Tips to start playing Poker Online
Life is like poker, you have been assigned a pair of cards and with the circumstances you have at the table you must create the best combination/situation to benefit from your move or in a certain situation.
Despite having a lucky component, poker is, of all games of chance, the one in which the player’s strategy has a greater weight in the resolution of the game.
On the other hand, poker in its online mode is a well-established modality among the public who are fans of this kind of games. Most of them start practicing in free mode with other players from a distance.
Nowadays, many websites offer tutorials to start from scratch in a game where experience counts a lot, to endure the tension and understand the strategy of each move.
Before you start playing, you need to be clear about your goals. Why do you want to play poker?
Maybe you just want to play for fun and meet people while you learn to play; but if there is an intention to go further in online poker, and you even want to participate in big live competitions, you should spend a lot of time learning the theory, practicing and developing your own game until you gain confidence and security.
Is it a hobby, do you want it to be a way to earn extra income, would you want it to be your only source of income? It is important to be aware of your goals to realize whether they are realistic or not, whether you are willing to put in the necessary time and effort, or whether it is more of a dream of getting rich “if the flute sounds2.
Choose a safe casino
It goes without saying, but it is important to bear this in mind. Don’t start playing on the first website that appears on your screen.
To help you differentiate which is the best casino for your particular needs, we recommend you to read our article ➡Cómo choosing the Best Online Casino, where we explain you how to check its security, be aware of its particular terms and conditions, check the quality of its customer service, and many other things.
Above all, watch out for welcome bonuses and other promotions, since as the Spanish saying goes “nobody gives a penny to four pesetas”. So we strongly recommend you to read all the conditions of them in order not to get disappointed or scared later on.
Learn the main moves
To play poker it is important to have knowledge of the main games or hands. Memorize them and familiarize yourself with them.
We all know what a “Poker Ladder”, “Flush”, “Pair”, “Trio” or the famous “Full” is, but it is important that you retain naturally not only the values and possible winning combinations of the cards, but also the probability of them appearing, in order to predict both your moves and those of your opponents.
As it is important to bear in mind the probabilities of one or another combination appearing, we leave you with an informative table below:
Hand Combinations Likelihood
Royal flush 4 0.0002 %.
Coloured staircase 36 0,0014 %.
Poker 624 0,0240 %.
Full house 3 744 0.1441 %
Colour 5 108 0.1965 %
Staircase 10 200 0.3940 %.
Trio 54,912 2.1128
Double pair 123 552 4,7539 %
Couple 1 098 240 42.2569 %
High card 1 302 540 50.1162 %
Total 2,598,960 Combinations 100.0000
Start playing for free
For learning in the poker game, the “trial and error” is very important.
Many free game pages offer the possibility to try out the different game modes and their graphics, so that you can get an idea of what your playing experience will be like while learning and putting into practice your knowledge and game strategies. Take this opportunity to play, learn, and above all, to make mistakes and take as many risks as you like.
Of course, you can also join your friends in playing poker games for fun.
Remember not to be in a hurry to switch from the free game to the betting game, because in order to win you have to dedicate many and many hours of learning and practice.
The best way to put theory into practice, know what strategy to take and think about the possibilities and statistical theories.
Try different poker games
Maybe you don’t know it yet, but there are several types of regulated poker games. The most popular at the moment is Texas Hold’em Poker, the king of online poker, however, there are many other variants.
For the impatient players, there are poker modalities of faster games, there are also those with more cards and even with less.
Another option is to play videopoker, where you are playing against the machine; or live poker against other real players like you.
Before deciding on a particular game, we advise you to try out several (in their free mode whenever possible) to assess which one you feel most comfortable playing and which one you enjoy most; as ultimately, that is the most important thing.
Memorize the cards
It is also important to calculate and mentally control the cards that are dealt during the game: the discards and those that appear on the “virtual mat”.
For this reason it is important to stress the importance of the effort and continuous practice explained in the previous paragraph, since knowledge of the game allows us to look for situations in the game in which we can get an advantage and overcome at times at random (or variance)… As long as we maintain a minimum of our own control and with balance.
Define your strategy
The attitude to a game must maintain an equidistance between practicing an aggressive and prudent strategy. The most logical thing is to follow the right strategy according to the circumstances and if there is an option to make a profit. But it is not desirable to be excessively aggressive and to charge the game. You must control your emotions because, in these games, the worst enemy is yourself.
Know your opponents
In online poker, unlike live poker, there is no option to evaluate the mood of your opponent: his face, gesture, movements, etc.
But this circumstance does not prevent you from knowing them, as you can intuit how your opponents are according to their movements and classify them according to their strategy or evolution of their game in view of future games of online poker.
Precisely, the absence of visible faces highlights more the importance of mathematics in the game. In spite of being popularly catalogued as a game of chance, in reality it is not completely so: there are statistical programs as a reference in the absence of a face to face.
Of course, in the videopoker game mode, where you play against the machine, this will not be applicable.
Play Long Term
Playing poker is synonymous with patience and sustainability. It implies being able to sustain your game over the long term, as poker is the most popular card game because it is a marathon where you have to persevere through time.
To do so, it is essential to take care of your resources; that is, your money. Manage it wisely and in cold blood.
Looking for the immediate reward instead of looking at the long term will hardly make you a winner in poker.
Gain Experience and Resources
However, despite having a good strategy, the experience of carrying it out and testing it will be your best asset.
On a mental level everything seems perfect, but it is when we put our ideas into practice that we encounter the inconveniences, the unexpected, and when we most need to practice and polish our ability to adapt to the circumstances.
This is worked on with experience. It is the only way to acquire the necessary resources to resolve difficult circumstances; so the more you play poker and the more complicated situations you find yourself in which your cards do not play in your favour, or are turned against you, the more professional you will become and the more confident you will be in your ability, as well as in the speed of decision making.
As the saying goes, “No sailor has ever learned to sail on a calm sea”.
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