By Samantha Williams
Just because you are playing online poker, does not mean to say that strategy and in fact poker psychology does not apply. More than one big name in poker has been made because of the fact they learned to play online, won a competition and were sponsored for participation in one of the large money World Poker competitions. Online poker sites hand out these large sponsorships as prizes and many of them sponsor entire competitions.
Such a prize generally consists of buy-in or a seat for a specific championship game level, accommodation and additional cash. There is big business in online poker, both for the poker pro and for the poker room!
There are many variations of this game, Pai Gow Poker, Seven and Five Card Stud, Omaha and Texas Hold`em to name a few. Texas Hold`em is one of the more popularly played games world-wide and features in most of the big competitions.
When playing online poker one of the things you don’t have to worry about is the proverbial poker face. Professionals call this “tells” and these are habits which the player may have that provide their opponents with clues regarding the hand they are holding. Knowing these prepares any player for the game in any situation, so making sure you don’t give away behavioral or physical reactions when you play is very important. It may be difficult to control this in a life situation if you only play online poker. So if you have dreams of becoming a pro poker player, make sure you get out there to play also.
You can get some great advice about poker tells online from many of the professionals but remember in this game there many exceptions to the rules, and experienced players may even display false tells. It is all part of poker psychology!
Have you ever wondered why so many poker pros wear sunglasses or peaked caps with the peak pulled down? It is so as you can’t see their eyes, apparently the eyes never lie, and if you know how to read the eyes, you have an edge on the game. A big hole card is hard to resist looking at for longer than is necessary, also it is very difficult to look someone in the eyes for longer than is necessary when being dishonest. Poker is after all the only card game you can win without a winning hand!!
Facial expression, bluffing that you have a weak hand when you have a strong hand, anxiety signals, trembling hands, posture and attitude are all poker tells, and as we said before this doesn’t matter to the online poker player. But it will if they win buy-in to a big competition; this and many other skills will count, because poker is after all a game of skill.
