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Things I’ve Learned About Online Poker

There are clear distinctions between online poker and live poker.

Live poker you get the advantage of looking somebody in the eye. You get to see little tells that betray a person’s hand. You get to see how they react to your raises. you get to see how other players react to the flop, turn and river.  Combine this with a person’s betting patterns and you paint a clear picture of a player’s inclinations at the poker table.

Online, it’s another story. There is no physical tells that you can see but there are patterns that you can take advantage of.  The amount a player bets in certain situations is surely something that a observant player can use to their advantage. Humans being humans, they most likely fall into routines that are repeated over and over again. These are the little things an online player should look for.

Other than that there are other things I’ve learned playing poker online. These are personal things, or personal observations that I can use to grow as a player.

One observation is that bad beats occur. It’s a myth that they occur more online, it just seems that way because there are more hands played online than live. I’ve gotten my Aces cracked in live games just as many times as online games. The key is how you deal with them. The way I see it is that the more they occur to me, the more I become immune to them. The more I become immune to them, the better player I become. It’s that simple.

I’m not greedy. Well, let me re-phrase that, I’m not too greedy. More importantly I’m not too greedy so that I lose focus on why we play poker in the first place…to win money.  I’m happy to win a pot no matter how big or small. I see too many players get greedy and limp in with a monster or check a monster only to have their monster get counterfeited because they got greedy. For example, you hit your set and you decide to bet out the minimum because you want to “maximize” your big hand. This is a mistake that can only lead to misery. Too many times have I seen a big hand become a losing one because the player wanted to sucker other players in. Winning a big or small pot is always a good thing. I try to remember that.

Dont’ be afraid to value bet your good hands. If you think you’re ahead, you should bet your hand. You’d be surprised at how many times you’re going to get called with worse hands.

If you think you’re beat then fold. Money saved is money earned.

It’s better to raise or fold than to just call. This may seem like ABC poker but it’s an effective rule of thumb, especially online.
 
If you have the goods then bet. I see too many players online minimum bet when they have a huge pocket pair. This is just plain silly. This is either because the player is greedy or scared. He’s greeedy because he doesn’t want to scare off players and he/she wants to win more than the blinds. What usually happens is that they wind up losing to a worse hand because they allowed them to get into the hand cheaply. He’s scared because he doesn’t want his big hand to get cracked and if they do then they don’t want to lose a lot in the process. This is bad playing and if you’re thinking like this then you need to seriously change hobbies because poker isn’t going to work out for you.

Poker is one long game. Don’t be so results oriented. Suckouts happen. That’s a fact. It stinks but they happen. It’s how you deal with it will determine if you’re going to be a winning player or not. If you continue to make good decisions and get your money in when you’ve got the best of it, then in the long run you’ll be on top more often than not.

This is just a short list of things I’ve learned playing online. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not perfect. I still go on tilt and I still make mistakes but I try and learn from. More importantly I try to be more consistent with my sessions online and part of being more consistent is to remember the things I’ve learned while playing online.