The Best Ways to Play Poker Online
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Are you thinking of getting into playing online poker? If so, it is easy to get started. There are, however, some things you need to do to prepare yourself properly before you hit the virtual tables. After all, you don’t want to be what the poker pros refer to as a “fish”, do you? Check out this guide on how to make the most of your online poker experience.
Practice Play Before Investing
You may have seen the likes of Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey on TV raking in huge pots, and are thinking you want to feel that amazing rush. Don’t get ahead of yourself, though: you need to get some training in first. One way to get good is to practice other varieties of poker. There are games like Aces and Eights and Double Bonus Poker, which are two of the best online casino games at Guts.com. Playing these will give you a better feel for the cards, and how frequently you can draw certain hands. It is also wise to play free games first. Although it’s fun to play for real money, you can still get similar levels of excitement from playing for free. When you enter a tournament, each player starts with an equal number of playing chips. The aim of the game is to finish with all the chips, and this provides a competitive factor that is still enjoyable even if you don’t stand to win an actual cash prize at the end. Doing this will also give you a feel of how tournaments are played. Sometimes they go on for a number of hours, so it is a good way to develop patience as well.
Play in Smaller Tournaments First
Once you’re ready to start playing for cash, the best way to win big prizes from lower stakes is to enter tournaments. Go on any poker site and there will be a number of different tournaments running at any given time. Some of them, you will see, have over one hundred players. In these tournaments you can often buy in for as little as £1 and be in line to win over £100, but you need to have mastered your tournament technique to be in with a chance of claiming the grand prize. Poker sites will often run smaller tournaments where the grand prize is a ticket to a larger game. Normally these games attract fewer players than the ones that have cash prizes, so playing one of these is a smart place to start. You need to get used to folding a lot of hands and allowing other players to take each other out. Once you have won a few of these types of tournament you may then feel you are ready to move on to the larger ones.
Play Your Position and Don’t Be Afraid to Bluff
Any poker pro will tell you that playing your position is the only way to continually win games. If you think you can just wait for good hands in order to win pots then you are mistaken. Research has found that poker pros have made considerable profit when playing in position and have lost money when out of position. Being in position means that you are the last to act in a hand. So if the dealer chip is on you this is the best time to bet big and try to take down pots. It gives you the opportunity to assess the other players and try to deduce whether they are holding anything of value. If all players check in front of you, even if you have nothing as well, you can often bet and take down the pot.
In addition to all these techniques, it’s also not a bad idea to watch some tournaments online and see how people play. The reason why players like Dwan and Ivey are two of the best in the world is because they have developed tried and tested strategies that help them to win almost every time.
