You’ve logged onto your favorite online poker room and you are settling down for a little Saturday night practice session in a free, Limit Texas Hold ‘em game, say $10/$20. Having fun? Sure. Learning how to play poker? Not really. A good way to learn how NOT to play poker is to play in free online games. What should you do? Watch how poker is played in a free online game and then become an observer in the online rooms where real money is in play. What differences should you watch for? In the free games, what do you have to lose? That’s the point. In a typical free, Limit Texas Hold ‘em online game, a player “buys in” (at no cost) for let’s say, 1,000 chips. The cards are dealt and just about every player goes to the flop. Then most players will take a card at Fourth Street, and it is not unusual to see six or seven players in a free online game go to the river. Why? Because against all odds, they are hoping for "miracle hands." And because they have nothing to lose. If they run out of chips, they “buy” more free chips. What have you learned? You’ve learned how NOT to play real poker, poker with money on the table. You’d be crazy to take that strategy into a table where real money is used. In a money game, that should never happen. If it did, the naïve player who played that way would be eaten up in a flash. Watch the money tables in online games, especially at higher levels, and watch the pros on TV in tournament play. What does solid betting do? It weeds out the players and the hands. It gets down to the two, occasionally three players, who go up against each other with strong hands (or a bluff where they are indicating strong hands). What else is missing in online play: “Tells,” the twitches, tics, scratches, blinks, tremors, and flop sweat running down a player’s face – maybe even your face - that telegraph the strength of a hand. Pro Annie Duke says she can “tell” a lot from betting patterns in online real money play. Probably so. But you are missing a large part of the psychology of the game by playing in online poker rooms. You are NOT learning how to gauge the actions and reactions of other players as you would in live play. So, what do you do? Have fun at the free online games as long as you realize that you may be learning bad habits that should not be taken into a money game. To really learn how to play poker, move into a low stakes, real money game, online and otherwise. Some start as low as fifty cents and a dollar. Then they move up: $1/$2, $2/$4 and so on. Notice how the style of play is quite different as more money goes on the table. If you master a lower stakes game, don’t think that you will do as well at the next level. If you watch TV interviews with the pros, you will hear stories about how they moved up, lost, came back down, built up their stake, moved back up, etc. Expect to do the same. The online experience can be fun. You can also make it a meaningful learning experience with a money game to meet your budget. Then, you’ll learn how to really play poker. Murphy James is a freelance writer in the gaming field who has been published in men's magazines, business magazines, and newspapers.
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