Play Better Poker » Online Poker Rooms

Plugging your leaks

admin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:45:59 +0000

It used to be a common condition for even the most successful gambler to have one particular weak spot in their gambling strategy that caused them to lose most of their hard earned winnings. It is still common today, even in this internet led gambling world, for profitable poker players to lose a lot of their cash playing games that do not suit their winning style.

These ‘leaks’ can drain away a lot of money from both winning and losing players, but they can be easily managed if you know what to watch out for and what to avoid.

Some online poker rooms are even advertised as having a lot of loose casino gamblers that occasionally play at the poker tables and can be a good source of profit for the more professional poker player. Well, for poker players, the opposite of that situation is that they sometimes will sit in at a fast moving casino game and lose a lot more than they just spent the last few hours slowly accumulating at the poker tables.

Part of the reason for the large and unexpected losses can be that they are not able to switch their staking level properly across the different poker and casino games. Players used to betting into $100 dollar no limit cash pots find it hard to sit at a blackjack table and bet in single dollar amounts.

Different betting strategies apply for different games, and poker players will often times flounder when they make a sudden switch to the casino tables.

One easy way to avoid this is to find an online casino that has very low stakes available for the game that you want to play. For example, in some casinos you can play online roulette from as little as one penny. The best way to handle your online leak is find the lowest available stakes when you first sit in and play a few turns at that level before moving up to any thing higher.

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Online poker bankroll building

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:22:34 +0000

The most important factor that will determine your success or lack of it at the online poker tables, aside from your ability to actually play winning poker, will be your bankroll management skills.

If you cannot manage your bankroll properly, then no matter how good of a poker player you are, you are facing an up hill battle.

Most poker players will tell you that you will need to have a certain multiple of the stakes that you play at. So, for example, if you play $1/$2 limit Texas Hold’em, then you should buy in with at least 100 times the big blind, which is $200 (100 x $2) and you should have a bankroll of at least 20 times your buy in, which comes to $4,000.

Immediately, most players will intuitively feel that these numbers are wrong. A lot of players can cite many examples of having a much smaller starting amount and having had success at the $1/$2 tables.

And of course they are correct. You can get away with a much smaller starting bankroll and have success. But the risk of losing all of your capital is much bigger when you are underfunded, even if you never go broke.

Using the above quoted figures, a player would need $40 to play the $0.01/$0.02 stake games. And they would need to double that from playing those stakes in order to go up to the $0.02/$0.04 stake level.

It will obviously take a heck of a long time to double your bankroll from playing these stakes.

But there are a couple of important things that should be factored into the calculation too. If you did actually have $4,000 to invest in your poker career, where exactly would you put it?

Would you deposit all of that in one go into your chosen poker room? Even the bigger deposit bonuses that are available from online poker rooms don’t generally reach into the mid thousands. Most poker rooms only offer a deposit bonus amount in the region of $500 or $600. So depositing more money than that required to attract the maximum poker bonus could be considered to be a poor bankroll management strategy.

So you would deposit the maximum amount that will get you the maximum bonus, say $1,000 as a handy example. Where would you put the other three thousand of your bankroll? Leave it in your payment processor account, or your bank? Sure, why not?

So if it is not in your poker account, do you really need to have it? Having access to it is more important than actually having it and putting it on the table.

So you have access to it. Either it is in your bank account or you know that it will be soon. That is really good enough.

The other thing to consider that can influence how much you will really need as a bankroll is your style of play. If you sit into a game and blow your starting amount (100 x big blind) of say $200, then what do you do? Do you reload your stack at the table? Do you choose a different table and buy in there for the full $200? Or do you call it quits for the night and come back tomorrow?

If you believe that you can, and regularly do, walk away if you are having a losing night, then you really only need enough buyins to last you until your next source of funding comes available. Many players will fund their online game from their paycheck, so that may be weekly or monthly. If you will have to wait for a month before you can fund your account then having 20 buyins will be a very useful safety net should your luck run cold.

But if you get paid weekly, there really is no need to have more than seven or eight times your buyin in order to play like you are fully funded.

Of course if you are the type to rebuy again and again no matter how the cards are going against you, then you will need to reconsider the number of buyins you will need to play comfortably through a bad spell.

Free Poker Site

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:07:38 +0000

A lot of players look for a free poker site when they first start to play online poker.

It is probably a combination of things that have them looking for free poker sites. The natural caution when it comes to putting your money online is probably the major reason for wanting to play free poker first.

And that is a good thing.

There is a lot of benefit to playing the free poker tables option in online poker rooms. For beginners, it is a great way to familiarize yourself with the poker software of that particular room. Plus it will get you used to the betting rounds and the action of your chosen card game.

Without the pressure of worrying about making a mistake with actual real hard cash, it can be a pleasant learning experience, and is definitely recommended for players that are new to online poker.

But don’t get carried away with the free poker option. If you do well at these free tables don’t go thinking that you are a natural poker player and dive straight in to the high roller tables for real cash.

The same holds true if you do not do well at these tables, and lose all your free play chips. Don’t worry too much about that. Yes, you may be a terribly bad poker player, but losing your play chips may actually mean that you are a good player too.

Whatever happens, just realize that the only real value to be had with these tables is to learn how the software works, and get familiar with your chosen poker room before you hit the cash tables or the cash tournaments. Playing the play money tables will not teach you how to play real poker.

I can’t stress that enough. Just because you can beat the free play tables does not mean you are good enough to go to the WSOP.

No value to the chips means that no one values them. Simple. If the players don’t take the money seriously then you cannot bluff, or force someone off a draw. So just use this option to get familiar with the software, nothing more.

In fact, staying and playing for too long at the free chip tables will actually harm your game. Don’t do it.