How To Win Online
As I have mentioned before on this blog, playing online poker is starkly different from playing casino poker or home games. The online game removes a critical part of the game by allowing players to mask their facial expressions and personal reactions to hands. A player with no poker face whatsoever can win consistently online because he won’t lose money for showing glee at the sight of pocket rockets.
In addition to this change of strategy, online poker also has a tendency to hand out unrealistic hands in my experience. On a normal night of poker, Texas Hold ‘Em that is, it is unusual to see big hands on just about every hand. Players often win with nothing or very little and one pair or high card is often good enough to win. Online programs tend to hand out more good hands than poker players would be used to getting in-person.
Because of these two differences, it often does not make sense to play bad hands or out of position online very much. Again from my personal experience, sooner or later every player will get a high pocket pair or an equally good hand to play. And more often than not, the player with the good hand at the beginning improves his or her hand to the point where the pot becomes their’s.
That’s not saying that it is impossible to bluff online or that you should never play bad hands. There are ways to scare people out of online hands. But more often than not, it just does not help a player to go out of his or her way to find good hands. Just wait until you are given a good hand, meaning two painted cards, and then get in on the action. If you don’t, you may become frustrated with losing very fast.
And on a concluding side note to this post, my experience playing online was with Pacific Poker. I’ll write more speficially on my experiences later, but I would probably not put more money into the program (or any online poker program for that matter.)
Filed under: Strategies
