We all know that playing poker online you need to have the internet and the money necessary to fund your game. After setting these two requirements, you can continue your steps to play poker online. Below are some of the basic differences that you should be aware of when playing online poker.

Stepping Out of the Casino Mentality

Although they  both offer run-of-the-mill poker, the  online  poker environment is far different from the  brick-and-mortar world surroundings. You need to give up what  you know and  love about

playing  in the  casino and  hunker down  by yourself, in the  corner, with your  computer. Besides your  physical surroundings, you experience other differences too  . . . like when  you want idnpoker to actually play, you have  to first download a poker site’s  software. Next you have  to realize that looking  for tells  is a bit different, because your opponent may be sitting somewhere across the  planet rather than across the  table in front  of you. And if you’re  still desiring a bigger challenge, don’t worry:  You also have  to deal with bigger bets online.

Playing poker on the download

To get up and running in the  online  world, you need a poker client (a program that runs on your  computer) that you download from the poker Web site of your  choice. When you play, your  client talks  to a poker server on your  site.  The server acts partially as a communication mechanism between you and the  other players. When you make any action (call, raise, bet,  fold, sit down  at the  table, and so on), your  client passes that information to the  server, which relays the  action to all your  opponents. When your  opponents make an action, your  site’s  server relays the  information back  to you.

We talk about how to pick a quality site  in another article. Downloading and installing software is super easy.

Looking for tells online

The most obvious difference between the  physical and  the  online world is that you don’t  have  another player glaring  at you from across the  table. The lack of player presence directs your  focus  to the  game,  whereas before you may have  split  your  time between looking  at your  opponent and  the  cards in play.

But being  alone doesn’t mean that you play in a world devoid of tells  and  clues about another player’s bluff (or worse, when  he tries to sucker you in with a killer hand). It just  means that the clues you want  to keep  track of and  watch for are different. You can try to learn the  psychological aspect of “reading” online  players in more detail.

Experiencing poker in the pure

Experience shows that, in many  ways,  Internet poker is a purer form of the  game.  The decisions you make tend to be more positional than in the  brick-and-mortar world. Where  you sit in relation to betting around the  table and  the  number of chips you have  relative to the  other players (especially in tournament play)  hold bigger roles.

In the  online  world, you see  bigger betting (pushing all-in in no- limit games for example), largely  because you come across more novice players and  the  stakes can be lower  (so players don’t  have as much to lose). You also  see  a little less  folding (especially in low buy-in, no-limit  games) than in the  brick-and-mortar world.

Your pal, the rake

We do know of one way that the online world is identical to brick-and-mortar casinos: the way they make money, namely through the rake. The rake is a small percentage of every pot that the poker sites take (usually 5 percent, but sometimes as high as 10 percent). They typically cap the rake at $3.

The rake is a good moneymaking mechanism for the house, because  losers don’t care where their money goes,  and a winner doesn’t mind scooping a $97 pot rather than one worth $100. But the erosion  is real and unavoidable.

For tournaments, sites charge  a registration fee, usually 10 percent of the tourney buy-in, that goes directly to the site. A $10 single-table tournament costs  you $11 ($10 plus a $1 entry fee).

A few sites have a no-flop, no-drop policy.  If the site’s  Hold ’Em or Omaha players never see a flop, it doesn’t take a rake. Other sites don’t rake any pot less than one dollar, which is nice for micro-limit games. To find out about a site’s rake rules, look at the help or about section  of its Web site.

You don’t have a way to reduce  the rakes directly, but by taking advantage of sign-up bonuses and “bonus bonuses”, you can certainly help reduce  their sting.

Turbo tournaments sometimes cut the registration fee slightly. A $25 tourney may only have a $2 fee, rather than $2.50, and over the long run you can use every penny of your savings.