|
With the recent explosion in the success
of online players at major tournaments, everyone seems to want to get in
on the online action. Purely online players, such as Chris Moneymaker have
challenged the best live players and acquitted themselves very well. Well,
I assure you that live and online Poker are two VERY different games, so
with that as a starting premise, let’s have a look at the basic
differences between the two and what they will mean to your game.
By far
the biggest and most important difference between the two forms of the
game is the lack of interaction at the table; with no live presence, it
can often be far more difficult to read an opponent’s hand strength.
Without your opponent’s presence and the accompanying tells that presence
inevitably produces, you have far less tools with which to evaluate the
strength of their hand. Conversely, they have fewer tools available to
evaluate yours; depending on your style of play, this may be beneficial to
you. For example, an aggressive player who prefers to play his opponents
hands to his own, such as Gus Hansen, would probably not be as successful
as a pure online player. By contrast, a mathematician who plays the
numbers and is more of a fundamentals player, like Howard Lederer, would
probably do just fine as an online player. For most beginners, online play
is likely to be more forgiving for the first hands of Poker because their
ability to read, and their ability to control the information they send to
opponents is not developed yet.
The psychology of the game manifests itself in a number of ways, and
these ways are largely unavailable to you when playing through a computer
screen; whereas when sitting at a table, you could gauge facial
expression, breathing, voice, reluctance, and a multitude of other
indices, these are unavailable. Does that mean you can’t read an online
opponent? No it doesn’t, but the means to this end are limited. This puts
a premium on the tools you do have, so make sure you use them; for
example, an opponent’s time spent deciding on a call can be a great
indication in some situations. Another very powerful tool you have in
online play is the history bar, which allows you to see exactly which
cards and plays provoked which bets from your opponents- if you learn to
read this properly it can be incredibly useful. You also have the benefit
of outside assistance, something you couldn’t have at the table, like a
pot odds calculator.
Keeping in mind the differences between the two games, I would suggest
that a beginner would have less trouble against a skilled opponent in an
online forum; however having said that the top players will always win-
one way or the other. While there can never be a real substitute for
sitting down at a real table with a pile of actual chips, the true value
of online play lies in it’s accessibility- you can play hundreds of hands
a day at your leisure without ever leaving your home.
|
