Author: T

One of the most fundamental issues for any online business is security – unless clients can trust that the software is providing them with complete security then they will be reluctant to engage in any online transaction, gambling or otherwise. Major online poker sites offer the same protection against hackers that banks do. At PartyPoker, for example, your playing cards, name, address, credit card details, password (and everything else that is transmitted to and from the cardroom) are protected from ‘packet-sniffers’ by the internationally accepted industry-standard SSLv3ffLSv1 encryption algorithm system. Furthermore, your own playing cards are sent exclusively to your computer – no-one else has access to your downcards.

Apart from providing customer security, the other main interface requirements of an online poker site are speed, reliability and an intuitive and attractive design. In the early days of online poker, games were often slow, with players experiencing frequent disconnection problems and having to cope with clunky, poorly designed, unfriendly interfaces. Thankfully, most (but not all) major sites nowadays offer their clients a fast, reliable and intuitive gaming experience. Incidentally, you may notice that sometimes when one site is experiencing Internet problems, several other sites also suffer downtime. There is nothing untoward about this – many poker sites have servers located in the same facility, so connection problems affecting one site are likely to be affecting other sites as well.

Although UltimateBet is one of the only sites to offer its clients the choice of two entirely different interfaces (Standard View and the innovative and attractive MiniView™), most sites do offer drop-down menus to enable you to adapt some elements of the interface to your desire. For example, you may find that for some sites the speed of your connection is improved if you remove the ‘animation’ features using the tabs in the lobby. In addition, some players (myself included) prefer to utilise the ‘four-colour deck’ option where this choice is available. This may enable you to identify the suits quicker and more accurately, especially if you are playing multiple tables and need to be able to distinguish the suits of the cards at a very brief glance.

Nearly all online sites have been designed primarily for the Windows environment. However, Apple Macintosh and Linux users can either choose to play at a site such as Pokerroom.com, where no download is required, or invest in an emulator program such as VirtualPC for Macintosh, which will enable them to access any online site.

Nowadays every major poker site provides the facility for players to chat with one another. Most players enjoy making conversation from time to time, since it helps reduce the isolation of playing online, adding a social element to the game that online poker would otherwise lack. Sometimes players use the chat boxes to praise or berate opponents, sometimes to help iron out any issues that may have arisen at the table, and other times just to catch up with friends whom they have met through the cardroom. Of course, it is forbidden for anyone to use the chat function to even hint at what their hole cards are or advise other players on how they should play a hand that is in progress!

Very often players use common abbreviations when they are chatting to save typing time, the most common of which are:

 
It has already been mentioned that some of the best opportunities in online play arise when all the other players at the table are chatting to one another, enjoying the camaraderie of the game instead of focusing properly on the game itself. If everyone is relaxed and having a good time, it is much more likely that the game will be played in the kind of gambling spirit that you are looking for in a game – everyone playing looser than they normally would and the bad players staying at the table even if they are losing money. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself at such a table, then it is not at all in your interests to jeopardise the spirit of the game – if you don’t wish to participate in the banter yourself, that’s fine, but if you want everyone to keep playing in the same fashion, then it is better to hold your peace rather than to say anything that may cause a change in the atmosphere of the game.

By the same token, you should avoid criticising another player for playing a hand badly – by embarrassing another player in public you will either cause them to leave with their bankroll still intact, or more likely encourage them to pay more attention to the game, tightening up, playing better and perhaps learning some valuable lessons for the future. As the saying goes ‘Don’t tap on the glass!’

It is sometimes argued that the best way to part a bad player from their money is to try and set them on tilt by verbally attacking them. However, this is a somewhat short-sighted strategy – if you come across a player who really is that clueless, they are probably easy to beat anyhow. Surely you want them in your game on a regular basis? Why spoil their gambling experience and cause them to go elsewhere in future?

Occasionally you will have the misfortune to find yourself at a table where a player is ranting and raving, and possibly even being extremely abusive to other players. Invariably that player is on tilt, steaming through their bankroll. In these circumstances there are three non-exclusive courses of action:
•    You owe it to yourself (and all the other polite players at the table) to play your best game against the abusive player, helping to relieve him of his bankroll and sending him off with his tail between his legs. Don’t get involved in an argument with him and allow his bad behaviour to put you on tilt!
•    Just as in a brick and mortar cardroom where you can report abuse to the dealer or floorperson, so you can report chat abuse to the online poker room’s customer support team, who will often relieve abusive players of their chat privileges for a designated period. If you file a legitimate complaint and the cardroom fails to act, this may tell you everything you need to know about whether or not you should be providing that particular site with your future business.
•    Finally, you can always switch off the chat feature if you wish, although this is rather an unsatisfactory solution if you like to use the chat yourself or enjoy trying to gain clues about the other players through their chat messages.

It is important to remember that in Internet poker you are completely anonymous. No-one knows anything about you except your online name, and what they may or may not have been able to glean from the way you play your cards. As soon as you start to chat you risk giving away information about yourself, which other players may be able to use in forming strategies to beat you. For example, if you moan about a couple of bad beats, the sharks may identify you as a frustrated and mediocre player, and start regarding you as a target of their upcoming play. Players who mark themselves as potential victims are inevitably likely to be victimised.

If you do enjoy chatting then it might be worth considering using an online handle which sounds approachable – if you use a name such as Andrew73 other players may be more inclined to chat with you than if you call yourself something like hgtmvshmr.

Most sites now offer the facility to take notes on other players, which are then stored on your computer and can be retrieved the next time you run into them at the tables. You can write whatever you like in these private notes – what kinds of hands the player is showing down, what their pre-flop raising (and calling) standards are like, whether they are aggressive or passive, tight or loose, whether or not they always defend their blinds, whether or not they always launch an attack on other people’s blinds when they are first in from late position, whether or not they are prone to going on tilt after a bad beat, whether or not they are capable of running big bluffs etc.

When an unfamiliar new player enters a hold’ em game it is often worth noting whether they wait for the big blind (or let it pass and then post next to the button) or post at the first available opportunity, even if they are shortly due for the big blind anyhow. In the latter instance, it may be that they are an ‘action’ player, impatient to start gambling.

If you do not wish to take detailed notes, it is still worth recording who the big winners and losers were at the table, so that over time you can develop a feel for who the best and worst players are at the limit you play, and can subsequently select your opponents accordingly.

For Paradise Poker, PokerStars and PartyPoker, you can actually edit your notes when you are not actually online – simply open up the ‘Notes’ text file in the local directory in which your online site is stored and all your data should be there. It may be as well to take a backup copy of this file before you make any changes, so that you don’t lose it if something goes wrong. Of course, if you change computers this text file can be copied across to your new machine to save you having to start from scratch all over again. (N.B. At Paradise Poker the file is called ‘Player Notes’ rather than ‘Notes’.)

Online note-taking facilities are not available at every site (and are not portable from site to site), so some players prefer to store their notes either handwritten in a notebook, or on their PC in a wordprocessing document or spreadsheet. Of course, the latter approach has the important advantage that it is easier to store and sort your notes. If you wish to keep notes in this format then you may choose to layout your notes in the following columns:
•    The player’s name.
•    The player’s location (most sites provide this information nowadays).
•    The date.
•    The type of game and limit at which you encountered the player.
•    An approximate rating for that player (on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10).
•    An indication of their general starting hand requirements and pre-flop style – Loose? Tight? Passive? Aggressive? (You could even add specific examples to help jog your memory.) What kinds of hands did they steal and defend blinds with?
•    An indication of their post-flop style of play. What kinds of hands did they bet or raise? Top pair with good kicker? Top pair with bad kicker? Bottom pair? Flush/straight draws? Outright bluffs?
•    Any other points of interest. For example: Did they vary their play? Did they go on tilt after a bad beat? Did they trap with very big hands? Did they reveal anything about their playing style in any chat messages? Were they playing at more than one table? Do they regularly play at a different limit to today’s game? etc.

It is sometimes argued that unless you are playing at limits of, say, $10/$20 or above, note-taking can hardly be worthwhile, since below that limit there are so many players that you will not run into them often enough to justify the time invested. However, others believe that note-taking is an important skill which you should constantly try to develop as you progress through the limits. Furthermore, it will encourage you to focus properly on your opponents’ play, whereas otherwise your attention might be diverted away from the game. Even at lower limits, you will find that from time to time your notes on another player will help steer you towards the right path in a tricky situation. If nothing else you may wish to keep a notepad by your PC listing the best players whom you have faced; and the ones whom you figure might form part of your ‘dream-team’ of potential opponents!
At the end of each session you should also strongly consider taking notes on yourself! Typically this might take the form of a wordprocessing or spreadsheet document and include the following information:
– The date
– The length of the playing session (measured either in minutes, hands played or both).
– The site at which you played (assuming that you have accounts at two or more sites).
– The form in which the game was played (assuming that you play more than one form of poker).
– The limit at which the game was played (or the buy-in level in the case of a tournament).
– The amount won or lost.

You may also like to keep a note of how many flops you saw, the percentage of games you won and other such statistics, if this information is provided by the site at which you play. Once you have built up a series of such records, you should be able to develop a good feel for the type of games in which you fare best, which will greatly assist your game selection in future.

In a recent edition of Online Poker News, Andrew Glazer even recommended taking notes on specific plays you make that save or lose you money, and adding these up at the end of the session to see what these plays have earned or cost you. That way, if you keep making the same mistakes from one session to the next, the cost of these should be plain to see!

Another important means whereby you can analyse your own play is through hand histories.