When you sit down at an online poker table, it is important to remember that it is just that, an online poker table – the card skills you may have learnt playing in live-action games will remain the bedrock of your game, but they need to be fine-tuned. Online poker is very much still poker, but it is poker in a very distinct form. The online poker room is a completely different environment to a home or brick and mortar cardroom game, and your success or failure at the tables will be determined as much by how well you adapt to this environment, as by whether you have the skills to beat a live-action game. Poker forums and newsgroups are littered with stories of live-action players who have come unstuck online, having failed to adjust to the peculiarities of this form of the game and left their hard-earned bankrolls in the hands of the online specialists. Fundamentally, success in online poker is more dependent on the cards you hold, your ability to make fast, accurate decisions and your own self-discipline, whereas in liveaction poker, people-reading skills are relatively much more important.