Online Poker Strategy Considerations
In order to get better at online poker, the first thing you need to do is understand the nature of the game. The basic theorem behind successful poker strategy says that you have to play every hand as if you knew what your opponents had in their pockets.
Every time you succeed in doing this, you gain value, every time you don’t, you give-up value.
Certainly, you won’t be able to play exactly like that unless you cheat (like some guy did a little while ago in one of the top poker rooms), but you can make it your goal to achieve the next best thing.
Playing mostly positive mathematical expectation situations is what you should go for. What is mathematical expectation?
Let’s see an example. Let’s say I bet you $1 on a coin-flip, against your $1. You do agree that if we were to do this for two weeks without stopping, at the end of it we’d both still have our $1, without having gained or lost anything, right?
That’s because the mathematical expectation on the above named bet is 0. The coin-flip itself, (the object of the bet) is a 50-50 event, and so are the sums involved in the bet. If we were to play it differently though, like I would bet $1 on the coin-flip against your $2, the situation would be different.
The bet is still a 50-50 one, but you’d be laying the odds, and that would be reflected in the mathematical expectation. Out of every two bets, (on average, of course) I’d win one and lose one. When I win, I’d take $2 from you, when I lose, I’d give you $1. There’s a difference of $1 there which is my profit on every pair of bets we make.
That makes for a $0.5 mathematical expectation per bet for me. This way, depending on how many flips we play per hour, I’d be able to relieve you of a lot of money in a relatively short period of time.
The more such bets we play per hour, the better my hourly rate (another fundamental poker concept) will be. You’d be playing with negative expected value, which is exactly what happens when you play roulette, slots, blackjack and other casino games.
This is why poker is not gambling, but much more of a skill-game. In the long-run, only the EV+ matters (that’s what casinos make their money on too) and exploiting EV+ is a matter of skill, not luck.
To put it another way: whenever you play negative EV situations, you lose a little. Whenever you play positive EV ones, you win a little, regardless of whether you win or lose on any particular hand. This way, sometimes you lose even when you win and vice-versa.
In order to give yourself the chance to let the EV+ work for you, you need first hand knowledge of another thing: Poker Bankroll Management.
While this has little to do with how you play your poker hands (rakeback has little to do with it too, yet it’s a giant edge regardless), it has everything to do with your becoming a long term winner.
A proper bankroll will buy enough time for your positive mathematical expectation to produce visible results. There is variance in poker, and sometimes you may bust out even while playing only EV+. The bankroll is your safety cushion against this sort of situations. It will tide you through the variance, and let your edges work for you.
As you can see, some of the most important elements of poker strategy are not even directly related to play. There are countless edges that you can exploit even before you take a seat at the table. Table selection is one such edge, and so is poker rakeback.
They’ll both boost your game, so you simply cannot afford to leave them unexploited. You do understand now that winning poker is not at all as glamorous as you first believed, don’t you?
It’s a lot like a job: putting in the hours, staying disciplined enough to act on EV+ only (or most of the time), and perfecting your edges in order to increase your hourly rate. This is what it all comes down to.
Play craps online and the best blackjack games at www.eblackjack.com
Other Great Gambling Sites:blackjack
