PLAYING
IN CYBERSPACE: THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF ONLINE POKER
by: Lou Krieger©
Playing poker in real time against real opponents æ
whether for play money or real money æ in an environment
where a virtual table, player icons that represent you and
your opponents, and algorithms that randomly shuffle the
"cards," might just represent poker’s brave
new world. It’s a world where you can find a game day
or night. Though it may be the wee hours of the morning
in Midwest Standard Time, it’s prime time in Europe,
and someone, somewhere, sometime of the day or night is
looking to play a little poker.
Judging by the number of sites where poker can be played
online, the market is growing by leaps and bounds. One night
recently, I went online and visited Paradise Poker, the
largest of the online poker sites. More than 2,500 players
were there involved in as wide a variety of games as you
might imagine. In fact, with more than two thousand players,
Paradise is the world’s largest poker room, dwarfing
the world’s largest traditional poker palace, Southern
California’s Commerce Casino.
Online poker is the real thing, too. While play money games
don’t usually really replicate how poker is played in
casinos – after all, if you’re not playing for
real money you’re going to play a lot more hands than
you would if you had to wager your hard-earned dough on them
– when you play online for real money the experience
is very similar to playing in a real casino. You may be curled
up at home in front of your computer, but it’s still
poker, just poker with a difference.
Nevertheless, the technology manifests itself is any number
of ways. For example, at a real poker table many players have
"tells," imperceptible hand, eye, body, or other
telltale signs that can give the observant, astute player
some clue as to whether their opponent’s wager represents
a powerhouse hand or an audacious bluff. But when you’re
playing online, you can’t look your opponent in the eye,
and computer icons don’t give off tells. Or do they?
Even online, astute players are able to build a "book"
on their opponents. One can glean a lot about opponents merely
by taking notice of how often a particular opponent is in
there mixing it up with the cards he’s dealt, and what
kinds of hands he shows down at the finish.
Poker, which has always been America’s game, is fast
becoming a world game. Like baseball and basketball æ
poker is now a worldwide phenomenon. You’re as likely
to find a game in Australia, Vienna, or London as you are
in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, or Atlantic City. And now, courtesy
of the Internet, you don’t have to visit London or
Los Angeles to play poker against left-coasters or Euros,
all you have to do is let your fingers do the walking.
If you visit one of those cyberspace card casinos that’s
no further away than a couple of mouse clicks on your computer
æ you won’t find all of those bizarre home games
you and your cronies may have conjured up during your Tuesday
night game, but you will find 7-card stud, Texas hold’em,
and Omaha hold’em games on tap. And you’ll find
them at a variety of betting limits æ there’s
something for everyone æ so you can play within your
means, have fun, and if you play with skill and discipline,
you might even find yourself winning a little, or even a
lot, if the fates are with you too.
But even if you’re an old hand at casino poker, the
procedures and etiquette is likely to take as much getting
used to as the game itself. One of the unique features about
playing online is that some of the issues that occur in
a brick and mortar casino æ like people who don’t
play in turn æ are ameliorated by the technology of
online poker. Some of the "angle-shooting" found
in live games doesn’t exist online simply because the
technology that underpins the game precludes it.
In a brick and mortar casino it’s unfortunate but true
that you’ll find a few players who willfully flaunt
all of poker’s unwritten rules, as well as a few of
the written ones too. These players are regarded by their
peers as boorish at best, or "angle-shooters"
at worst, but online they aren’t able to overcome some
of the technological constraints on boorish behavior.
ACTING IN TURN
Acting in turn is common poker etiquette. If someone bets
and you plan to fold, poker etiquette requires that you
wait until it is your turn to act before doing so, because
acting out of turn can give a big advantage to one of your
opponents. If he knows you will fold your hand it’s
easier for him to bluff, and unfair to the rest of the players.
In poker, as in most of life, it’s considered polite
to wait your turn. And when you’re playing online,
the software won’t allow you to do anything until it
is your turn to act. You may by dying to toss your cards
into the muck a little too early, but try as you may, you
won’t be able to do so until the action comes ‘round
to you.
On the other hand, when it is your turn to act, no one’s
got a gun to your head demanding that you act right now.
Many players are slow to act in online games, and this is
frustrating to the majority of players who want a quick,
efficient game. Why does this happen? There are lots of
reasons.
Maybe your opponent has disappeared into the kitchen to
make a sandwich, or left the table momentarily to tend to
a child, but much of the time it happens because your opponents
is playing in two or more games simultaneously. If you check
other games you might find your adversary playing there
too. He or she may even be playing at two or more different
sites simultaneously. Multitasking poker players have to
flip back and forth between games in order to play in two
or more of them at once. While each player has a certain
time limit to act on his or her hand, the fact that they
take an overly long time, and do so frequently, is simply
boorish behavior, and we’d suggest that you not do
this.
KEEPING YOUR CARDS IN PLAIN SIGHT
In a brick and mortar casino you’ve learned the importance
of keeping your cards on the table and in plain sight during
a hand, and that the best way to look at the cards you’ve
been dealt is to shield them with your hands while lifting
a corner of each card to peek at it. In some forms of poker,
like 7-card stud, you also have to look at your opponents’
cards in order to get a fix on whether the cards you need
to complete your hand are available to you.
If you’re located at the far end of the table from
an opponent it’s often difficult to clearly see all
the cards at the other end, particularly if the lighting
is less than ideal. But when you’re playing online,
none of this is ever a problem. Your cards are face up so
you can always refer to them, and in a stud game, your opponents’
exposed cards are easily viewed too æ that is, until
they fold their hand. Online poker is a boon for those players
who may be visually impaired. As long as you can read your
computer screen, you’ll never have any difficulty seeing
all the cards that are in view.
DISCUSSING HANDS IN PLAY
During WW II people used to say, "Loose lips sink ships,"
and they can still sink poker hands. But poker is a game
based on social interaction and each site has a chat window
where players can type short messages æ it’s
like Instant Messaging on AOL æ but poker’s basic
"one player per hand" rule forbids providing information
about a hand that’s still being contested. If you do
communicate about a hand that’s in play, someone is
sure to complain, and the host site you’re playing
on will remove your chat privileges for some specified period
of time, or ban you altogether if this is something you’ve
done before.
TURN YOUR HAND FACE UP AT THE SHOWDOWN
If you’re not sure whether you have the best hand or
not in a brick and mortar casino, the correct thing to do
at the end of a hand is to turn your cards face up and allow
the dealer to read your hand. Online, the computer will
determine the best hand, award the side pots if there are
any, and never overlook a hand. This means that the best
hand shown down will never be overlooked, even in Omaha/8
games, where it sometimes happens in traditional casinos;
and you can be sure that the best hand wins in a showdown.
TABLE STAKES
"Table Stakes" means that you cannot add chips
or money to the amount in front of you during the play of
the hand. If you run out of money during a hand, you are
said to be all-in, and can contest only the portion of the
pot that your bets cover. If there are other opponents who
still have chips in front of them, they will be betting
into a "side pot" that does not involve you. But
you will be eligible for the main pot.
To get more money for the next hand, you will either have
to visit the "cashier" screen, or if you brought
a larger amount of money to the table but have not put it
all in play, all you usually have to do is click over the
dealer’s tray icon and a dialogue box will come up
asking if you want to put more money in play. When it does,
you can go ahead and click yourself some more chips that
will be available to you for the next hand.
PLAYING IN AN ONLINE CASINO
Online poker differs from casino poker and there are many
reasons to play while comfortably ensconced in front of
your computer. First, and probably foremost, there is always
a game and never a commute. You’ll generally have a
choice of games, and most of them are available twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week.
Online casinos provide security to ensure that games are
run squarely. Although players can collude while playing
online, sites provide "cardroom managers," whose
job it is to review hand histories when allegations of cheating
or collusion are made. Unlike a brick and mortar casino
where once a hand is folded it’s gone forever, every
hand dealt online remains in the host site’s database,
so patterns can be analyzed and the site can take action
whenever things just don’t appear to be kosher.
In a brick and mortar casino, you might find yourself walking
around with large sums of money, and that can sometimes
be unsettling. But online, you’re money has been electronically
deposited with the host site and is safe. Of course, there’s
no ATM handy if you run through your bankroll, but that’s
a problem that can easily be prevented with a bit of foresight
and planning.
Just as it is in a brick and mortar casino, there’s
never any pressure to stay. Nobody minds if you quit the
game a winner and someone else is usually waiting for your
seat. You do, however, have to pay to play. It costs more
to play online than it does in home poker games — where
all you have to do is split the cost of food and drinks
æ but it costs less than playing in a traditional
casino.
FIVE GOOD REASONS TO PLAY POKER ONLINE
If you’ve never played poker online, and are thinking
about giving it a shot, here are some reasons why.
There’s always a game and never a commute, any time
æ day or night. It’s a big world and someone,
somewhere is always looking for a game of poker.
They are safe. A database full of hand histories make
it easy for a site to research allegations of collusion,
and there’s never any need to walk around with large
sums of money. ¸ There’s no pressure to stay.
You can play when and where you please, for as long as
you like.
Chat windows provide a social aspect to even the toughest
of games: Rich, poor, young, old, people of every nationality,
race, color, and creed æ everyone plays poker.
Become skilled at the game and you have a hobby that pays.
Most hobbies cost money, but many people earn money playing
poker. You can too.
AVOID
MAKING A STRING-RAISE
Calling a bet in a traditional casino, then reaching back
for more chips and announcing a raise is called a string
raise, and is not permitted. The rule against a string-raise
rule prevents players from reading the reactions their opponents,
then deciding to raise if they think they’ve got the
best of it. But when you play online this is a non-issue,
because if you decide to raise the software will calculate
the correct amount of the bet. And if you decided to call,
there’s no way to change your mind in midstream. However,
if you’re playing online in a pot-limit or no-limit
game, where the size of bets and raises can vary, you will
find a device that lets you determine the size of your wager
or raise at the time you make it.
AUTOPOSTING
One of the coolest features about playing online is that
you can autopost simply by clicking on a box that affords
you this opportunity. When you do this, you are essentially
telling the software to post your blinds automatically whenever
it is your turn in the small and big blinds. Thus you do
not ever hold up the game. If you’ve played in brick
and mortar casinos, the dealer is invariably asking players
to please post their blinds, but by autoposting you’ll
never delay the game through an inadvertent oversight.
And if autoposting isn’t cool enough, you can also
declare advance actions during a hand in much the same way.
You can tell the computer to call all bets this hand, or
to call all bets and raises æ you get the idea æ
so you can run out to the kitchen and cut yourself a slice
of pizza while that software is busily carrying out your
actions and raising the pot.
DECKS AND DEALING
Dealers æ and decks æ are generally rotated
every half-hour in traditional casinos. In addition, some
players are prone to holler, "Deck change," because
they are unhappy with their run of cards. This is silly,
because the cards don’t know whether you are winning
or not, and even if they did, why would they care? These
are never issues online, since the cards and the dealers
are mere icons, and the shuffle is the result of a random
number generating algorithm that always provides a fair
shuffle.
HOW TO GET IN A GAME
When you enter a cardroom, you may see a white board full
of players' initials. These initials are listed under games
that are available. For example, if you walk into a large
casino you might find seven players ahead of you waiting
for a $2-$4 Omaha game. Just give your initials to the board
attendant and indicate the games you want to be listed for.
You might say: "My initials are ABC. Put me up for
the $2-$4, $3-$6, and $4-$8 Omaha high-low split games."
Playing online is very similar. You enter a playing site
at its lobby, and your screen will display the games and
limits that are currently available. If there is a seat
that’s free at a table you’re interested in, just
click on it and you’ll be taken to a screen showing
the game in progress. You can lurk for a while, or you can
just jump into the game by clicking in the appropriate spot.
Remember to click your way over to the cashier in order
to have some money in hand to play with.
If the game you’re interested in is full, you’ll
see a waiting list and you can add your name to it. When
you’ve worked your way up to the top of the list and
a seat becomes available, you should be "pinged"
so that even if you’re in another game, you’ll
be able to click your way to the game your interested in.
If a seat is free, click on it to reserve it for yourself.
Then you can return to your original game and click yourself
out. Fair warning, though; most sites don’t hold on
to seats too long, so when you have an opportunity to play
in a game you’ve been waitlisted for, you’ll need
to be quick to make a decision about whether you really
want to jump into that game or not. Our advice is to take
the seat. You can always sit out a hand or two by clicking
that choice on the game screen æ and even leave if
you don’t like the game æ and you can do this
while still holding onto your seat in the other game you
were playing.
BUYING CHIPS
Just as in a brick and mortar casino, each game online has
a minimum buy-in. Buying chips online is a simple procedure.
You can go to the cashier and take an amount of money equal
or greater than the minimum buy-in for the game you’re
interested in. If you bring more money, you can buy in for
a greater amount of simply buy in for the minimum sand click
yourself additional funds, generally by clicking over the
dealer’s tray icon anytime you feel yourself running
short.
GETTING USED TO THE MECHANICS OF ONLINE POKER
The first few times you play online, getting used to the
game’s pace might startle you. But after becoming familiar
with the environment, you'll find your skill level is right
up there with your opponents. Most recreational players
want to have fun and that's it. Though many of them have
been playing poker for years, they simply repeat and reinforce
the same errors they’ve been making for decades, and
if you take your poker seriously, you’ll soon be beating
them regularly, and you’ll be doing it in your PJs
too.
Note: Lou’s latest book, coauthored
by Kathy Watterson, is entitled, "Internet Poker: How
To Play and Beat Online Poker Games," and is available
via a few simple mouseclicks right here. [Shawn: Put a link
right here so someone can order the book directly from ConJelCo]
