March 17, 2009

Internet Poker at Your Service

The following is for the advantages I think of internet poker—though I'm sure someone with a creative mind could think of others. I would be glad to meet fellow poker "punks", so don't hesitate to inspire me with your great perspectives.

Ability to "Multi-table"

Online poker has spawned something that never existed before in poker—the ability to literally play more than one game at the same time. This has a huge potential upside for the player who is a consistent winner with a well-defined style of play. Though he may give up some profit in each game he plays by limiting his ability to "play the players", he can greatly multiply his hourly win rate by playing many games at once. This can be an enormous example. Imagine, for example, that you are a winner of two big bets an hour in your live games. Now imagine that you can play eight games at once—winning only one big bet an hour—having to give up your full advantage because you can't tailor your play to each individual player. That still leaves you with the ability to earn eight big bets an hour—four times your live play rate. Is it any wonder that so many of the hottest poker players these days make their money chiefly on line?

Ability to Instantly Take Notes on Opponents

A good
poker player often notices tendencies of his opponents that help reveal what cards they are likely to hold. In a live casino it is very difficult or impossible to record those impressions immediately. But in an online room this is simply a matter of typing in some brief notes on a pull down screen. These notes can be retained for as long as an opponent plays under the same screen name. This advantage is itself augmented because of the ease of locating these players in the future. Most online poker sites have a "find a player" feature that allows you to type in their screen name and locate, immediately, where they are playing. So if you've noticed that a player is a loose passive opponent, you can look for him again in a future game and adjust your play accordingly. If only "fishing" were always so easy in real life.

Inability of Opponents to Read Your Poker Tells

Many players reveal a lot about their hands by their unconscious but observable traits at the
poker table. These "tells", such as how you physically bet, breath, talk, hold your cards, or otherwise react to situations as they develop during the play of the hand, give experienced players extra information from you that they can use to exploit. When you play on line, these traits become invisible, eliminating a disadvantage you may have had in a live game.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Convenience means everything. No matte what we do, we also want to be convenient, so does for having fun.

Anonymous said...

Online poker is quite different from real casinos. So the poker strategy varies. Anyway, I like online games better.