Just like playing at the casino, when you are playing online poker, you need to be aware of how the cards affect the other players. Most players have certain ways of holding or shuffling the cards, which create tells. Knowing these “tells” as well as how to translate them into extra money can increase your chances of winning at online poker.
Online Poker Play
Online poker play is totally different than live casino poker play. Since the cards are dealt automatically online, you do not need to hold or shuffle the cards as you would in a live game. The issue of whether a player has held or dealt the card that turns out to be a key in determining hand strength is thus not an issue. You can always see the Card, although this would be of no use to you.
Unlike live casinos, however, online poker rooms do not honor give-backs. This means that if you are playing in a tournament against other players, any winnings will not be paid back to you but instead the buy-in for the tournament will be rebursed. This only happens, however, in special circumstances where the online poker room may have some legal issues which prevent the give-backs from being realized. In these cases, a tournament may be canceled entirely rather than being delayed due to some sort of legal action.
You will find that there are generally two different types of odds when comparing online poker with live play. The first is the “real odds” type, which is the odds that you actually have about a 50-50 chance of winning either the Big Blind or the ante. When you consider the number of players generally involved in a tournament, the ratio of the “real odds” chance of winning can be relatively low. In the “textbook” betting sense, these odds are of the same order as the coin flip: Red heads are “more” than Black heads. When you consider the number of players in a tournament, however, a 50-50 chance of winning may not be so bad. In these cases, the advantage you hold may be sufficient to allow you toprofit more than you risk, provided that you exercise wise financial discipline in your online poker play.
When you are first beginning to play poker online, it is important to avoid playing too many hands in the initial stages. It is easiest just to watch carefully how your opponents play, and try to operate on their style. If you are in an early stage of playing, you might try to play a more “anonymous” game, and wait for the right hands to play. Nonetheless, as you progress, you want to become a better player, and develop your own approach to the game.
In the middle stages, you want to dress up your game a bit, since you are likely to have better hands now. You should begin to steal blinds and antes, especially when short stack players are in the game. However, if you have a decent hand, you should try to play Wink Bingo slots. In the “text book” style of play, you want to play on the button, and steal the blinds. If you have a raise after you sit on a blind, you will have a better chance of representing a premium hand to your opponents.
As you progress, you will develop a knack for knowing when a player is bluffing. The best poker players know when to lay a hand down. You do not need bluffing to win in poker; the pro knows when he can win without bluffing. If you are playing poker online, you can develop this skill in two ways. One is just watching video of a player playing. The other is reading a player’s psychology and understanding their triggers.
Once you master the skills of poker online, you can play versus your friends when you want, in your pajamas if you want. In fact, you can even play in the mood when it is just 2 o’clock in the afternoon. You do not need to dress up to go out, and you will not be negotiating your way out of knots if you win a hand.
