Basic Online Poker Tips

Online poker can seem surreal - you can easily win or lose a lot of money in a short time period. It becomes even more real when you learn how to actually take your winnings offline and put cold hard Benjamins into your pocket as often as possible. On the flipside, online poker can seem like a video game - like you are not really losing cash. Here are some basic online poker tips to help you turn the virtual world into reality.

Las Vegas vs. Online Poker

Say you buy into an online poker site with $50.00 and you immediately hit a nice run and now have $500.00. If you were in a Las Vegas casino you would probably pocket the money. Online poker sites may run the illusion that because you cannot immediately put the actual green cash into your wallet, it isn't so real.

When you win money playing poker online, you may join games you would never think of joining at a live poker room. It's just too easy to scroll through a game list, click a room, click a seat and there you are with your whole $500.00 bank on the table in a $10.00/$20.00 NL Hold em game. You may be able to run over any $1/$2 NL game in your hometown, but $10/$20 isn't $1/$2 and you are not in Kansas anymore - you're online! One bad move could mean your whole bank.

Risks vs. Rewards

In gambling and in poker, if you want to hit big you must always take chances. You can take chances without leaving yourself broke at the end of the day. Instead of buying in your whole bank at a big NL game, you could enter a $20.00 or $50.00 multi table tournament. You could win a few thousand bucks on that $20.00 or $50.00 buy-in instead of just MAYBE doubling up in a big ring game. You need to evaluate your risks and rewards when you are deciding where to put your money to work.

Cash Out Your Winnings

The best advice I can offer for bringing home the bacon - really bringing it home - is to cash out your winnings frequently. If you play smaller limits and bring in $500.00 in one afternoon of play, cash out at least half of it. This way you have your original $50.00 buy in plus $200.00 AND a $250.00 bank to play with. Remember this tip and repeat it to yourself now, "I will frequently cash out my winnings."

Playing Multiple Tables

Playing multiple tables is a great advantage that playing online has over live poker. You can play 1-5 different tables/tournaments at once. Playing several tables at once is very fast-paced and creates plenty of error making opportunities if you are not careful. The most common error I make while playing multiple tables is accidentally folding a good hand on one table when trying to fold trash on another. Another is when I am going to click raise on one table and then I accidentally raise on another. Both of these errors can really sting you and your stack at the table.

You can overcome these errors by limiting yourself to the number tables you can play without starting to make these kinds of mistakes. I can play 3 tables at once efficiently. The best thing about playing multiple tables at once is that you get to play a lot more hands. If you are involved in hands at several tables, it prevents you from getting bored and starting to play trash, like you may do if you are playing only one table.

Take Breaks & Go Offline

When you are playing live poker and cannot get a good run on cards, you don't sit there for 5 hours. . . you probably go home, right ? Since online poker is so easily accessible right from your living room, a bad run online can hit you hard if you don't know when to take a needed break. I have lost for weeks on end before - it is not fun, and it happens to all of us.

When you start noticing your bank dwindling and bad beats flying high against you, you are on a bad run and should get off your poker site for the rest of the day, maybe a few days. If you are like me and play online everyday, this may sound horrid! You may want to try very small limits and take your bad run as cheaply as possible. Knowing when to tone it down is a part of poker that every player should grasp. It may appear obvious at the moment, but it is one of the most difficult tips to remember while you are actually playing.

If you learn to take the good times with the bad times, cash out when you win and staying away when you lose, you will notice more money coming offline into your hands. As unreal as big wins and big loses may seem when they occur, always remember that they are real and it is real money flowing on and off the virtual tables.

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