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Poker Games - Rules

Basic Poker Strategy

How Online Poker Differ from Live Poker

Online poker is fast. In average live Hold'em game, you will play about 35 hands per hour. Lower-limit games are a little slower because there are more players seeing the flop, and the poker players play more slowly because they are not as experienced. Online, the average ten player Hold'em game plays about seventy hands per hour. Double the speed of live play. The reasons are obvious. Online poker does not have any of the distraction or administration of live play. There is no shuffling, no cutting, no dealer changes, no player disputes, no cocktail staff, and no showboating. The game is crisp and quick.

The advantage to you is that if you play twice as many poker hands in the same time frame you should win twice as much money. If your average one big bet per thirty-five hands in live play, you should win two big bets per hour online. The disadvantage, of course, is that if you are a losing player then you will lose twice as fast.

Anything goes online. Well not anything, but you can get away with a lot that you could not get away with in live play. You could have your whole poker library at your finger tips and none of your opponents would know. Online you can, and should, take notes about your opponents while you play. In a live poker game you generally wait until after the game is done to take your notes. Online you can do it while you play.

Online poker games are tougher than live games though. This is the most startling difference. If you are accustomed to playing in loose low-limit poker games, you are in for surprise. There are a lot of thins that contribute to making online poker game tougher. The biggest reason is that players who think they are winners in live games discover they are losers online. You are left with groups of skilled players requiring that you get beyond the basic skill set to beat the game. Mind you, this should not be exaggerated. Low-limits online are tougher to beat than low-limits in live play, but they are still easy to beat using the basic strategy.

The other reason that is difficult to get the feel for the game online is that you are allowed to play more than one game at the same time. Live, you are limited to one poker game. You are not allowed to run back and forth between two tables. You are not allowed to play poker while you also play blackjack. The expectation is that you will give the game you are in your undivided attention. Not so online. Most every online poker site will let you play two or three games at once. The software is designed to automatically pop to whatever table needs your attention to the foreground of your computer screen. In this way you can play two or even three poker games at once. Login to two different sites and you could get six games going at the same time - only for the power-poker players.

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