|
Play poker online at Doyles Poker Room
 |
TABLE OF CONTENTS
|
ONLINE POKER
by Doyle Brunson
Technology surrounds us. Things change. And the swiftness of change today
is unparalleled in history. Nothing makes poker players more aware of
this change than the advent of online poker.
Computers changed everything—from productivity, to research, to
games. Poker, too. You see, along came the Internet and suddenly you could
find almost any answer in seconds, be anywhere in the world, instantly—not
physically, of course, but we learned we didn’t need to be physically
present to be there. And so we could play poker without being physically
present. We could be at the table. Instantly.
I remember the first time I played poker online was in 1999. I think it
was a tiny $3 limit game, and I was used to playing $2,000 limit and higher
games where you could win or lose upwards of $1 million without leaving
your seat. I’d gotten curious, because Mike Caro had endorsed an
online poker site, and I thought this was strange, considering he had
previously written a column warning of the pitfalls of online play. If
he’d changed his mind, then the least I could do was investigate
for myself. Remarkably, it was as exciting as any poker I’d ever
played. There I was, participating in poker on the screen with opponents
seated inches away, but knowing they weren’t actually inches away.
They were in England and Germany and Hong Kong. Everywhere. I was playing
poker in a game that could never have been possible before.
A TORNADO
And so, unexpected and out of nowhere, online poker blew onto the scene.
It was like a tornado sweeping down the Texas Panhandle. And I realized—grudgingly
at first—that it was here to stay. You could now put poker into
two main categories: online poker and real-world poker. Notice that I’m
saying “real-world” poker, not “real” poker. That’s
because online poker is real poker. It is certainly real for the hundreds
of thousands of new players around the world who are playing for real
money! In fact, what is there about online poker that makes it unreal?
Not much, and that’s why I think most of us have started differentiating
poker by just these two terms: online poker and real-world poker.
And real-world poker, the kind you sit down and play with physical cards
at a real table against opponents you can reach across the table and shake
hands with, can itself be divided into subcategories. For instance, we
could talk about home poker and casino poker. Each offers a slightly different
flavor. That’s the same with basketball, you know. There is basketball
played outdoors on concrete slabs, high school basketball, college basketball,
NBA basketball, and international basketball that you see in the Olympics.
But it’s all basketball.
And I’m here to tell you today, that online or real world, poker
is poker. It’s all poker. There’s hardly any advice on these
pages that won’t help you become a much better online player, simply
because it will help you to become a much better poker player, period.
DOYLE’S ROOM
www.doylesroom.com
Before I give you some specific tips and insights about playing poker
online, I want to tell you something that may surprise you. The truth
is, it surprises me, because not too many years ago, I couldn’t
imagine myself being involved in online poker at all. Briefly, I got myself
talked into endorsing a friend’s start-up website, but I extricated
myself from that fiasco as soon as I realized that nowadays only the big
boys can afford to play in this business. Chalk it up as another of my
bad ventures when trying to help others out.
Well, then I got smart. If you want to know how smart, check out www.doylesroom.com
for actual play in practice games—and beyond! And for other things
about learning poker, try its sister site, www.poker1.com. I’m happy
to be the Doyle’s Room consultant and that they’re putting
my name on the site—because they’re paying me a handsome endorsement
fee, and because it’s a site I’m proud to be part of.
Using doylesroom.com as an example, I’ll walk you through online
poker. Remember, by the time you read this, doylesroom.com and other competing
sites may be even more advanced. I envision being able to bet just by
speaking and being able to scrutinize live, moving images of opponents,
bringing to the online world the most sorely missed element of traditional
poker: tells.
The one thing that will shock you most is the number of poker players
currently online. Just before this book went to press, I was honored to
be inducted into the Poker Walk of Fame at the Commerce Casino, near Los
Angeles. Have you ever visited that casino? It’s the biggest physical
cardroom in the world. There are hundreds of poker tables!
Now, in my whole life as a poker player, I never envisioned that there
would ever be fifty games going under one roof, let alone hundreds. And
Commerce isn’t the only major poker room to host a huge number of
poker tables. Also, near Los Angeles, you have the Bicycle Casino, Hollywood
Park Casino, Hawaiian Gardens, and the Hustler. And there are now huge
poker rooms in Las Vegas casinos, including the Bellagio, the Golden Nugget,
the Mirage, and others.
Jack Binion launched large-scale poker rooms in the Midwest, and there
are now big rooms on the East Coast, too, including those in Foxwoods
in Connecticut and others inside several casinos in Atlantic City. Poker
is booming everywhere.
But put those all together, and you have maybe 1,000 tables. This is something
I never imagined when I started my career, steering around the frequent
tumble weeds that walked across the highways of Texas, going from one
single-table private game to another.
When you play real-world poker games, you have to travel from one casino
to another to find the right games. When you play poker online, however,
you’re instantly within reach of any table. A few clicks of your
mouse and you’re at another table, maybe at the same online casino,
maybe at another.
Just how many tables are we talking about? You’ll often find over
7,000 real-money online tables going on at the same time—some tournament
tables, some regular ring games. Most days there will be over 50,000 real-money
players that you can choose to play against in minutes, without leaving
your home. And then there are the free, practice games, and I’d
hesitate to count how many players and tables there are of those.
Between the sudden surge of televised poker and online poker, more new
players have been exposed to our game than ever before in history. And
it helps everyone. The real-world casinos are flooded with new players.
Did you ever think poker would get this hot? I didn’t. It’s
a fantasy come true.
I believe many potential players, who otherwise would feel too embarrassed
to walk through the front doors of a public casino to play poker against
more-experienced opponents, will find that courage now that they can play
their first hands on the Internet.
So, let’s see how poker is played online.
TWO REASONS WHY ONLINE
POKER IS WORSE
Here are two ways that online poker is worse than real-world poker. I
readily acknowledge that there are other minor grievances that could be
added, but to me, these are the only two that stand out as important.
Reason #1: Where Did the Tells Go?
I think every serious player prefers real-world poker at times. There’s
no substitute for being able to stare an opponent down and make decisions
based on your observations. And there’s no greater feeling in poker
than that of intimidating opponents into making costly mistakes. Those
elements are missing—and missed—when you play online.
The first thing you need to know is that, at the time of this book’s
publication, you can throw your skills at reading opponents’ body
language out the window. But if you’re reading Super/System 2 just
a couple years down the road, you may well be able to see real opponents
on your screen. Poker will be like a video conference, and you’ll
be able to focus on the players across the table from you and read them.
I predict, through live video of each player replacing the icons in the
seats, tells will be everywhere, and then full-scale psychological warfare
will come to the online poker battlefield—and nothing will be missing.
But for now, online poker sites—including doylesroom.com—depict
players as icons. Sometimes those are cartoon characters, but Doyle’s
Room uses your choice of symbols, including flags, scenery, and artistic
words, like TILT.
Here are some of the icons you can choose to differentiate yourself from
other players at the tables:
Think of it as selecting one of those weird pieces to represent yourself
at Monopoly as you roll the dice and prance around the board. Players
think it’s kind of fun choosing their icon, but you’re not
going to gain any tells staring at them. Well, maybe that’s not
quite true. For instance, my guess is that players who choose an icon
featuring the word TILT are actually fairly tight players, trying to deceive
you.
Are there other tells online? Indeed there are! Almost all of them center
around the use of early action buttons. Those are one of the inventions
that make online poker the fast-paced game it is.
What are early action buttons? They are ingenious innovations that take
advantage of the fact that you can secretly tell the software what your
next action will be—before it’s your turn to act! Since your
opponents are sitting in their own homes, possibly on the other side of
the earth, they have no idea which button you’ve decided to push.
Later, I’ll discuss specific tells associated with early action
buttons. But, overall, you’re going to find yourself at a disadvantage
online if you earn a lot of your real-world profit by reading your opponents.
Reason #2: Can’t Spend the Money Immediately
Part of the thrill of the poker I grew up with is that you can send your
opponents home with their tails tucked between their legs, whimpering
and whining, while you’re spending some of your freshly won money.
Sadly, that thrill is gone from online poker. You can’t send opponents
home whimpering, because they’re already home whimpering. And you
can’t spend their money yet, because you can’t physically
touch it. It’s there in your account, but if you want to spend it,
you’ll have to request a cash-out and it will be several days before
it arrives.
Now, I’ll wager you’re thinking that that might be a good
thing. I’m sure there are thousands of poker players who unwisely
wasted big chunks of their bankrolls after a big win and wish they’d
had to wait a few days to receive their winnings. It’s hard for
most players to acquire the discipline needed to hang on to a bankroll,
and I think that playing online helps promote that necessary habit. But
I’m listing this fact as a negative simply because I believe a grown-up
poker player should be able to enjoy his winnings by stuffing them immediately
into his pockets. Call me old fashioned, but anything else doesn’t
set quite right with me.
But except for that and the fact that you can’t reach across the
table and shake an opponents’ hand or read him the way you can in
a real game, online poker is just as good as the traditional kind we’re
accustomed to—and in some ways better.
22 REASONS WHY ONLINE
POKER IS BETTER
There are a great number of ways in which online poker actually excels.
Each player has his own favorite reasons why he thinks online poker is
in some way superior to real-world poker. These are mine…
Reason #1: Always a Game
Online poker makes a mockery out of how I went about finding good games
when I traveled the poker circuit throughout Texas and the South in the
1960s and early 1970s. I mean, sometimes you’d drive all day only
to find that the lucrative oil well you were hoping to drill had just
dried up an hour before you got there. Then you had to swallow the disappointment
and plan your next move in accordance with how much it would cost to travel.
Was the game you’d heard about, far down the road, worth the hassle
and the expense?
Then came casino poker. That helped, because there was often a choice
of games in town. But many nights there was only one game of interest,
and some nights there weren’t any. So, imagine how I feel—having
expended most of my effort finding the right games, rather than enjoying
them—being able to sit down at my computer on a sleepless night
and find the best game in the world after a few mouse clicks.
What’s even greater is that online poker never sleeps. It’s
always prime time for poker somewhere in the world, and you can join those
games, even if nobody else is awake in your neighborhood.
Reason #2: Play Against Opponents You’d Seldom or Never Meet in
Person
The Internet has made the world so much smaller. It might not look like
it now, with all the political flare-ups and regional wars in the news,
but I believe that encountering people from far away places and striking
up instant friendships is bound to make the world more civil eventually.
You read about Internet romances that lead to marriage. Business associations
are formed that would have been physically improbable.
It’s a good thing. And one of the best effects of the Internet is
what’s happening to poker. Bit by bit, poker is becoming the world’s
common language of gaming. In a real sense, online poker is doing its
part to make the world better—as well as helping to showcase the
game.
A main virtue of online poker is that it makes games possible among eager
players who live so far apart that they’d seldom have a chance to
sit down together at a real-world table.
Reason #3: Take a Quick Five-Minute
Break to Play
Often you only have a half-hour or less to spare, sometimes as little
as five minutes. If you had the urge to play poker prior to online play,
there wasn’t anything you could do about it. There certainly wouldn’t
be time to sit down and be dealt in. Now, that’s all changed. Sometimes,
I’ll log into a game when I have just a few minutes to spare. I
might only play half a dozen hands at $100/$200 limit, but so what? Usually,
I wouldn’t play that small, because—for me—it’s
not worth the effort. But those are hefty limits by online standards,
where the majority of people play $15/$30 limits and often much smaller.
So, I play those few hands, and I can do the same thing again on my next
break. Those hands all add up, and so does the profit.
Reason #4: Great Practice for Those New To Poker
I’m betting one of the reasons that players didn’t flock to
the poker rooms in years past is that they just didn’t know what
to expect when they got there. That can be intimidating, stepping into
a real world game for the first time, not knowing how you’ll be
accepted by the other players. And for beginners, the anonymity of online
play gives timid people the courage to dive into the poker pond, whereas,
if it were a face-to-face game, they’d just never go near the water.
I believe many players will learn to excel at poker who might otherwise
never have played the game. It’s all because of the online poker
opportunity.
Reason #5: No Need to Dress Up or Groom
I got to thinking—there are times when you like to dress up and
times when you don’t. I try to look my best when I go to church
or go to a decent restaurant with my family. It makes me feel better about
myself.
But there are times when I’d rather be flat-out comfortable and
I don’t care if I’m dressed to impress. One of those times
is when I’m playing poker. Unless I’m being filmed, I’m
less choosey about what I wear to a poker game. Of course, I dress reasonably
well, even then, because I think some of the attire seen at the poker
tables is a downright disgrace and reflects poorly on our game. But, basically,
I don’t overdo it.
The truth is, though, if it weren’t for how others might view me,
I’d rather not bother about how I look when I play poker. And online
play gives me the opportunity to dress however I like. As many have noted,
you can play poker online in your pajamas and no one will care. Now, that’s
definitely a bonus you get only when playing poker by computer.
Reason #6: Heads-Up Challenges
If you like to play heads-up, online cardrooms are beginning to provide
previously unavailable opportunities. Have you ever wondered why there
are so few heads-up matches in real-world casinos? Surely, heads-up can’t
be that unpopular, because just the thought of a high-intensity one-on-one
game can make pulses race. And aren’t the final heads-up hands in
a tournament the most exciting to watch on television? Let me tell you,
having enjoyed a lot of experience in this situation, those final heads-up
hands are not just the most exciting to watch—they’re also
the most exciting to play!
So, why no heads-up? It’s because those games are not economical
for casinos. Each game takes up valuable real estate—a full table.
Worse, each game requires a dealer—who is hired to provide service
to up to ten players at a table—just to accommodate two customers.
But online, this all changes. It costs nothing to set up a new table for
two players, and online casinos don’t worry about you using up their
tables, because they can provide as many as they want at no cost. No tables
to purchase. No cardroom floor space limitations. But bigger than that
is the fact that online casinos don’t worry about paying dealers.
The cards are all shuffled and distributed by computer. There’s
no cost involved in dealing more cards or adding more. That’s one
reason why I believe you’re going to see a surge in heads-up play
online.
There’s another, darker reason why some players might choose heads-up
online. They fear collusion, because they’ve heard that opponents
might be on the phone sharing information about each other’s hands
in order to gang up on honest players. Now, while collusion is always
something to be alert to—whether you’re playing poker online
or in the real-world—the fact is that online poker has an advantage
in that there’s a database of every hand ever played. Each hand
you play is worth money, when you’re playing the way I advise in
this book, and twice the hands can mean up to twice the profit.
Real-world surveillance and game protection has also increased dramatically
in recent years, and I’m certain that, on average, poker is more
honest today than it’s been at any time in history. If you doubt
this, just look at the players who are regularly winning the major tournaments.
Often, these are unknown players—some rank amateurs. That, in itself,
is a testiment to the integrity of real-world poker today.
Still, for those who are so concerned that they don’t trust anyone
and don’t want to risk playing against multiple opponents they can’t
physically scrutinize, heads-up just might be the answer. One opponent
can’t collude. To me, that isn’t an issue. Online games can
be monitored in ways so sophisticated that they’d shock those who
aren’t technically savvy. While I enjoy shorthanded games and even
heads-up games, I’m very comfortable against multiple opponents
and sometimes prefer to play against a table full of opponents online.
Heads-up is often a war of egos. And only online can you sit in London
and play a hotly contested match against someone at home in bed with a
laptop computer in Australia.
Reason #7: More Hands Per Hour
When online poker first debuted in the late nineties, poker rooms actually
built in a delay to simulate the time it took to deal cards in the real
world. Boy, was that a mistake! It quickly became apparent that players
didn’t want the delays. The faster their cards arrived, the happier
they were. That’s why doylesroom.com and most other online rooms
have taken all the air out of dealing and shuffling. There is no delay.
You can play many more hands per hour online, about twice as many as you’d
play in the real world. That means you can make more money faster. Each
hand you play is worth money when you’re playing the way I advise
in this book, twice the hands can mean up to twice the profit.
Reason #8: Play Two or More Games at Once
You see some pretty weird things at poker. I’ve seen players hold
seats at adjoining tables and scurry back and forth, trying to play both
games for short periods of times. This usually happens when the player
has free hands remaining before the blind at one game and has been called
to a seat from the waiting list for another game. Needless to say, playing
two games at once in the real world doesn’t work well. It’s
physically impractical, and you’re almost certain to rudely delay
the play of a hand at one table, while completing action at another.
But online, it’s much simpler. You just click to enter a second,
third, or even more games. When it’s your turn to act, the software
notifies you, and you simply click on your decision to fold, call, check,
or raise. Since you don’t have to get out of your seat and physically
move to the other table, multiple game play becomes practical online.
Does this mean more profit for you? It can—if you’re good
enough. Try to remember, though, that you won’t be able to focus
as closely as you would on a single game. You’ll miss some of the
nuances and won’t be able to track your opponents’ tendencies
as readily. That means your average earnings per game are sure to suffer
when you play more than one. But when you add those slightly diminished
profits from multiple games together, you’ll probably find that
you’ll earn more total profit. Whether you do depends on your skills.
I recommend that you stick to just one game at first, because it can be
quite hectic concentrating on two or more at once. But as you get accustomed
to playing multiple games, you might find it exciting and rewarding. Certainly,
there’s no equivalent in real-world poker.
Reason #9: Pre-Select Buttons
One of the great inventions of online poker are the early action or pre-select
buttons. Since you aren’t being watched by other players, you can
decide what to do in advance of the action reaching you. In real-world
poker, pre-selecting wouldn’t be appropriate, because that would
let opponents who act before you know how you planned to respond.
The early action choices help speed up the play, and they’re especially
useful if you’re playing other games simultaneously. For instance,
when you know you’re going to fold, no matter what, you can just
click the fold button before the action gets to you and concentrate on
a different table, where you hold a more promising hand.
The pre-select choices change according to the action. Here’s an
example from Doyle’s Room:
Here I’m holding the seven and three of clubs on the left side
of the table. It’s a straight limit game, and I’m waiting
for Dr. Blueberry, at the bottom of the screen, to act. But, if you’re
in a situation like this, you don’t have to wait until it’s
your turn to make a decision. Look at the bottom of the screen. You can
click right now Fold, Call 5, Call any, Raise 5, or Raise any.
There is something I find useful about these pre-select buttons: they
can provide tells. Watch the speed with which someone acts. If a decision
is pre-selected, then it usually will occur instantly when the action
reaches that player. I say “usually,” because occasional lapses
in Internet communication can cause a delay. Most of the time this delay
won’t happen, and you can get some information because of opponents’
use of these special buttons.
The main thing I keep in my head is that when an action happens instantly,
it’s probably a result of a pre-selected action. Why would an opponent
pre-select? There’s only one reason I can think of. That opponent
knows that he’s going to take that action, no matter what anyone
else does in front of him. That puts an added emphasis to that opponent’s
decision, in my mind.
Although the screen shot you just looked at was for a situation where
someone had already bet, sometimes no one has bet. Then one of the pre-select
buttons will be to check. What if an opponent checks instantly? Chances
are, that player has determined in advance that he is going to check.
At Doyle’s Room, he may have selected either the Check/Fold button,
which is a very frequent choice, or the less likely Check/Call any button.
If Check/Fold is the choice, then I can assume that the instant check
means the player probably would have automatically folded if there had
been a bet. In that case, I give the player less credit for having a strong
hand.
Similarly, if an opponent raises instantly, I’m pretty sure he intended
to raise no matter what, and that usually indicates a very strong hand.
There are other tells you can divine from these pre-select buttons, when
you take the time to think about what an instant action means. If an opponent
seems to frequently use the pre-select buttons, but occasionally hesitates,
you can figure him for a type of hand where the decision is not obvious.
So, always consider what an instant action—or the lack of one—might
mean.
You can, of course, wait until the action reaches your seat. Here’s
a no-limit example of what your choices would look like then:
Reason #10: The Shuffle
Some players doubt whether the shuffle in online poker is as random as
in real-world games. In fact, online shuffles are instant and more random
than real-world shuffles. That’s
because any competent online cardroom knows the right
formulas to put into the software. They tell me that the science of simulating
random events, including card distribution, is very mature. I guess that
means that a lot of research has gone into it, and it’s impossible
for a human dealer to even come close in dealing cards with the same efficiency
or unpredictability.
Another impressive thing about computerized shuffling and dealing is that
you won’t have any misdeals. And you’ll never encounter one
of the common irritations of real-world poker, because no cards will be
inadvertently flashed.
Reason #11: Rakes Are Actually Less
At the higher limits I play, pots are seldom raked. Instead there’s
an hourly seat rental. But most everyday limits, $10/$20 and often higher,
are raked. If you’re looking for a bargain, you’ll find that
those rakes are a little less online.
Reason #12: No Tipping
It’s customary to tip the dealer when you win a pot. It’s
not mandatory, but most players do it. In a $5/$10 game, you might throw
a dollar the dealers way whenever you win a pot with any size to it. The
dealer’s make most of their income from these tips, because they’re
paid very low base wages. These dollars you tip add up, and you could
buy some nice Christmas presents at the end of the year if you didn’t
have to pay them. Well, online, you don’t. In fact, you can’t,
because there is no real dealer to appreciate or accept your gesture.
But I had a strange thought. Players being as superstitious as they are,
I’m wondering if Doyle’s Room should add an
optional Tip button. I believe so many players would choose to tip the
non-existing dealer that I might waive my endorsement fee and get rich
off those tips.
Reason #13: Poker Clock
In poker, an opponent can’t stall forever, whether it’s an
everyday game or a tournament.
Although it’s rare, you’ll sometimes see a player take a long
time before acting on a hand. Now, in no-limit play, this is
occasionally acceptable. Decisions can have extreme importance, and a
player needs time to think about the situation and study his opponent.
But even in no-limit, most players act more quickly than you’d expect.
It’s rare for them take a lot of time to ponder. And in limit games,
it’s downright rude to waste time over and over again when the action
gets to you. I believe, if you know you’re going to fold, then you
should usually just fold. Don’t make a show of it.
Sometimes players take so long that if you allowed them to stall forever,
the game would come to a halt. That’s why in real-world poker, you
can always ask to put the clock on an opponent. That gives him a set amount
of time to complete the decision. Failure to act constitutes a fold.
The problem with that system is you don’t want to be needlessly
rude to opponents. Maybe they really do need the time. Maybe they’re
losing and confused. Maybe they’re daring you to ask for the clock,
so they can be hostile in return. Who knows?
The good thing about online poker is that it takes away the awkwardness
of asking for the clock. If a player doesn’t click on a decision
button, after 10 seconds or so he’ll be prompted to do so. Some
sites provide a countdown clock. Doyle’s Room uses gentle chimes
to warn that you have 10 seconds left to act. What happens if you don’t
act online differs from cardroom to cardroom and situation to situation.
If you haven’t put any money in the pot, your hand will be folded.
If you have, you’ll usually be treated as if you’re all-in,
even though you still have chips in front of you. That means competing
for a partial pot.
Yes, unscrupulous players sometimes try to use the all-in feature unfairly
to their advantage. They’ll pretend to be having Internet communications
problems, not realizing that most sites can tell if they’re actually
still connected. Sometimes they’ll succeed in getting a free shot
at part of a pot, when they would otherwise have folded. That’s
why most sites only allow one or two artificial all-ins to be used per
session, beyond which hands are folded, no matter what. That’s also
why players who abuse the treat-as-all-in privilege are suspended or barred.
Despite this timed-out issue, which is hard to deal with and unique to
online poker, the presence of an automatic clock keeps the games moving
swiftly. It’s part of the reason why there are so many more hands
dealt to you each hour online.
Reason #14: With More Hands, Your
Results Will Even Out More Quickly
In most games of skill, the right decisions are quickly rewarded. In poker,
the right decisions can cause misery in the short term. If you’re
not prepared for the frustrations that go with quick changes in fate,
you don’t have the right temperament to be a professional poker
player.
Although superior players win in the long run, and you hardly ever hear
about any full-time pros having a losing year, it’s not hard to
spend weeks or even a month suffering a net loss. But the longer you play,
the more quickly that familiar law of probability takes hold, and the
closer your results get to what really should happen.
But even though we talk about chance taking time to even out, it really
doesn’t take a lot of time—it takes a lot of hands. What if
you could get all those hands played in a short time? Well, suddenly,
when you’re playing online, instead of in a physical casino, you’re
playing a lot more hands. The deals are amazingly brisk. The action is
swift. Expect to get twice as many hands played each hour. And that’s
if you only play at a single table. Many winning players regularly play
two or three games at once. That’s up to six times as many hands
per hour.
What does this mean in terms of a bad streak? It means that a streak that
would have droned on for six days will stop showering misery on you after
only one day. For certain, things will even out faster online. So, if
you’re a superior poker player, you can expect to win more consistently
on a week-to-week basis when you play online.
Reason #15: Tournaments on Demand
This is among online poker’s greatest advantages. You can play tournaments
day and night. You might see events scheduled for three in the morning—so,
if you happen to be awake, dive right in. Why so early in the morning?
Remember that poker is now a worldwide sport, and when it’s early
in the morning for you, it’s afternoon somewhere else.
But if tournaments scheduled around the clock aren’t enough for
you, try the unscheduled ones! There’s a fast-and-furious form of
tournament poker—the single-table shootout. You play down to one
winner, with second and third place finishers also receiving money. It’s
the same as those popular one-table satellites that annoyed me by drying
up the side action years ago at the major tournaments. The difference
online is that you’re playing for cash, not for a seat into a larger
tournament.
What you need to know about these tournaments is that there’s no
scheduled starting time. That’s why the popular name for them today
is Sit-and-Goes. You take a seat at the table (or put your name on the
list), and as soon as there’s a full table, the cards automatically
get dealt. You can put your name on other SNG lists and then play several
of these tournaments at a time. Usually, they take less than an hour—and
a typical player will last about 20 minutes, on average, sometimes being
eliminated almost immediately, sometimes surviving long enough to win.
You can play them all day if this is your favorite poker form. Just take
a seat or click to get on the list. In other words, sit. As soon as there’s
a full table, it’s time for the tournament to begin. A table often
fills in a matter of a minute or two. In other words, go.
Sit-and-goes can get to be a habit in a hurry—and a very profitable
one for accomplished players. The trick is to play a solid game, trying
to survive and share in one of the three payouts for first, second, and
third. As much as my temperament tells me to always go for first place,
this really isn’t the best strategy in these one-table shootouts,
where nobody keeps track of your “championships” anyway. It’s
better to play a more conservative game than you would in a regular ring
game. You should play a little more selectively, trying to survive until
there are just two players left, and then open up.
The same is true of all online tournaments where you play down to a few
players who share the prize money. You won’t have the same opportunities
to psychologically conquer opponents as you would in real-world games,
so the proven best choice is to play more solidly.
Reason #16: More Comfortable Than at a Crowded Table
I hate sitting elbow to elbow. I’m a big man—at least I was
until my recent gastric bypass surgery—and you can imagine how important
it has been throughout my poker career to have enough room to feel comfortable.
In the real world, I usually play shorthanded, but when I have to crowd
into a nine- or 10-hand game, as I do for tournaments, I’m always
wishing for more space. Online, I don’t worry about that. I can
play from a recliner with a keyboard in my lap, if I want to, and still
be at a full table.
Reason #17: Small-Limit Games That Are
Un-Economical in the Real World
In my mind, this is online poker’s greatest contribution to our
game. Most professionals don’t think of $2 and $4 games as meaningful
limits. But when you’re just starting out and on a small bankroll,
even the difference between a $50 win and a $50 loss can be important.
Those small limits can be uncomfortable for players just learning the
game.
I’ll bet it’s occurred to everyone who plays poker seriously
that it would be a great idea to have formal games for beginners where
you could bet just 10 cents. Those would be the training ground for those
neophytes who are too timid to risk meaningful money at poker. You’d
let new players get comfortable with the game, players who would otherwise
never experience the thrill of poker in a casino.
As I pointed out earlier, real-world casinos can’t afford to do
this, because of the costs involved in providing physical tables and paying
human dealers. But online poker rooms can and do make this great contribution
to our game.
Reason #18: Free Games for Practice
But why not take this advantage of being able to spread games economically
online a step further? Why not offer just-for-fun games for those who
aren’t ready to play poker for keeps?
Most online poker rooms do exactly that. They let players learn the mechanics
of the game by playing for imaginary money. And they charge nothing for
this promotional service to the poker community. Real-world casinos can’t
afford to do that.
Look closely at the game below. Notice that this Doyle’s Room game
says, “Play Money Table,” down toward the bottom of the cloth.
I wouldn’t be surprised if many successful real-world players, and
even future World Poker Tour and other champions, will launch their careers
on free online tables just like this one.
Reason #19: High Percentage of Real-World Tournament Players Who Qualified
Online
Yes, I was skeptical of the value of online poker a few years ago. So
were many of the people who managed real-world cardrooms. They were afraid
that online poker would siphon off their business more than it would help
bring in new players to their physical cardrooms.
That argument has been resolved. Today, it’s hard to find anyone
in the industry who doesn’t realize that online games have helped
in the resurgence of real-world poker. I meet players everyday at the
Bellagio, Commerce, and elsewhere who began by playing poker online.
And the one thing that proves the point most convincingly is the number
of players at the major tournaments who qualified online. For some, these
real-world tournaments constitute their first exposure to casino poker.
They like the adventure of playing against live opponents they actually
can shake hands with and speak to at the tables. And they enjoy trying
to read them and spot tells—something that isn’t possible
online.
Count the new players pouring into casino poker tournaments through online
channels, and you’ll be as convinced as I am that online poker has
helped greatly to bring our game into the public spotlight, giving it
the respect it always deserved, but never had.
Reason #20: Optional Four-Color Decks
I’ve got to confess, I’ve never been a fan of four-color decks.
With the traditional deck of cards I grew up with, hearts and diamonds
are both red, and spades and clubs are both black. They tell me that four-color
decks, with each suit having its own color, were tried over a hundred
years ago. Apparently, it wasn’t as economical to print them that
way, and two colors became the custom.
I prefer two-color decks, because that’s what I’m used to.
But, there’s obviously a strong argument for a four-color deck.
It makes it much easier to spot flushes and flush possibilities at a glance.
When Mike Caro publicly started making a big deal about changing to four-colors
ten years ago, I thought he was goofy. He tried unsuccessfully to introduce
four-color decks to real-world casinos, even going so far as promoting
a “C-Day” for Color Deck Day where this novelty was introduced
to sixty-five casinos simultaneously.
The effort fell flat, because poker players don’t like change and
because the differences in colors that he chose were too subtle to be
easily distinguished across the table. Old timers like me balked, while
many beginners liked the decks. It would have been nice if everyone could
play with the deck they preferred, but that was obviously impossible.
You had to choose one or the other, and the traditional two-color deck
continued to rule in real-world casinos.
Online, it’s different. You can play with the deck of your choice.
That’s because the deck you choose is only displayed on your own
computer screen. Your opponent can be looking at a different deck, and
it won’t make any difference to you. That’s why four-color
decks have gained a new lease on life online—and only online, so
far.
Reason #21: Software Lets You Know When It’s Your Turn
You’ve had this happen before. A player sits patiently, because
he doesn’t realize it’s his turn. You sit patiently, too,
because you don’t want to be rude while, you assume, he’s
making a decision. Yes, we’ve all seen this impasse time and again.
Online, this awkward moment never happens. The software prods players
for a decision, letting them know precisely when it’s time to act.
Reason #22: No Social Stigma About Leaving a Game Early with Your Winnings
I believe that a player should never need to provide a reason for leaving
a game. The common notion that you’re being unfair if you sit down
for a short time and leave with a big profit is nonsense. In poker, you
put your money at risk. If you win, it’s your money, and you can
get up and leave anytime you feel like it.
Still, this is sometimes hard to do in the real world. If you hit and
run too often, you’re apt to get a reputation as the type of player
some don’t like to play against. It never bothers me when players
win and leave quickly, but it does bother others. Personally, I usually
prefer to play longer sessions, but I don’t frown on those who’d
rather play short ones.
Online, you won’t encounter any resistance when you take the money
and run. Opponents realize that you might only have ten minutes to play
right then, and you can just click Leave Table and be out of the game
without fanfare or making excuses. In fact, players need to pay attention
to even notice who comes and goes in a game, because it happens so quickly
online. If you’re one of those players who likes to play short sessions
and leave with your winnings intact, online play is your kind of poker.
For the most part, nobody cares or even notices.
WHAT ADJUSTMENTS WILL YOU NEED TO MAKE ONLINE?
Finally, I’ll give you some basic advice about how to win online.
Almost everything in this book applies. Online poker is real poker.
Keep in mind how I advise playing against bad players, because you can
just assume most of the players you’ll confront online are bad.
Or at the very least, you’ll find yourself up against more unsophisticated
and too-loose players than you will in real-world casinos.
The trick to beating games against that type of player is to seldom do
anything fancy. You don’t need to. Most of your profit will come
from choosing to do the obviously correct thing. Raise when your logical
first choice is raising. Fold when your hands are weak. Bluff sparingly
in limit games. Against the type of player you meet online, you should
try a lot less tricks than you would in the real world.
Mike Caro and I are in the process of making instructional videos about
real-world poker and online poker. Some of these videos will be given
away at doylesroom.com exclusively. Many others will be available to the
public. We expect this project to do for poker videos what Super/System
did for poker literature.
Use all the professional techniques you’ve learned in this book,
but keep it simple whenever possible. That’s the purest path to
online poker profit.
|
