A lot of people in the poker world are reluctant to make big changes. This is true in all aspects of life when you think about it. It’s true for lots of players who are making the switch from playing poker at a brick-and-mortar casino or card room, with their friends at home, to playing online poker with people they’ve never met before and can’t see face-to-face.
Why play online poker? What’s it offer and what are the advantages to playing poker online if there are any? Well, there are many advantages. Here’s a list of commonly referenced benefits that people enjoy about online poker:
- No commute.
- No tipping.
- No need to exchange chips for cash at the cage.
- The action is quicker and more hands can be played in an hour.
- There are different deposit bonuses to take advantage of.
- You can play 24 hours a day.
- There’s a great variety of games to play including satellites and freerolls.
- No second-hand smoke.
- You can play at several tables simultaneously.
Players who are considering playing online poker should be aware of the following features, which can affect your strategy and the style of your game.
First and foremost, online poker players get to take advantage of lots of bonuses and promotions especially for new players who are making their first deposits with an online poker site. This is essentially FREE money, given to players once they make a deposit, as an incentive for playing and remaining loyal to the site. There are playthrough requirements which must be met if you want to release the full bonus, but if you play a decent amount of volume on the site, it shouldn’t be difficult at all to claim the bonus money, which will get instantly added to your bankroll to play with.
Playing sessions are typically going to be shorter. When playing poker at a venue you have to travel to, you’re much more to play for longer, simply because of the effort involved in traveling to play there. But when playing poker online, online players move in and out of the game much faster than they do in a live environment.
This playing environment does lend itself to hit n running, when a player wins a really big pot and then leaves the table straight away not wanting to lose it all back, but it’s not like you never see this happen at a live poker table.
Generally, when playing poker at online poker rooms, you tend not to play against the same opponents for long. Hence, the reason you want to take player notes while playing online poker, since there is a good chance you will have a tough decision to make against the same player.
You can refer to these notes often, if they play a hand in a manner that you wouldn’t expect, which says a lot about their playing style and how they might play in future hands, it’s definitely noteworthy. Of course, this is one of the major advantages of playing poker online, the only manual notes you have on players in a live game is what you can remember from previous hands, which might not be so easy to recall if the hand occurred some time ago.
Your new environment is the worldwide web, and NOT your designated poker table at home! It’s been noted that people are usually trickier and more deceptive on the Internet than they are in live play. That’s because it’s almost impossible to read your opponent’s faces-and it’s very easy to hide your own. This would help to explain the aggressive nature of online poker games, in particular when playing 6-max games, where there can be a lot of 3-betting and 4-betting before the flop. If you know how to adjust properly to this aggression, it can be extremely profitable to play in these games, though.
Furthermore, to raise or bet, you simply have to click your mouse (watch out for misclicks though). The button for the different decisions are well placed so there should be very few “misclicks” it also helps to play not too many tables at the same time, so you are focused on the play at each table. Misclicks typically only occur when you’re rushed in having to make a decision.
Internet distractions are something worth mentioning. Most commonly, players don’t devote themselves entirely to concentrating on poker. Usually, they indulge in other things like surfing the net, reading e-mails, watching videos, or they’re playing on several tables at a time. Internet players, therefore, are less attentive, and don’t follow the action as closely as in a live poker game. This, of course, can be a major advantage from a competition point of view, assuming that you can keep your focus at the table.