10 Tips for Winning at Online Poker

Top 10 Tips for Winning at Online Poker

9Share Specifically, this information relates to the game of Online Texas Hold'em. Bear in mind that this is more for the beginner and not the advanced skill levels.

Concentrate your table position and strong starting hands

This is a common rule and one that should be adhered to if one is to become a successful online poker player. This is due to the fact that most online players are involved in way to many pots and see way too many flops, mainly with marginal to weak starting hands. It is permissible to play marginal hands in late position when there is no action in front of you. The way to beat these super-loose online players is to just tighten up and wait for the right cards at the right time so you can felt someone.

Avoid playing too loose online

Again, this goes back to tightening up your play against these super-loose online players. In the long-run you, as a tighter more disciplined player, will be more successful and take down more pots. These loose-as-a-goose players try to see way too many pots, maybe because of the low limits, maybe because of the action. Whatever the reason, tighten up your play and take down those pots.

Practice reading the flop

Since the speed of online play is part of its allure, poker games move at a much faster pace. Being able to immediately scan a flop and determine the "nuts" or best possible hand, is imperative. Does the flop have a possible straight or flush draw? Who may have hit the flop? More importantly, who missed the flop all together? McEvoy recommends sitting out a few rounds the first time you start a game or new table session to get a feel for the style of play you're up against.

Adjust to the speed of the online game

This one is pretty self explanatory, but important still. In a Brick & Mortar casino a player can expect to see around 30 hands an hour. This number can be expected to easily hit 50 hands per hour in an online casino and one must be able to adjust to the faster pace. There are several reasons for this, first, the online "dealer" is much faster than a live dealer in a casino. Second, there is a time clock that immediatelt begins to run as soon as the action is on you which causes an annoying beep when you have delayed too long. If a decision isn't made 10-20 seconds after this period, the players hand is automatically folded and play continues. There is a way around this however, a player may request an additional period of time when faced with a very tough situation such as an all-in call. This feature is available on most poker websites.

Take notes when you play

This one, in my opinion, is a biggie. On most sites there is a little "notes" box that you can click on and jot down small titbits of information along and along during a game. An example of this would be keeping a list of hands that a particular player shows down. Another example would be to keep track of your own play so that you can review it at a later time and fine-tune your play. Also, when playing online at a particular site, one will notice that at certain limits and in certain rooms, it is common to see the same players so keeping track of their betting patterns and what hands they show down is extremely helpful. To this I would add: there are a few great programs out there that auto track lots of information, one must just be certain not to become dependent on this software and use it strictly as a supplement.

Look for tells

While tells are typically reserved for live games, there is information one can garner from other players online. When you flop a pair and check from first position, if the table checks all the way around rapidly, it denotes the use of the automatic-check button, which can usually signify weakness. Also, when a player takes a fair amount of time before bringing his hand in for a raise, be sure to keep track of that hand at the showdown, so next time you have a better idea of what he might be holding when he pauses before coming in for a raise.

Play smaller tournaments first

The reasons for this are many, but mainly to gain confidence at the lower levels if you are able to dominate them. Playing in these small buy-in tournaments, one can receive a ton of experience for just a little bit of cash, with incentive to win some pretty decent prizes if you make it to the end.

Schedule your tournament play

There are so many tournaments online, scheduling them and remembering which ones you have scheduled is difficult. Also when scheduling, remember to leave your schedule open so that you can be assured sufficient time to finish a tournament that you start rather than having to watch the clock.

Don't play poker to escape other things

Don't play when you are in the midst of an argument or to avoid doing something that is weighing on your mind. You cannot, and will not play your best game if you are preoccupied with something else. If you must play when preoccupied, do so at a lower limit table so that you can handle the swings in your bankroll without really being affected by them.

Don't put more cash in your online account than you can afford to lose

This is a bankroll management tip, but very important nonetheless. This is an often ignored rule strictly because we as humans, tend to chase our losses or move up in limits to recoup a loss at a lower limit game more quickly. Always remember to quit when your situation has deteriorated to the point where you are "on tilt" or making bad decisions. Chasing cards, making bad calls, or playing inferior hands. In short, don't use the grocery money to gamble with, and when your allotted gambling money is gone, don't throw good money (not planned for gambling) after it.

Bankroll Management

Bankroll management seems to be an issue a lot of people struggle with and want to know more about. The thing is, it's easy to learn the rules of bankroll management, but it's hard to have the discipline to stay within the rules. So I'm going to lay out my simple rules for bankroll management for micro-stakes players, and I promise if you follow these rules you should never have to deposit money again! The rules are different for those who like cash games and those who play tournaments. Both sets of rules are easy to follow and are not too strict or conservative. Some will even say they are not conservative enough! Also, as you move up in stakes you will likely find a level of play where you really struggle or where the play just gets much better. At those points I would highly recommend tightening your bankroll requirements even further to give yourself a little breathing room.

mtt tips

Early Stage MTT Strategy

The early stage of a multi-table tournament includes the first 1-5 blind levels or until the antes come into play.  Learning which starting hands to play in the early stages of a poker tournament is 70% of the battle in my opinion.  Once you get this right you’re more or less ahead of 90% of the field in micro-stakes tournaments against players who either play too loosely or too nitty and TAG. Below you’ll find some articles pointing you into the right direction to determine which starting hands to stick to.

Early Stage MTT Starting Hand Ranges:
 Poker Tournament Starting Hands Part I
 Poker Tournament Starting Hands Part II

In the early stages of multi-table tournaments you need to be super tight and you should only be calling to see the flop with 10-15%  of the hands your dealt.  If you’re using a poker hud then a VPIP%/PRF% of around 15/10 seems about right.  Especially from early position such as the blinds and UTG you should only be opening premium hands such as AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ, and high pockets.   

The correct way to play marginal hands (low pockets pairs and suited connectors) depends entirely on your position at the table.  From late position, marginal hands like these become profitable to limp or even open-raise with because there are less opponents left to act and the chances of getting re-raised are much slimmer.  Remember that in the early stages of a tournament you’re almost certain to get re-raised by an opponent with AQ+ on a 10-man table, hence you should only be playing hands that you can afford to call raises with.  By limping in LP, you also have a positional advantage on the flop, turn and river. You’ll able to see what your opponent does before you make your move and you can cbet or float-play him profitably in position.  If you did this out of position then these moves would be considerably less EV  would leave you in a more vulnerable position on later streets.  Basically, in all games of poker the earlier your position at the table the tighter your hand selection needs to be.  For example, JJ can be played in mid-late position in MTTs, but I’m going to fold it often when I’m sitting in EP facing a re-raiser.

Entering pots outside this hand range means you’re playing too loose and falling into the biggest mistake new players make. When you play too many marginal hands out of position you’ll start to find that the blinds will quickly eat away at your stack.  You also won’t have the stack size needed (around 40BBs) going into the middle stages where effective stacks and fold equity becomes important for stealing pots and getting the right fold equity for bullying nitty small stacks. You can open up your hand range slightly on a tight table (average VPIP% of less than 10% using tournament indicator) but you should never be playing worse hands then J10 offsuit in the early stages. 

In terms of set-mining, I’ll happily limp from early position in the middle stages of a tournament because the tiny blinds and deep stacks (average stack of 100BBs) gives you the implied odds for hitting your set. You can even call a raise with low pocket pairs because there’s little danger of running into trouble on a missed flop: it’s a simple raise/fold situation.

New players also tend to enter pots too loosely from the blinds, calling open-raises from BB with trashy hands like K7.  This is silly because there is literally zero chance of beating an opponent at showdown and you’ll almost always be beaten with a better kicker. You should only be flat-calling from the blinds if you’ve got a drawing hand or a premium hand you want to limp-shove/trap with, though  I strongly suggest reading blind-defending for a better understanding of playing from the blinds.

Even new players reading this should successfully get through the earlier stages of a tournament.  It’s all very basic ABC stuff, and you shouldn’t get into many difficult post-flop situations by sticking to a tight starting hand selection.   The early stage is literally just about playing your top hands from position and conserving your chip stack for the middle stages.   A lot of agro-maniac and nit players will be busting out in the early stages too, which gives extra rewards to slow-playing.

Never Call Preflop with Rag Aces

A Rag ace hand (Ace hands with low kickers such as A5 or A7) are the devil’s advocate and one of the most unprofiable hands that you can play with in the early stages of an MTT.  The problem is that rag aces are dominated post-flop by better kickers, and if you start raising or calling pre-flop with a hand like A7 than you’re almost guaranteed to be behind and looking at trouble.  When you enter a pot with A7, you’re basically hoping to make either top two pair or a set with your kicker to take down the pot.  The odds of this happening are around 15%, hence neither of these gives you pot odds or implied odds to play the hand.  Rag ace hands are also terrible hands to limp with pre-flop because they’re both poor absolute hands and have limited potential to improve.  What I mean by this i that in reality you’re far better playing a pre-flop hand like 6-7 off suit because while A7 has more equity pre-flop, 6-7 off suit has the potential to make pairs, two pairs, sets or even straights that have bigger implied odds and are great for setting up monster traps against loose agressive players.

Playing Pocket Pairs & Suited Connectors in Late Position

Playing small pocket pairs and suited connectors in late position can be profitable however knowing when it’s +EV to do so is important. To play marginal hands these hands in late or middle position in the early stages you need to get the right implied odds, which normally requires at LEAST 4 other players in the hand.  You’ll hit a set on the flop with pocket pairs about 11% of the time so if you need to calculte the right implied/pot odds to play these hands.  Playing pocket pairs in mid and late position is also effective in tournaments because it’s an easy fold if you miss.

Don’t Steal/Defend the Blinds

In the first 5-6 levels of a poker tournament there is no need to steal, bluff or over-commit to defending your blinds.  They simply don’t provide enough value to bluff in this stage of the tournament – I’m not personally bothered about risking my chip stack with some junk hand just to win an extra 30 chips.  To put it in perspective, they will only be worth around 1% of your stack here, howevever as this number increases to 5% in the middle stages they become very important to steal/defend.