Learn Texas Holdem

Question: I have been playing online a lot. I found it quite useful to improve my skills but the question that raises is that is it really useful? I mean is it any different from the actual in face games in terms of strategy and hand readings? I have seen a lot of strange bad beats that you will rarely see in the actual on-board games.

Your help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Reza

Answer:

Yes, online Texas Holdem is the same game as offline. Let me starting off by saying that I think a lot of new players have the wrong idea about what hand reading is. When a pro is trying to figure out what you have, he isn't looking deep into your soul and thinking, "he is breathing hard...got it, he has KJ."

What he is doing is putting the pieces together: the hands you've previously played, how you've played them, and how you acted then. Don't think that he is looking to see if you are nervous or not. People are just as nervous in good hands as they are in bad ones. So the online poker doesn't hinder you from hand reading skills.

You may actually be able to read hands better if you play a lot of online poker because you have less information to work off of to try and make the reads. It is much easier for me to size someone up if I can look at them, then it is to just purely go off of their previous hands. (I'm not talking about hand reading here as much as overall play.

I can usually just sit down and in a couple hands see who the threats are and who is going to be feeding the table.) If you play a lot of online poker, you just have to remember hands with no faces, which I think is actually a good thing. After you play online a lot, going to live tables seems really relaxing.

Now for differences between regular games and online games, I think there are a few main ones I've noticed:

1. Online game are tougher. If you compare the same size limit online to offline, you'll see that the online ones are usually tighter games. Offline games provide more action.

2. Online games are more aggressive. For some reason people overvalue a lot of hands online and love clicking "bet". You won't find people so aggressive offline usually. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if you realize it and adjust.

3. Online games allow you to see way more hands per hour. You can play four tables at once on most sites. This is a good thing if you can keep up.