Should you play online poker? Just learning how to play the game? Are you already a player, but want to improve your game? Playing online in a virtual poker room offers a way to gain valuable experience.
To get started, join any of the growing number of online poker sites. Get a user ID at the site of your choice, login in, and start having fun playing virtual poker. Playing tournaments in virtual poker rooms offers players the chance to gain knowledge of the game without being embarrassed by making a bad play. Most likely you’ll be playing against people from all over the world. The chance of meeting these people is very limited.
Virtual poker differs from real life poker in that you can’t see your opponents. But that doesn’t mean you can’t “size them up” in much the same way you would a player who sits across the table from you. You cannot read their body language for "tells" about their cards and strategy. Your opponents may provide tells, however, in their style and patterns of play. Remember, it takes a skilled and experienced player to read such types of tells, and you need to play against the other players for a while to discover their tells.
Beginning players should start out playing “tight”, which means to play only the best hands. And what are the best hands on poker? AA, KK, QQ, JJ, are the best, followed by AK, AQ, AJ, 1010. A good poker player will play less than 30% of the hands dealt to them. Some very good players only play as few as 1 out of 10 hands.
Each player develops, or adopts, a style which works best for them. A commonly adopted style for some of the best pro players is called tight/aggressive. In this style, the player plays only premium hands but plays them very aggressively, raising big or even pushing all-in, with the best hands.
Playing virtual poker can be a rewarding experience for the beginning player and the professional. It offers the novice the ability to learn in a non-threatening atmosphere and the more practiced player the opportunity to play multiple games at once.
Whether to play or not is a personal choice, but in the end it usually proves to be a good decision for most players.
