You love to play poker online, but it’s getting expensive. You understand the rules of the game and have a firm grasp of strategy. You may even be a consistently winning player in live games, but can’t make it work online. Why is the Internet beating you at a game you can beat? Here are a couple of possibilities as to what is hurting your online poker games.
You never know when the poker session is over
It is said that you should think of your poker play as one long session, but the reality is that most of us consider each trip to the card room as its own distinct session. We show up, play for five or however many hours, and then leave. Once we get back in the car or back to our hotel room, the poker session is over, and we will show up for the next session refreshed and ready to play. However, nowhere the one long poker session concept is more true than when playing online poker. You can log on to a poker site and play for five minutes, or play for 15 hours straight without the poker site closing. As soon as you get done with a Texas Hold em tournament, you can jump into an Omaha poker game. When you are killing a few small poker games online, you can shift right into a big game and play poker at another level. This ease of play is a benefit to online poker, but can also be a danger. Your online poker sessions should be treated just like your live ones. Play for only as long as you feel focused and alert. If you’re tired, sick, or not able to concentrate, log off the poker site for the day.
The outside keeps coming in
In a live poker game, it’s OK if you are stimulated by what is going on around you, because it’s all poker going on around you. In an Internet poker game, it’s your life that’s going on around you, which can include screaming kids, a demanding spouse, phone calls, television and myriad other distractions of everyday existence. You may not even realize how much these outside influences are affecting your play. Move the computer to a private, quiet room and try playing uninterrupted for a few hours. You might be surprised at how positively this affects your results.
If you’re not winning at live poker either, or if you have isolated yourself from distractions and have distinct playing sessions and are still losing consistently on the different poker sites you play at, you may need to analyze other aspects of your poker game. For most Internet players, however, following the suggestions above can dramatically improve their online poker results. If you are not able to do both of the above things, you may want to consider focusing on live poker.
