Winning money through playing online poker is never easy, but it doesn’t have to be particularly difficult either. If you want to win serious money and become a professional player, then don’t accept that to happen overnight. You’ll need to put in many hours of research and practice. It can be accomplished, but you’ll need to put a great deal of hard work into it.
When you’re starting out though, your first aim should be simply to turn some kind of profit at the tables, even if the profit is very small. This is actually not as difficult as you might think. There are a lot of people that play poker online and a significant percentage of them aren’t particularly skilled. With just a basic understanding of the game and with a disciplined approach, it’s perfectly possible to beat these players even as a relative beginner.
If you’re new to online poker, then you should find the tips that we have provided on this page very useful. There’s nothing extraordinary about these and some of them are just common sense. However, just by following these tips you should be able to begin to find success in poker relatively quickly.
Choose the Right Poker Site
You might think that your chances of winning poker online have very little to do with where you choose to play, but this is certainly not the case. Your choice of site may not have a huge impact on how you perform at the tables, but it will have some influence on how well you do overall.
For example if, as a beginner, you join a site that’s full of regulars grinding away at the low stakes, then you might find it difficult to find decent games where you have a good chance of winning. If you join a site that has very little action at the low stakes, then you may be forced to play at higher stakes than you want to. This could end up with you losing your bankroll before you even really started.
There are other examples of how your choice of site will affect you too, but we won’t go into them all here. It will be suffice to stress the importance of playing at quality and reputable sites.
Learn Basic Strategy
You don’t need to be an overly skilled player to win money at online poker; you just need to be a little better than at least some of your opponents. You can achieve this just by making sure that you understand, and implement, basic poker strategy.
It’s really not necessary to try and learn all the advanced stuff when you first start playing, as this will just be overwhelming for you anyway. If you can master a few simple strategies, then you’ll probably find that they’re more than enough to give you the skills to start winning more consistently . You won’t necessarily make a fortune, but you should be able to beat players at the lower stakes.
At Top10CasinoOnline.COM we have compiled a comprehensive poker strategy section. This contains plenty of intermediate and advanced strategy for when you’re ready to progress, but most importantly there are several lessons aimed specifically at beginners.
Start With One Table
One of the great things about playing poker online is that you can choose to play multiple tables if you want. This can be a great way to increase the profits that you make, providing you’re beating your opponents consistently of course. As a beginner, though, you really want to concentrate on just one table.
While you’re learning the game and developing your skills you want to focus as much as you can on everything going on. You need to look at what your opponents are doing, analyze what their actions mean, and put some real thought into basically every decision you make. You won’t be able to do that properly if you’re playing on more than one table though.
Once you have more experience and are more comfortable in your own ability, then many of your decisions will become much easier and in many situations you will automatically know what to do. That’s the time to begin thinking about playing multiple tables. However, when you are just beginning, it’s more beneficial for you to just stick to one site.
Play Low Stakes
One of the biggest mistakes that beginners make is playing at stakes that are too high. The possibility of winning more money is obviously appealing, but you’ll almost certainly get better results if you start out at the lower stakes. The standard of the opposition you’ll face increases quite noticeably as you go up the stakes, and you really don’t want to playing against too many skilled players when you’re just starting out.
You’re bound to make a few mistakes early on and at higher stakes you’ll get punished for these. At the lower stakes you’re more likely to be playing against other beginners or players that aren’t particularly skilled and just playing for fun. You might still lose money while you’re learning the game, but at least you won’t be losing as much if you are sticking to the lower stakes.
| There is plenty of time for you to move up the stakes as when you improve as player but there is absolutely no need to rush things. |
There’s nothing wrong with taking the occasional shot at the higher stakes if you have the bankroll to do so, but we suggest that you wait until you’re consistently winning at the low stakes before playing higher with any regularity. Always remember to practice good bankroll management too.
In poker, bankroll management is all about playing at the right stakes in relation to how much money you have to play with. This is important for players of all standards and getting it right ensures that you can always cope if you go on a run of bad luck.
Stick to One Game
There are many variations of poker and you can play a lot of the different games online. As you become more experienced it can be good to learn how to play a few of the different games, as you then have more opportunities to win money. While you’re starting out though, we advise that you concentrate on one game.
The most commonly played game online is Texas Hold’em, so this is the best one to start with in our opinion. It doesn’t hurt too much if you want to start with Omaha or some other variation, but Texas is probably the easiest one to learn. By focusing on just one game you’re much more likely to improve your skills faster than if you were trying to play several different games at once.
Try Tournaments & Cash Games
This is in slight contrast to the advice we have just given about sticking to one game. However, we do think that it’s a good idea to play both tournaments and cash games when you’re starting out. Although the basic game is the same in tournaments and cash games, the strategies for playing them are a little different.
As such, you might find that you end up doing noticeably better in one than the other. Just as importantly, you might find that you enjoy playing one more than the other. It’s difficult to make a judgment unless you have played both a myriad of times though. Our advice is to dedicate a good amount of time to tournaments and to the cash games as a beginner, as you can then decide which one you want to focus on moving forward.
Keep Records
If you want to be a successful poker player, then it’s a good idea to start keeping records as soon as you start playing. Records of your play and your results will help you to review which games you’re doing well in and which games you’re not. They also make it easier for you to review sessions that haven’t gone well, looking at your hand histories to see where you’ve gone wrong.
This is a great habit to get into as good record keeping can make a significant difference if you go on to playing regularly at various different stakes and games. It’s not at all difficult and you can even get poker software that pretty much does it all for you.
Take Advantage of Bonuses & Rewards
There are a plethora of poker sites on the internet and they’re all competing against each other to try and get you as a customer. There are a few ways that poker sites try to stand out from their competitors and some of these can be very beneficial to you. In particular, the bonuses and rewards that sites offer customers can be of very awarding.
Virtually all poker sites offer sign up bonuses to new customers. These are brilliant for helping to build your bankroll as a beginner. You’ll have to meet some terms and conditions in order to convert these bonuses into cash, but this is generally not too challenging. If you join a few different sites and claim the maximum bonus at each one of them, then you can grow your bankroll quite substantially even if you’re not winning much at the tables.
Additionally, most sites have some kind of loyalty scheme or rewards program in place. These typically work by rewarding you on a weekly or monthly basis based on how much you’ve played. These can be great for building your bankroll, both when you start out and if you end up playing regularly.
Please note that these are just a few basic tips, primarily aimed at beginners, which should help you improve your chances of winning at the virtual poker tables a little. To really improve as a player, you’ll need to spend a lot of time analyzing your play, studying strategy, and practicing.
