When you are just getting started out in the world of online poker everything might seem a big confusing and it might be hard to figure out exactly what steps you need to take in order to get the maximum value out of playing poker on the internet. For this reason I decided to write this little guide for those who are looking to play online poker for the first time. However before going into the tips I would like to remind that 95% of the online poker players lose money and as you are just starting it out is extremely like that you belong to that 95% and reading these tips won’t change the situation. Only thing that might change it is putting lot of hours in studying and playing the game. For some even that is not enough and thus you should treat poker as every other hobby that is going to cost you money – how much it is going to cost you is completely up to you.
Playing online poker for the first time 5 tips
- 1) Choose a reliable online poker room and make a deposit
The first decision you make when you start playing for real money might also be the most important decision you make during your internet poker career. Unfortunately throughout the years there have been several dishonest online poker rooms which have taken the players money and skipped the town. In order to minimize the risk of that happening you should play at a honest online poker room and keep the minimum amount of money on your poker account that you need for playing the games. Generally speaking: the bigger the poker room the more reliable you can assume it to be. Thus site such as 888 Poker (backed by 888 PLC) which is one of the biggest and older online poker rooms should be a good choice. If you want to play for real money (do this only if you can truly afford to lose the moneys you are going to deposit without it having negative impact on your life) you can deposit money to your online poker account for an example with credit cards and bank wire transfer.
- 2) Find a poker game that you enjoy playing and make sure you know the rules
When people are talking about poker they quite often are actually talking about the most popular poker game which is no limit texas holdem. However there are actually several other poker games also and in fact there is also couple different variants of the texas holdem game. On the internet you can for an example also play fixed limit texas holdem, pot limit Omaha, 7 card stud and card stud. When you are just starting out it might be a good idea to play little bit of every game. Whichever game you choose to play make sure that you know the rules of the game already before actually sitting down in to a real money table. So if you are unsure about the rules of the game you are going to try google the rules and play the fake money games until you are sure you actually also understand the rules.
- 3) Start slow
When you are ready to jump into the real money games it is important to keep in mind that your opponents have almost certainly played for a longer time than you have. And thus you also have to assume that they have a better understanding of the game and known more little tricks and strategies that will improve their game. Thus when you just starting out keep the stakes small, this way you will have a chance to improve your game by playing real money poker without losing too much (unfortunately the fact is that you are likely to lose money in the beginning)
- 4) If you want to win money review the hand histories and study poker
If playing poker is something you enjoy doing and want to keep playing it you need to decide if you want to try to become a winning poker player. It is certainly funnier to play reckless style without having to study the game and trying to improve your strategy, however it being funnier also means it being much more expensive. If you conclude that trying to make money is indeed more important to you than having more fun when playing poker it is to study the game. For starters you should after each session review the big hands you played and see if you could have done anything better in order to win more money in those or lose less in the hands you lost (remember not to be results orient, for an example if you got it all in before the flop with pocket aces against ace jack you most likely played the hand the perfect way), on top of reviewing the hands you should also participate in the online poker forums, buy some of the respect poker books (2+2 publishing tends to publish high quality poker books) and consider joining a poker coaching site such as Bluefirepoker.
- 5) Don’t let poker take over your life
After you have been playing poker for a while you might notice that you are enjoying playing it a lot, this is obviously more likely to happen if you are also making money from it. However even if it feels like poker is easy money (anyone who has been around for a while will tell you that this is false) and playing it is the best thing in the whole world it is important not to let it take over your life. So keep your priorities in check and make sure that you always take care of the more important stuff before playing poker.
