09- 8-05, LearnTexasHoldem:
Baby Steps: Online Texas Holdem Cash Games
Top 3 Beginner Rooms
Online Texas Holdem has created a new kind of player. Before you could make a clear distinction between a calling station and a tight player -- someone selective of his hands and spots both preflop and postflop.
The new category is the overplayer. Most everyone who plays online poker overplays their hands. It is as though when they call preflop they are committed to calling to the river. A typical example is raising preflop with overcards like AK, then missing the flop and seeing the river in hopes of catching.
This isn't a monster error, but if you constantly do it, you'll lose much of what you win back. This tip isn't about playing overcards though, it is about perspective. The overplayer loses perspective and the goal (goal being to win the most money). When in a hand, it seems as though everything is dire, that you must win this one. If you play multiple tables, you begin to really get going, with a barrage of decisions. If you don't win a hand in 10 minutes, it seems like you aren't getting any cards. Slow down.
If you are able to step away from the computer for a bit and think about your goals for the day or week, all the stress is removed. The fact is that it doesn't take much at all to win two or three racks a session if you are playing three or four tables. Why not avoid some of the more marginal situations other players might get into and just wait for spots where you have a big edge? Baby steps... Lay a few hands down when you get raised on the turn; you don't have to play everything off.
What you'll find is that many of the times you would have played before but now folded, you wouldn't have won anyway. Now when you win a pot it isn't countered in a few rounds when you lose the next pot. I think part of the reason why players have lost perspective online is that even though the pots have fewer players in them compared to live games, the aggressiveness is far greater. If you check, the opponent, even at a $1/2, will automatically bet.
This leads you to trying to defend with all kinds of hands that you wouldn't normally, and also betting a lot more hands that you wouldn't at a live game. Remember this, that an opponent isn't really stealing much from you if you don't have much yourself. You need a hand to defend, especially online when everyone calls to the river. Just wait them out, bet good hands, fold when you don't have much and you'll beat them for more.
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