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The best regularly-scheduled online poker tournaments for players using skillful strategy are at Poker.com, Bodog, Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, Paradise Poker and Absolute Poker. |
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HOW TO PLAY POKER ONLINE |
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Getting Started With Online Poker PlayDepositing Money in an Online Poker RoomIn order to gamble for real money in the online poker rooms, you have to deposit money with the online poker room cashier. Because deposit and withdrawal options are changing very rapidly right now, see our online poker deposit methods for U.S. players, updated daily, for the latest information.Downloading Online Poker Room SoftwareThe next thing you need to do is download some poker room software from one of the reputable Internet poker rooms. In fact, I’m going to suggest that you take time while you are waiting for your Neteller funds to clear to evaluate bonuses and download software from several online poker sites. You may already have a specific poker room in mind where you want to play, based on TV or magazine ad enticements. Or you may already be playing online in one or more online poker rooms. If not, you’ll find links to many reputable online poker rooms on this site. Read our reviews of their poker tournament offerings and bonuses, and download those that appeal.The Free GamesThe free (or “play money”) games available in most Internet poker rooms are excellent for learning how any online poker room’s software works, including the mechanics of signing up for tables, buying in, betting, calling, folding, chatting, etc. Different online sites use slightly different methods for all of these, so the last thing you want to do is buy-in to a table, then sit there wondering how to make a raise in the amount you want to raise.In fact, the method for carrying out most of the common poker actions—bet, call, fold, raise—will be obvious simply by looking at the options on your monitor. But most online poker rooms have options that you will not find in live games. It’s a good idea to look through the poker room’s help screens for features that you may not be familiar with. For example, you need to know how to sit out a hand without giving up your seat. You should fully understand how the automatic check/call or check/fold features work. Do you want your blinds to be automatically put into the pot, or do you want to manually take these actions? Learn how to watch tables in action without joining in. Learn how to look at your play history, and the play histories of others if that’s allowed. Learn how to take notes on your opponents, how to play at multiple tables simultaneously, and any other special features of the site. Many online poker rooms also offer various types of “free roll” tournaments, especially for new players, where you can win money with no buy-in. So, while waiting for your Neteller account to become active, use the time you have to familiarize yourself with various online poker sites and their unique features and bonuses. Can You Learn to Win in the Free Online Poker Games?Many online poker sites advertise their free games as excellent ways to learn how to win at poker without any cost. This is enticing to many players. If you can just play in free games until you acquire the skills needed to start beating players in the real money games, you’ve got it made. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. The only value of the free games, in my opinion, is in learning the mechanics of how the games are structured and how the features work.Free games are nothing like real money games. Since no one in a play money game has anything invested in the outcome of any hand, players will often play recklessly just to see what happens, to experiment, or to find out if someone else is bluffing. In fact, you will be tempted to play this way yourself, once you see how wild some of these games are. If you are in a play-money no-limit hold’em game, and a player moves all in on you for $500, and all you’ve got is top pair, it’s easy to call him down. If he busts you, no problem. It’s play money. Besides, aren’t you going to be curious about whether or not he was trying to steal the pot? Poker is a different game when a player’s actions have a real money result for him. What if this were a real money game and it’s going to cost you $500 to find out if your top pair is good? Now you’ve got a real decision. Even the 5-cent/10-cent games are more realistic than the free games (though these games can also be pretty unrealistic, especially if they’re limit games and the biggest bet or raise allowed is a dime). The Basics of Playing Texas Hold’emIf you do not know the basics of Texas hold’em—the hand values, how to play, the standard betting procedures, the blind structures, the common terminology, etc.—then you must familiarize yourself with the game before you ever play for real money. In this case, the free games should be very helpful to you. As a matter of fact, I am of the opinion that most players on this site probably know this stuff, just from watching the popular TV explanations of the game. Internet games do not differ significantly from live games with regards to the basics. Most Internet poker rooms have rules regarding time limits for playing a hand, and various ways of dealing with a player who is suddenly disconnected from the Web due to a power or phone-line problem. It is important for you to know things like how long you have to make a decision before your hand is declared “dead,” but for the most part, the basic procedures of play online differ little from live play, or the play you’re used to watching on TV. Just knowing how to play, however, is not the same as knowing how to win. If you are serious about making money in no-limit tournaments online, or in live casinos, then I urge you to read my book, The Poker Tournament Formula.Watch the Pros in the Online Poker GamesFinally, assuming you understand the basics of play well enough to play, and you’ve fooled around with an online poker room’s features enough to know how they work, before you start playing for real money, learn who the good players are on the sites where you will play. This is not difficult to do. If you are planning to primarily play tournaments, many sites list their biggest tournament winners. You may find data on how many tournaments each of these winners has won, how many times they’ve placed in the money, etc.Here’s the good part: You can watch these players play in tournaments. You may literally camp on their tables, follow them around, and take notes on exactly what they are doing. When there’s a showdown, you can see the hands they were playing and keep records of how they played them. Even if there’s no showdown, and no complete hand history available for the tournament, you can gain a lot of insight into how often these winners play a hand, what positions they play from, how often they bet, raise, limp in, call or fold. This is an education you cannot get from live casino tournaments. While you’re taking notes on the winners you’re watching, also look for weak players, players who play too many pots, who call too much on draws. The Internet gives you a ringside seat at every game in the house. What you want to do is see if you can figure out who will win the pot prior to the decision. See if you can figure out who has the stronger hand, who is bluffing, who is making a mistake if they call, raise, or fold. Taking Notes in the Online Poker RoomsMost of the major online poker sites allow you to take notes on the players at your table. By right-clicking with your cursor over a player’s name, you will see an option to take notes. (Always check the poker room’s features to see exactly how their note-taking feature works.) This feature opens a notepad page for this player, and you can type comments that will be saved. These notes are saved on the poker room’s software, and not on your computer. But any time you are in a game with this same player in the future—even many months or years later—the notes you made on this player can be displayed. This player will not know you are taking notes on him, nor can you tell when another player is taking notes on you. But this is a highly useful feature for recalling information about your online opponents, as you may go through hundreds of different opponents in a single week of play. (Some of the major sites have more than 10,000 players.)One thing you must keep in mind about this note-taking feature is that you can only recall your notes on a player when you see him at a table. You have no access to your whole notebook on players. You could always use your own computer’s notepad to take notes on your opponents, but you would not have the convenient recall feature you have by using the poker room’s notepad. You do not need to be in the tournament with a player to take notes on a player. If you are simply watching a tournament in progress, you can take notes on any and all players at the table. In fact, you can collect notes on hundreds of players before you ever even join a tournament! What types of notes should you record? You definitely want an assessment of the player’s skill if you feel you have seen enough to make such a judgment. If a player is particularly loose in calling raises with marginal hands, this is good to know. If a player is very aggressive, or very passive, always calls rather than raises. Plays too many pots. You can even develop shorthand abbreviations to record plays on specific hands. All of this could prove useful if you find yourself facing a player whose handle you recall from a tournament weeks earlier. Online Poker Hand HistoriesYou should also familiarize yourself with the “hand history” features of the sites where you play. This feature allows you to look at the complete history of the hands that occurred at your table. Most of what you will see will simply be a repeat of what occurred, but you can also get more than what you saw while at the table. If a player calls a bet on the river, for instance, and loses the pot, at the table you will most likely not see the hand he called with. Most players (including you) will use the “muck losing hand” option so that opponents will not see the cards you lost with. The hand histories, however, will show these hands, and this information provides insight into your opponents that you cannot get from playing in live games.Online Poker ChatAll of the poker rooms provide small chat screens where players may talk among themselves. This is a feature that may be turned on or off as each player desires. In most rooms, you also have an option of disabling the remarks of specific players only, if one or more players’ comments are irritations to you. If the chat function is completely turned off, then the screen displays only comments from the dealer, such as remarking that a new player is entering in seat eight, etc.Some players find the chat distracting and always leave it off. Others find it a source of information about their opponents, for many of whom it serves a social function. Some of the poker room chat abbreviations are identical to generic Web chat room lingo, such as lol (laughing out loud) or rofl (rolling on the floor laughing), etc. Other common lingo is poker room specific. Here are some of the common abbreviations you’ll see:
bb = big blind
bl = better luck brb = be right back gc = good call g1 = good one gl = good luck j/k = just kidding n = no (or could be “nice” as a compliment to a hand winner) n1 = nice one nc = nice catch ne1 = anyone nh = nice hand ott = over the top pls = please ru = are you sb = small blind tx = thanks ty = thank you u2 = you too y = yes yw = you’re welcome Is It Legal?Online gambling and poker are legal in most countries. In the U.S., the current administration is very hostile to online gambling and poker. However, though the Congress recently passed a law that may make transferring funds to and from online casinos and poker rooms less convenient, it did not pass a law that makes playing in online casinos and poker rooms illegal in the U.S. According to gambling attorney I. Nelson Rose, the 1961 Federal Wire Act made betting over the telephone wires on races and sporting events illegal in the U.S., but federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the 1961 Wire Act applies only to sports and race betting, not online casino or poker play. The new law does nothing to change that. Some online casinos and poker rooms have decided to stop accepting U.S. players for now, while they figure out the implications of the law for them. A number of others have contacted us to tell us that, after a thorough review of the new law, they have decided to continue accepting U.S. players, and will work out new deposit and withdrawal methods if needed. We think new methods are likely to be needed for U.S. players. For players outside the U.S., we continue to recommend Neteller. We will report on further developments. U.S. players should also check their local state law before playing online. Free games are available at every casino and poker room we list for any players restricted by law from playing with real money. ♠ |
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© 2004-2007 Arnold Snyder's Poker Tournament Formula, All Rights Reserved |
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Play Poker Tournaments Online Before you play: Is online poker legal? |
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| Online Poker Bonus Offers and Freerolls
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Online Poker Bonus Offers and Freerolls
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How to Play Online Poker This page on how to play online poker is excerpted from How to Beat the Internet Casinos and Poker Rooms, by Arnold Snyder. Learn how to deposit and withdraw your money for online poker play, how to use the online poker room software, and online poker strategy tips. |
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