Online Poker Tips These tips are aimed mostly at new players to online poker, although some more experienced players might benefit from some of this advice too.

1. Online poker is popular

Over 2 million poker players on over 300 websites play poker every day. Revenues for the cardrooms from Internet poker players is over $200 million per month across the industry.

This creates an extraordinarily profitable situation for the online poker pro. Because there are so many games to choose from, finding a game that is profitable is a cinch. Especially if you compare the number of tables to choose from online with the number of tables to choose from at your local underground poker club.

Any time you have that many players in one place, even if it's online, then there will be lots of weak players (fish). And where there are lots of weak players, there will also be lots of strong players (sharks) wanting to take advantage of them. Blood in the water is great if you're a shark, just keep in mind that other sharks are infesting these waters besides yourself. (Some of these players are so weak they don't even understand why one poker hand beats another.)

2. Online poker is different from traditional poker

Poker on the Internet offers advantages over traditional poker and disadvantages over brick and mortar games.

Disadvantages to playing online include the lack of physical tells from your opponents. (You can track poker players' tendencies online though, and sometimes those are more accurate than physical tells.) And when you're playing on a website, you don't get comp drinks.

Some people think that online play makes it easier to be distracted too, although that's not necessarily true. (A lot of brick and mortar poker rooms have televisions just like homes do, and if the cocktail waitresses are pretty at the casino, they can catch your eye just as easily as your girlfriend in your apartment.) The biggest disadvantage is the relative ease with which you can play when you shouldn't be playing (like when you're tired, mad, or drunk).

Online Poker Advice for New Players The advantages of playing online can be terrific. Most sites let you play multiple tables at the same time. Since a computer deals cards faster than a human, you can see almost twice as many hands in an hour at a single table than you can in a casino. If you're a winning player, then playing lots of hands every hour increases your win rate compared to the dollar amounts you're playing for. On the other hand, if you suck, you stand to lose a lot more per hour than you would playing live.

3. Online poker isn't legal everywhere

The laws regarding online poker are vague in some places (like the USA), and specific in others. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't offer legal advice other than to do your best to obey the laws in your jurisdiction. If you do decide to break any applicable laws, be sure to understand the risks and make sure they're acceptable to you.

If you're interested in the legal issues surrounding online poker in the USA, check out some of the following pages:

Is Online Poker Legal? by Steve Badger
USA Gambling Laws - from Chuck Humphrey
Legal Online Poker Info - from Mac Poker Online
Poker Players Alliance
List of USA Friendly Poker Sites - from Compatible Poker

4. Online poker is safe

You're no more likely to be cheated at an online poker game than you are in a live brick and mortar poker game. Poker websites have no incentive to cheat the players on their sites, and in fact have strong incentives to make sure that their games are fair. Since the house makes its money on the rake, they want good players to win and continue to play on their site, because then they'll grow their bankrolls and play higher limits. The more these players play, the more money the poker site makes. Cheating would ruin that entire relationship between the cardroom and the player.

Other players might be making use of poker bots or software that exploits the availability of data on other players' patterns of play. It's debatable which of these techniques are "cheating" and which ones are just intelligent use of the virtual poker environment. But if you're a good enough poker player, you can adjust to almost any type of machine-aided player anyway.

Almost all Internet poker sites deal a fair game.

5. You can win money playing online poker

Most people don't win money playing online poker. You don't have to be good enough to just win more money than you lose. You have to be good enough to win enough money beyond what you lose that you can overcome the rake and still make a profit. Most players, even the ones who think they're great, just aren't good enough to make money once the rake is taken into consideration.

A smart, patient player who is willing to track her results and keep learning CAN make a lot of money even playing low limit poker online, because of the ability to play multiple tables. The number of awful poker players willing to put all of their money in a pot with a crappy hand is tremendous. You can't win lots of money waiting for the nuts and going all-in all the time, but you can probably win a little with a strategy not too dissimilar from that.

6. Most online poker players don't have a sufficient bankroll

Internet Poker Advice If you're a losing poker player, you need an infinite bankroll to play forever. Assuming you're a winning player, you probably still need a bigger bankroll to cover your risk of ruin than you think.

Chris Ferguson recommends never sitting down at a table where the buy-in is more than 5% of your total bankroll. That's a good guideline, but even that might be less conservative than the bankroll strategy you should be following if you're a beginner.

Play for play money and really low stakes for a while to make sure you're comfortable with your chances of winning before moving up in limits.

Finally

Online poker can be rewarding as an avocation or as a vocation. But don't pressure yourself to be a winning player if you're just playing for fun and don't mind losing a little money. Poker is a game, and games are supposed to be fun. If you do have a goal of being a winning or even a professional player, go slow and be patient with yourself as you learn how to beat the game and the other players.

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