A basic introduction to online poker

The ins and outs of online poker

To get started at online poker, there is very little that you require. You don’t need a big bankroll to play. You can, in fact, start playing online poker for free on a number of sites. Once you feel confident enough, you can make a deposit. As little as £50 can last you a long time.

What you need to keep in mind though, is to not exhaust your bankroll in one go. Try to limit yourself to £1 tournaments until you have accumulated a bit of money. There are also poker cash games which allow you to play for much less than that. There are always plenty of ways to save money to secure longer gameplay.

Various poker games on offer

There are many poker games available out there, and each version comes with its own betting, bluffing and hand values that differ between one game and another. The most popular of these games is Texas No Limit Hold’em.

In Texas Hold’em, you are provided with two cards and your aim is to try to combine them with five community cards to create the best possible hand. It is a fairly easy game to learn, but it can take some time to master.

Different poker tournaments on offer

In order to join a poker tournament, you must pay your buy-in to secure yourself a stack of chips. Once you run out of poker chips, you are officially out of the tournament. The player declared winner is the one that collects all the chips.

What makes poker tournaments incredibly popular, is the fact that they are a cheap way to enter a tournament with the added opportunity to win a big prize. There are plenty of online poker tournaments running all the time so the prospect is there.

Let’s briefly discuss the various poker tournaments on offer.

Sit & Go poker tournaments

Sit & Go tournaments are smaller tournaments that only kick off when there are enough players seated at the table. These tournaments are available all the time, due to the fact that they are much shorter than multi-table tournaments. However, the rewards are also smaller than other tournaments.

Cash Games

If poker tournaments are all about luxury and prestige, then cash games are where the money is made. Not only do they train you to play online poker overall, but the prizes are also quite big provided that the blinds are high enough.

Improving at online poker

Since there is quite a bit of information about online poker: From hand rankings to hand strengths and the advantage of position, we have created separate guides for these. One thing you need to keep in mind though is that nothing is quite as easy as understanding which hands and plays boost your bankroll, just quite like learning basic poker strategy.

Here are some tips on how to improve your game:

Bag more value from big poker hands

Always aim to get the best value from your big hands. This means that you need to win as many chips as possible when you make a big poker hand. Some poker players might get dismayed and think they won’t get paid from a big hand and instead work towards keeping their opponents in the pot by betting less. This ultimately leads to a deprived value from big hands which also means less profit.

Apply your logic

One of the things we’ll keep banging on about is to always play logically and not emotionally. Emotions tend to flare up in poker and while it makes a game slightly more interesting, it can also lead you to make bad decisions and affect your poker game play in general.

Practice, practice, practice

Just like with other games, the best advice we can provide is to play as much poker as possible. Experience can hone your poker skills as the more you play, the more likely you are to improve your game and to learn from mistakes.

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