Most people don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking before they make the decision to play online poker. After all, once you get the urge to hit the felt, why sit around over-analyzing everything? However, the reality is that you can actually benefit quite a bit by doing some thinking prior to playing real money online poker. That said, here’s a quick look at the top five basic things players should know about the game.
1. Online Poker is a Variance Roller Coaster
The biggest aspect that beginning poker players need to understand is how much variance is involved with the game. Sure skilled players will win over the long-term, but in the short-term, you’ll experience a lot of highs and lows with poker. Taking this into account, it’s important to remain focused during a win streak and realize that you don’t have the game solved – even though your results indicate otherwise. During downswings, stay strong and keep trying to make correct plays.
2. You probably won’t be a Winner Immediately
Like pretty much anything, online poker often rewards experienced players who have spent time improving their game. And while it’s possible for a beginner to jump in and win a big tournament right away due to variance, it’s also not very realistic to expect something like this to happen. So temper your expectations in the beginning and realize that there are quite a few players who’ve been at poker longer than you.
3. Know Terms and Conditions for Signup Bonuses
Before you even think about making a deposit at an online poker site, you should know the terms and conditions for the signup bonus. When you understand the terms, you’ll have a better knowledge of what you need to do to earn your bonus. Using the Carbon Poker bonus as an example, you need to collect 75 VIP points to unlock every $1 of the reward. The bonus offer here is 100% up to $600, so if you deposited $100, you’d need a total of 7,500 VIP points for the entire bonus. Seeing as how you earn 10 points for every $1 in cash game/tournament rake, the 7,500 amount isn’t as tough as it seems.
4. Never stop trying to improve
It’s no accident that the top poker players continually win massive profits over their career. The reason why these players excel is because they never stop improving their game and are always learning poker strategy. As a total beginner, it’s a long road towards becoming a great player; however, those who never stop watching poker training videos, reviewing sessions, and using all the tools available to them are bound to eventually become good.
5. Success requires a Large Sample Size
Some players think they’re either winners or losers after just 100 poker tournaments and/or 1,000 cash game hands. But the reality is that neither of these numbers comes even close to being a large enough sample size to determine success or failure. You won’t really know how good you are until having played at least 20,000 cash game hands and/or 500 tournaments at specific stakes. As you can see, it definitely takes time to know how good you are in online poker.
