Online poker you may play anytime you want — 24/7 365. You can play it as a whole comfort, right from your own home, wearing what ever you like (or nothing at all), sitting, reclining, or jogging on a treadmill (even though we do not recommend it). You can set the lighting, temperature, and ambience to be just as you like it. In lots of ways, with online poker you simply have more control.
You have no other people to contend with (at least not face-to-face) — no one hovering over you, talking at you, pushing you, crowding around you, giving you unsought advice, or shooting you nasty looks. You do not have to smell smoke should you not want to. You’ve got no sexy waitresses tempting you with mind-altering drinks and otherwise distracting your attention away from the game at hand (pun completely intended). You should not have to drive anywhere (and with fuel prices what they can be, that alone preserves your bankroll tremendously), nor do have to get dressed up or tip your dealer — all of which save you money and time.
Another advantage of online poker is that you can play against people from throughout the world. Consider it next time you sit down at an online poker table — not everyone there even speaks the same language. And globetrotting over the internet gives you access to more casinos and poker rooms than you may ever find in one single place, even if that one place happens to be Vegas!
Online poker players get to select from an inordinate number of cardrooms, game types, and table stakes. Moments ago, we mentioned the ambience of the environment where you certainly will be sitting down with your computer to play online poker (probably your home), but online poker gives you almost just as much control in determining the ambience of the cardroom itself.
Whether you enjoy an Old West setting, a Hollywood setting, an Egyptian setting, a jungle setting, a resort setting, and on as well as on…you can more than likely find an online poker room designed around what ever theme suits your tastes. Likewise, you may find rooms more more likely to have more (or less) experienced players, faster (or slower) action, higher (or lower) stakes, etc.
Through the same token, on the flip side, when playing online poker additionally, it helps to be aware of its perceived disadvantages as compared with playing traditional “offline” poker. A simple awareness of the real difference alone could make you a far better player.
For one, you don’t get that intimate, face to face contact with other human beings. But don’t rule online poker out as a social outlet altogether. A growing number of online poker rooms are fostering a real sense of community amongst their players with attractive and appealing member’s clubs, player forums, and sponsored land-based events.
For some poker players, the game just is not the same without the feel of the cards in your hands and also the weight of the chips when you place them in the center of the table (or the sound of them clinking while you pull the pile towards you after a big win). And you can’t substitute a number, however large or small, for the visual impact of the chip stacks — red, blue, and white — increasing or receding in front of you and expect the same effect.
But probably the largest deal that makes some offline poker players leery of playing safe online casino (click this link here now) poker will be the inability to read the additional players. Most expert poker players rely upon inadvertent visual cues given by their opponents — tells — as to the specific strength or weakness of their hands. There is one thing to be said for the total amount of information you can glean simply by looking your opponent in the eyes (thus the prevalence of sunglasses at the poker table) and watching their hands, their posture, their facial expressions, etc. Fortunately, however, there are a variety of tells you may look for in online poker as well, you just have to know where (and just how) to look. But that is a subject for another article.
