Category: best online poker

Lots of online poker players – even winning players – are prone to burning through their online bankroll, ruining weeks or months of successful grinding by going broke in one or two bad sessions.

Not surprisingly, players who lose money playing poker online also claim they’re unable to keep a bankroll online. What’s surprising is the number of winning players who have the exact same problem. If a player is a consistent winner in poker, it stands to reason that his or her game is profitable and should be similarly profitable online.

However, being successful in online poker requires significantly more discipline and control than poker. Players are stronger, play is quicker, and since you don’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself in front of anyone if you go off the deep end, you’re far more likely to go on tilt.

If you’re a good online poker real money player, and you know you’re capable of making money online yet can’t seem to keep a bankroll, here are five rules that just might save your online bankroll.

Play Within Your Roll

Let’s start with the most important concept first: you absolutely must play within your roll if you want to make money online.

Take two players and pit them against each other in a zero-sum game (such as flipping a coin, where each player has an expected win/loss rate of exactly 50%). One player has a finite bankroll. The other has an infinite bankroll. Given infinite repetitions of the game, the player with the finite roll will eventually go broke.

In the online poker world, it’s you against everyone else. This means it’s your roll against the infinite roll of the rest of the world. If poker was a zero-sum game, you’d go broke.

Luckily, if you’re a winning player, you can expect a positive return on your investment. But you need to have enough money in your roll to make the swings and variance irrelevant.

Don’t Monitor Your Balance

If you’re following the first rule and playing with a legit bankroll, then (outside of a serious and lengthy downswing defying all odds) you’re in little-to-no risk of going broke.

You play poker with chips, not money. You can’t think about the money you’re playing the game with as it’s completely irrelevant.

With checking the amount of your online roll as easy as clicking a button, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of micro-managing your account. When you’re on an upswing, every time you check your balance you feel good. The number goes up, so does your spirits. But it only takes one beat to make that number go down. A lot. And if you’re still checking your balance, seeing that smaller number will make you feel bad. You want it back to where it was and you want it back immediately. As soon as you have that thought, you’ve started “chasing your losses”. You’re going to start forcing your play to get back to where you think you should be.

Treat the Game Seriously

When you’re playing for real money, every session, pot and decision matters. Even the smallest of mistakes costs you money. The more money you lose from mistakes, the harder it becomes to generate profit and keep from going broke.

Limit distractions: By the very definition of the word, a distraction is taking your focus away from the game, moving it on to something else. As soon as you start playing best online poker without paying attention, you’re almost certain to make multiple mistakes.

Every person is different. Some players can play just as well, if not better while watching a movie. Other players need to shut everything else down to keep their mind on the game. You need to honestly assess your capability for multi-tasking and set yourself up to play in an optimal poker environment.

Don’t play out of boredom: You play poker because you want to play, or because it’s what you do to make money. Playing because you’re bored will force you to make poker your personal entertainment.

Sometimes, poker is not entertaining at all. If you’re only playing because you’re bored, and you’re having a boring session, chances are you’re going to make dumb moves to push the action. If you’re bored and you don’t legitimately feel like grinding, find something else to do.

Pay Attention to Your Human Needs

You are human. Humans require constant maintenance and upkeep to stay healthy. If you’re not healthy and feeling good, you’re not going to be playing your best poker game.

Hunger: If you’re not eating well or just plain hungry, you’re not going to be thinking as quickly or proficiently as possible. Also, if you’re hungry, that’s just one more distraction to keep you from thinking about poker.

Comfort: If you’re uncomfortable, you’re distracted. Get a good chair, a good monitor, and set yourself up as ergonomically as possible. If you want some good tips, Google is your answer. Use every tip you can find to keep yourself healthy, comfortable and carpal-tunnel free.

Exhaustion: If you’re exhausted, you’re not playing your best game. If you’re not playing your best game, you’re losing money. Regardless of how good the game is, when you feel extremely tired, go to bed.

Mental distractions: If you have anything pressing on your mind, you’re going to have a hard time playing your best game. It’s best to not play at all when you’re in a mental state that’s anything other than “normal”. Drugs and alcohol are other mental distraction. It’s one thing to have a beer or two while you play; it’s another to try and play while hammered. Regardless of what you may think, you can’t play your best poker when you’re drunk.

Integrate a Tilt-Induced Kill Switch

Usually brought on by breaking any combination of the previous rules, or something as simple as a bad beat, tilt can drive even the most measured player into a frenzy of ridiculous bets, raises and calls. The cause of tilt is personal and can come from anywhere. Although it will vary in degree from one person to the next, it’s impossible to avoid all tilt entirely.

Happy playing!

 

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5 Tips for Running Bad in Online Poker
Learn the Myths about Online Poker Players

Playing online poker can be fun and engaging, but one of the mistakes beginners make is being cocky after a couple of lucky wins. There are the rare beginners who have a knack for the game, but they are a very rare exception. The safest and smartest way to play as a beginner is to know that you are bound to win a few and lose a few.

Stop being discouraged

Do not let it swells your head or discourage you too much. You are still learning the poker games online and it will take some time to really get good at it. When you begin playing, spend more time watching the more experienced players. Unless you have a really good hand, you should play it safe and fold when you do not have a solid hand to play.

Learn to bluff efficiently

It is best to learn to online poker real money bluff from watching experienced players before losing a lot of money under the assumption that you know what you are doing. You should also stick to lower stakes where you won’t feel too pressured to keep going when you are not confident in your hand.

Stop suffering from overconfidence

Best online poker beginners are not the only ones who suffer from overconfidence. Even more, experienced players can either drink too much or win enough to feel invincible. Everyone will be dealt with losing hands; the best strategy is to learn when your hand is so bad or you have already bluffed too much and need to sit a handout. The more times you bluff, the more experience the other players will have at seeing how is your strategy. They will start to get suspicious and start analyzing a player who always wins to try to pick up the tells of when that player is bluffing.

Stay in too often and you are giving them more opportunity to analyze you since the odds are not in your favour to win every game. Realizing when you have such a lousy hand that you should fold and sit that round out will throw off the other players. They will see you know that you will not win every hand and are strong enough to know when you are dealt a losing hand, making it harder for them to gauge when you are lying.

Happy playing!

 

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Take Down the Online Poker Table Bully
Online Poker Multi Table and Multiplayer

There are an array of books and movies where the protagonist is an online poker player, with James Bond’s adventure in Casino Royale being the most notable one. However, on numerous occasions, the game is often misrepresented. Here are some myths the general non-poker playing audience have about the game.

Poker is all about bluffing

Most people believe the game is all about making that one risky bluff at the right time that pays off and results in the player scooping the pot. However, this is not quite accurate. Bluffing is undoubtedly an essential part of the game, and the pros are very good at identifying profitable spots to pull the trigger and bluff. But then again, it is just one of the many aspects of the game.

The pros have genius-level IQ

The misconception exists that to play professionally, you need to be a genius. While the best players do have a higher than the average IQ, this is a fact for most professionals in any field. However, you don’t need to be as intelligent as Isaac Newton to play the game.

All poker pros are exceptional mathematicians

This is not true. The game does involve mathematics to a certain extent, but the calculations involved are relatively simple. Common concepts in poker games online like pot odds, equity, outs etc are easy to understand. You don’t need a mathematics degree to play poker!

Being a good player is enough

People believe that simply being good in player implies constant success from a professional front. But simply being good isn’t enough. The metagame is constantly changing, and in such a situation it is important for any seasoned pro to adapt accordingly.

The Pro Lifestyle is full of glamour

You might have seen quite a few best online poker pros brandishing their luxury villa, high-end cars and even attending classy shindigs now and again. But the underlying truth is: staying at the top is extremely difficult and leading such a lifestyle means having to deal with overburdening pressure. People usually just see the results but not the copious amount of time these pros spend learning and mastering the game.

Happy playing!

 

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Online Poker Tips for Surviving Downswings
Five Online Poker Myths to Discuss About

To start off this post, let’s define what a table bully is. A table bully is someone who players an extremely aggressive maniac style online poker game and accumulates chips through sheer aggression. The typical table bully doesn’t like to showdown many hands. Instead, they put extreme pressure on their opponents often forcing them to lay down the best hand and when the table bully does get lucky and make the best hand they are often paid off because their opponents don’t think they can possibly have a big hand that often. Which of course they don’t, but they always seem to make the hand at the worst possible time.

Table bullies usually win all of their chips off of tight-aggressive players who only like to put chips into the pot when they know they are ahead, or passive players who are just too afraid to play a big pot. These bullies are often very good poker online players, but in this post, we will explore ways to use their aggression to your advantage.

Wait for a strong hand

To beat table bullies you should wait for a strong best online poker hand, let the bully take control of the hand and then re-raise him for a big pot. Of course, the big pre-flop hands such as pocket aces or kings don’t always come. For this reason, it is also smart to see cheap flops against the bully with hands that can improve, such as big aces, suited connectors or even small pockets.

If you happen to improve on the flop against the table bully you will often be able to take down a large pot. Table bullies love to be in control of the pot and even though they are very aggressive they will often fold if you bet out at them early. Instead, you should show a little weakness and let the table bully take control when you have made a strong hand.

Table bullies love to bluff

Table bullies will bet and raise at any signs of weakness from their opponents. This is what you are banking on. Once the table bullies bets, you should raise because the worst thing you want to have happened is the bully to draw out on you. Table bullies are also often very proud individuals who love to do the bluffing but hate to get bluffed themselves. For this reason, the bullies will often come back over the top of your raise and give you an even bigger pot.

You just have to hope that you make a strong hand on the poker games online flop and let the bully take control of the hand. It might take you a few flops to finally make a hand against the bully, but if you play that one hand right it will more than makeup for the other pre-flop calls you made.

Happy playing!

 

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Online Poker Tips for Surviving Downswings
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