Starting Online Poker

I got into poker after being bombarded by it from all angles from my poker playing partner. My eyes would glaze over as he waffled on about yet another poker hand he had recently played. Deciding it wasn’t very conductive, I started reading up about it on the sly. It didn’t take long for the desire to put the reading into practise.
Don’t do as I did and jump into online poker after a bit of reading. I didn’t do nearly half enough reading on poker, winning hands or poker odds. When you think you have read everything, go back and read some more.

Next learn the bases of online poker. Online poker you have to make decisions in a set amount of time. This was one of the things I had trouble with when I first started. I found it muddling to take it all in, think about the game and all the things I had read and oh actually play my hand too. All whilst the little timer was ticking telling me how many seconds I had left. I would get zzzzzzz comments in the chat box. Don’t let these comments affect your play but do consider the other players and try and keep up. You will find some tables really chat and some deadly silent. Remember though they are real players and keep your manners. You will see nh and ty comments which mean nice hand and thank you. Refrain from advertising the fact you’re new at the game, as nice and chatty as they are some still might take advantage and take all your chips leaving you dazed to how it happened. Never, also, talk about your whole cards or comment on others whilst the hand is in play. You can read more about poker etiquette or even the poker tips can help.

Faced with choosing a poker site can be daunting. There are so many to choose from but they all have several things in common. Most important is that they all play poker (doh). They will have cash games, tournaments and sit and go’s. They will all offer No Limit Holdem, Pot Limit Holdem and Limit Holdem. Their structures might differ slightly as in how many tournaments are scheduled to the amount of starting chip stack. Carbon Poker, is at the moment, the best for women only tournaments.

The poker rooms even come in different colours. On Full Tilt you can change the back drops and make you avatar happy or sad.  The lobbies will vary in their set out to but all will have a help section and most have live chat if you have difficulties on deposits. Not all offer a bonus either and their playing offers differ slightly too. Most common are earning points as you play so that you can ‘cash’ them in to play a tournament or to collect so many to release a bonus. The poker reviews have notes in a quick format so you easily pick which site would suit you.

On my start out I was concerned with the security and fairness of playing poker online. The poker industry is a big and continually growing business. It’s in their own interest to make sure that their security is top notch to keep your money safe. All poker sites are and have to be continuously independently analysed and tested. So your money is perfectly safe and if you loosing its not the poker site, you need to read up some more. (More on all that later)

You will have noticed  there a few poker sites that we have reviewed on this web site. The choice is yours as to which one you choose to play.Once you have fathomed out your preferred poker site, the best thing is to practise on the ‘play’ tables. These are cash games, tournaments and sit and go’s but all used with fake/pretend bankroll. You will be able to get a feel of the game. Figure out where all the buttons are and what they all do. You will notice you blinds are posted for you. When it’s your turn you will have buttons presented to you for you to fold, call or raise. If you’re playing no limit you will also have a slider to raise the amount too. You won’t, though, get a true valuation of what it is like to play poker online. The currency is all pretend so most players are reckless as at a click of a button they can reload as many chips as they want. People will play hands that they wouldn’t if the chips were real. I played for several months on the ‘play’ tables. Don’t get me wrong I did play a few tables that were really good. But it wasn’t until I took the plunge and went to a real account and played with real money that I really learnt and experienced poker.

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