Can you really beat online poker part two

Suddenly it is not enough to win at poker, you now have to win an amount above your expenses and in some cases these can be considerable. This means that it is insufficient to be better than your opponents, you now have to be substantially better. I always think that poker is rather like driving….for the male population anyway in so much as everyone thinks that they are great at it without having seen any proof whatsoever that this is in fact the case.

Whenever you play poker online, you always have to remember that apart from what is happening on that tiny screen just inches away from your face, your environment is almost totally non-poker. If it was a real poker environment then you wouldn’t be having to endure such things as the kids playing around you or having conversations with your wife or noises from the television or people telephoning to speak to you and so on. All this leads to distraction if you are not careful and considerable loss of money.

Another major factor regarding why people lose money online is because most people lose at poker full stop. The difference is that whenever you play in a public card room or at home then losses do not necessarily get logged the way that they do online. Few people keep records in poker and it is easy for people to deceive themselves into believing that they are actually doing better than they really are.

You simply do not have that same luxury online as the poker site and credit card company are going to be hitting you in the face with your results and losses so there is now no doubt whatsoever that you are in fact actually losing money.

But the sheer act of actually losing money in poker can take an awful long time for it to take effect. The overwhelming majority of players who are playing the game today would be shocked to discover just how long those losing streaks can be and also winning streaks for that matter. There are countless number of players who having taken the game up have done very well at the outset and some have even turned professional after a great initial run.

But this is precisely why turning pro and packing in the day job can turn out into a horrible mistake when you do this on the back of a good run of cards. The problem lies in the fact that players do not realise what is a good run from a bad one simply because they do not understand standard deviation. This is the term that mathematicians use to describe the variance that is inherent within the game.

Top professional players can and do go for many months losing at poker. If this statement shocks you then it has at least served a very useful purpose. There are two factors that determine success at poker, money won and time played. Look out for part three of this series coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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