Considerations for Playing Poker Online

Continued from: Game Selection: How to Win at Online Poker As absurd as it may sound, I suggest playing poker online the same way over and over and over without using any deception at all unless you have strong evidence that someone is onto your style of play. The sad fact is that low stakes players as a whole pay very little attention to your betting patterns or playing style, especially in online cash games or tourneys where players tend to bounce in and out and mix up more quickly than most beginners are able to form impressions of each other.

Of course if you play with the same group of players for a number of sessions or even weekly or monthly, the need to incorporate deception and "change gears" becomes important. For now, however, we're assuming your opponents are low stakes players that you have never played against. I suggest copying or printing the following charts so that you can study and memorize them in your study time and leave them in front of you as you play poker online. Until you are comfortable playing the game and have logged several hours of profitable play using this beginner's style system, I strongly suggest not moving onto the intermediate strategies.

I know those of you who have read other materials about which starting poker hands are playable from which positions and which are not will notice some significant differences between my hands and strategies and those suggested by the "name players" of today. I'd like to address some of the reasoning behind that.

I began playing poker online for money by playing only the NLH top ten hands and followed all the commonly accepted strategies of today. I eventually added suited connectors, small pocket pairs, and AX suited to my play hands from late position - all pretty standard stuff. I found that I could play pretty well at the one hundred dollar buy in cash games and $30-$100 dollar satellite tourneys, but my bankroll as a beginner couldn't handle the swings of playing those kinds of games. The first time I ran into a series of bad beats I was forced to retreat to the 5 and 10 dollar tourneys and 10 dollar buy-in no limit cash games. Much to my surprise, I was no longer able to win these events. I was still playing just the way all those great players had taught me to play, but now it seemed like I just couldn't win. I was raising three times the big blind, but it wouldn't limit the field. I was playing mostly premium hands against a table of players that played just about anything, and I still kept getting beat. I couldn't figure out what was going on; it seemed like I actually did better against decent players. That was the exact enigma that spawned the creation of this system.

Tips for Playing Online Poker

Just a few of the little pearls of wisdom that I developed for playing poker online...

1. Weak players play so many starting hands that even some mediocre hands can be played for profit if you play them from late position.

2. Weak players don't know how to play flops, so it's profitable to get involved with them.

3. Tables full of weak players will limp in all at once, making a three BB blind raise, nearly useless. You must remember to add 1 BB per limper to your raises before the flop.

4. With all the limping you almost always have the right odds to see a flop with speculative hands like small pocket pairs and suited connectors at a table of "fish" when you are in late position.

5. Weak players will often undercharge you to draw against them and will pay you big when you hit; that's just more reason to play speculative hands against them.

6. Weak players will over pay unreasonable amounts to draw against you; charge them hard for the privilege.

7. Sometimes you must deviate from the standard play to maximize your profits.

Changing Your Poker Strategy

I also want to spend a bit of time explaining when it's OK to veer from the pre-flop strategy I've supplied.

1. You might want to change your strategy when even a large bet of 4 times the big blind is not chasing many players out. In this case you should start raising more like 5 or 6 times the big blind with your big hands. If players are just going to call to draw against your hand you might as well charge them a huge price to do it.

2. When the players in the blinds are very tight (they fold to most raises) it is okay to open with a wide variety of hands. Actually, I'll open with any two cards against very tight players… DON'T DO THAT! It puts you in a lot of "murky water" that will take years of experience to learn to properly negotiate. But you should start raising very tight players' blinds from the button with any of the following two face cards: any card with a suited Ace, suited connectors 98s and higher, any ace with at least an 8 kicker, and any king with at least a ten kicker.

3. When a lot of players limp in before you, you can add speculative hands to your play list. You will only be calling the big blind with these hands and only when playing them from late position. These hands include AXs, KJs, suited connectors down to 76s, and JT (suited or unsuited).

As always, until next time; Good "luck!"

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