There is probably no greater expert in the science of tells than Mike Caro. Caro, a long-time professional player, author and lecturer on poker theory, dedicated himself in large part to a better comprehension of the human animal and its behavior when attempting to deceive. The result was ‘The Book of Tells’, considered by most live pros to be one of the holiest tomes in learning the nuances of the game.

It’s Caro’s primary contention that when trying to deceive, people will instinctually go overboard in pushing the other envelope. In poker, this pattern of behavior can be summed up by six telling words: Read the rest of this entry »

Figuring out your odds of winning a given pot is the single most important calculation in poker. Basically if the percentage chance of you winning a particular pot is greater than the percentage of a pot your bet equates to, you are going to win a lot of money playing online poker.

There you go, you just figured out how to play winning online poker. Of course, this is a pretty simple calculation when you flop a strong, made hand; top pair or three of a kind is likely to be in the lead, so make your bets. Figuring out when the math is good (or ‘when you have the best of it’) despite being behind in the hand is a little trickier.

Let’s do a sample hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Poker has been around a lot longer than the Internet and so playing poker from your computer rather

than traditional live game is still rather new. But online poker has given players new options and comes with some benefits over the live game let’s have a look

The math plays

Understanding the odds is an important part of becoming a successful online poker player. It helps you determine when you’re likely to be ahead in the hand and whether it’s worth continuing to put your money into a pot. For new players, the fastest way to accelerate their success is to learn the math of the game. In live games, the math is often blurred by ‘reads’, insight to an opponent’s actions based on their behavior at the table. In online poker, reads seldom come into play, so understanding the math becomes a larger part of the game. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve seen some poker on TV and it looks easy. You shove your chips in the middle, then wait for Mike Sexton or Norman Chad to hand you a million dollars in cash. After that extensive preparation, you sit down at your computer to play some online poker for the first time and, surprise surprise, the game isn’t quite as easy as it looks on TV. Instead of winning the million dollars, you lose your ass. Welcome to online poker. With very few exceptions, novice online poker players are losing online poker players. Read the rest of this entry »