if A has a hand after the Flop.

Reraising preflop and this test bet has the same effect of making A fold if A does not have anything, but calling not only conceals A’s hand strength, but also makes it dangerous for B to bet if a King or a Ten comes.

FLOP: Kc-5c-3h

1) B checks
2) A bets 525k
3) B raises to 1.45m
4) A calls 875k (Pot now 3.76m)

Now A suddenly had top pair which he may think is the best hand!

B checks, again to conceal hand strength.
A bets to build the pot, then B raises.

A may interpret B’s raise as being a bluff because he may think B is drawing (note the 2 Clubs) or that B may have a smaller pair, say, A-5 or A-3.

A just calls because he is now the one looking to trap.

TURN: Kc-5c-3h-6s

1) B bets 1.5m
2) The three-Flush didn’t come. B’s bet will now be challenging A.

If A folds, B still wins a major pot. If A calls or reraises, B can push him all-in if action gets back to B.
A’s trap seems to be working up to now.

Now B may have decided that A is still on a Flush draw with perhaps a small Pair, say Ac-3c.

Moreover, because preflop A obscured his hand strength well (just smooth-calling), B can think that A also has a King, however with a weaker kicker.

Now he is convinced that A is preparing to call anything he hauls in the middle, and he also thinks his trap is working. So what does he do?

1) A moves All In
2) B calls 3.6m (Pot now about 14 million)

Both think their traps are winning! In poker, the bigger the hands, the bigger the chips in front.

Both did well in preserving the balance building the pot and disguising hand strength, but only one hand can win.

A is only able to win with a river King or Ten.

RIVER: Kc-5c-3h-6s-10c (!)

A wins! But had A carried on trapping through to the river with this river card, it’s still the same. Both still have big hands, both are prepared to trap, and both are prepared to ravenously guard each other’s chips when the chance appears.

The Trap vs Trap In summary

Spend some time to read and appreciate the principles behind this article. Aim to appreciate the key facts behind what’s going on within this example and think of ways to put these lessons into your personal play.

While poker is not a hard game to learn it is a very hard game to win money at regularly if you are playing seriously.

But if (and when) you learn how to play poker well then you’ll make some good money. Why?

Simply that the vast majority of players you come up against never get to what can be termed a good level.

So you, if you can get to a good standard will do very well very easily. You don’t have to be a TV pro to make good money in poker!

The fact that most players are at such a low competence will mean that when you hunt/play them on free online poker or low stakes sites you’ll be able to clean up.

Nick from top free online poker site http://www.NoPayPOKER.com advises that to learn to play poker free really well go visit the NoPayPOKER blog, the free poker lessons there cover all levels from beginner to expert, plus, the site itself as a free online poker site is the perfect place to learn to play poker free.

Weighing up and calculating the percentages will give you an idea on the chances of earning some cash. For instance I’m taking part in a free poker game with twenty nine other opponents and ten of us getting waged. The percentages are quite easy to work out: one in three, and for this I would play quite mild for the majority of the game. Don’t be fooled into thinking I’m not going to be the front runner come the end of the night- but most of the time the cards dealt in the first forty five minutes will determine this.

I’m going to share and explain some of my better card play strategies. Remember this is not a beginning spot and is a long way off the real game. 77 I flat call and receive two times back and call. Flop comes 6D, 3H, 4H- 1st person to make a play all in on a one hundred and sixty five dollar, with a pot of three grand. I fold as they probably had better pockets or a nut flush draw/straight. Even though I had a fair chance of holding the best hand its way too soon to go for such a crazy move.

99 I flat call and the same player from before pushed all in on flop 8d,2s,2h at this point I am starting to think maybe I was wrong the 1st time but fold anyway. He shows me J2 now leading me to believe I was in fact correct the first time as well. KJ off I flat call only because someone before me called as well increasing my pot odds. About 15 minutes in now I have $2,900 of my original $3,000.

AJ I slow play A,6,9 flop and a player bets $350 the pot at this point was only $115 and the blinds $20/$40 so I fold. This player gave to much away with the size of his bet, if it were only me and him I would have reconsidered but I would like to think he wouldn’t try that with more players in the hand. I put him on a higher kicker, A6 suited or A9. Just in case I mention that he “should start showing a few to make it more believable.”

By doing this if he was being sneaky he may start to think about what I said and believe I know his game. It’s a no lose situation as if I’m wrong he will be wondering if I think he’s blagging & could call if he continues. The truth is as explained I’m just making remarks to keep him in check.

A good twenty mins on the same guy is making a move with K8 on a K66 flop when I have A6. Well as you might have guessed I ensure I double up & gain some vital info. He has in fact have hands when he makes these trivial gambles, however the cards he’s playing it with are very defeatable.

I will now employ a method of waiting for this player to make his next error. A different opponent to my right gambles before the flop- who seems to be on the same wave length as me, however playing it completely off the mark. The problem is he’s forceful with his cards and not stupid. I continue with the six grand double up here at first break 1hr into the game. At this point there’s still twenty two players at the table.

About 1 hour and 41 minutes in I catch the same player again slow playing AK for an even 9k bringing my total now up to 12k with 7 players left I am in 3rd place. So although this player was able to amount about 18k in chips with aggressive behavior he finishes in 8th place while the low stack at the previous table is now in the running’s for 1st place. Finding a target and sticking with it can pay off in the long run but be sure to find another means of making money to keep yourself around long enough for the big pay out.

AA I bet the minimum and have no action. Hour two is now in the books and I am in last. 4th place with 6k left so I’m all in on my next blind no matter what. The next closest player has 16k and blinds are 600/1200. 55 and flop comes Q510… a little luck never hurt anyone! I lay down AQ off to a bet that would put me all in. I didn’t feel like losing my newly found chips so fast. Went out in 3rd place with A4 suited vs K10 off. Not bad for a free poker tournament where I won some money too, shame it wasn’t an WSOP top table!

I look forward to playing you in a free poker tournament soon!