We are barely seven years into the new millennium but the pace at which poker has grown in that seven years has been nothing short of staggering. The numbers of people who are trying their hand at the game for the first time is growing and growing. The two biggest reasons for the rise in the popularity of poker is increased television coverage coupled with the birth of the Internet and in particular online poker.
Now, unlike in the past, it is a simple case of someone having a personal computer with Internet access in order for them to be able to play poker. Playing poker in the past involved actually going to a casino card room or setting up a game in your own home. This was not always easy for people with work and family commitments and many people who had the desire to play the game never really got the chance.
Sometimes, things can come too easy!
But along came the Internet and suddenly it is a totally different ball game. But the reality of the situation is that every coin has a flip side and the flip side to this scenario is that it is the sheer ease of being able to play poker that contributes to so many people losing money.
Having to physically transport yourself to a casino (sometimes many miles away from home) does indeed indicate a certain level of commitment and perseverance. These are two qualities that are sorely needed in order to reach a level where you are playing the game very well. What this means is that there are vast numbers of players who simply do not have the skills to beat the game who are in fact playing poker simply because it is frighteningly easy to do so.
Many people who have played poker in home games and been successful have tried online poker and failed. Because of their initial success at the game, they then perceive internet poker to be crooked and filled with charlatans. Their belief fuelled even further when they hear of some small time online casino folding and taking a handful of their customers money with them.
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But there is serious credibility now with online poker that simply was not there at the outset of it in the late nineties so one cannot use the old “crooked casino” excuse to account for losses. For many people, failure in the online environment is attributable to the rake. Millions of people who have only ever played poker in private home games are now having to pay to play poker for the very first time.
Poker is like business, imagine for a minute how many more successful business people that there would be in the world if there were no such thing as business expenses. It is the sheer cost of doing business for many people that leads to that business failing and poker is no different.
Suddenly it is not enough to win at poker, you now have to win an amount above your expenses and in some cases these can be considerable. This means that it is insufficient to be better than your opponents, you now have to be substantially better. I always think that poker is rather like sex….for the male population anyway in so much as everyone thinks that they are great at it without having seen any proof whatsoever that this is in fact the case.
Whenever you play poker online, you always have to remember that apart from what is happening on that tiny screen just inches away from your face, your environment is almost totally non-poker. If it was a real poker environment then you wouldn’t be having to endure such things as the kids playing around you or having conversations with your wife or noises from the television or people telephoning to speak to you and so on. All this leads to distraction if you are not careful and considerable loss of money.
Most people lose at poker…..period!
Another major factor regarding why people lose money online is because most people lose at poker full stop. The difference is that whenever you play in a public card room or at home then losses do not necessarily get logged the way that they do online. Few people keep records in poker and it is easy for people to deceive themselves into believing that they are actually doing better than they really are.
You simply do not have that same luxury online as the poker site and credit card company are going to be hitting you in the face with your results and losses so there is now no doubt whatsoever that you are in fact actually losing money.
But the sheer act of actually losing money in poker can take an awful long time for it to take effect. The overwhelming majority of players who are playing the game today would be shocked to discover just how long those losing streaks can be and also winning streaks for that matter. There are countless number of players who having taken the game up have done very well at the outset and some have even turned professional after a great initial run.
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But this is precisely why turning pro and packing in the day job can turn out into a horrible mistake when you do this on the back of a good run of cards. The problem lies in the fact that players do not realise what is a good run from a bad one simply because they do not understand standard deviation. This is the term that mathematicians use to describe the variance that is inherent within the game.
Even the Pro’s have it rough!
Top professional players can and do go for many months losing at poker. If this statement shocks you then it has at least served a very useful purpose. There are two factors that determine success at poker, money won and time played. Just because you have been playing poker for three months and are ahead by $100,000 then do not think that you have the game cracked…far from it.
If that money came from a couple of big tournament wins then you are still very much in the short term. On the flip side, don’t try to impress me by saying that you have played poker for twenty years or that you have beaten up on your home game because that will not qualify you for success online either.
If you play full ring game Limit Hold’em and play for 40 hours a week then it is perfectly possible to go as long as 1400 hours and only break even. If you take into account the accelerated pace of Internet play then a player who wins at a rate of one big bet per hour in live play could still go around 700 hours online and still only break even.
Can you actually beat the online game?
This leads us onto another interesting point, namely the difference between live play and online play. Surely poker is poker wherever it is played right…..wrong! It is a big mistake to blindly assume that just because you are successful in B&M full ring Limit Hold’em for instance that you will automatically transfer that success to the online environment despite playing the same game.
Perhaps you can be successful in both and many top players are but the fact remains that many live players have come unstuck trying to replicate their earn rates online and the opposite is also true of course. There are many skills that a live player could possess that would be redundant in online poker. If a player is great at reading other players and is a master of gamesmanship and other shady practices then it is perfectly possible for them to be a successful pro despite having numerous technical flaws in their game.
So before you consider taking the plunge into playing online poker or poker full stop, it is well worth asking yourself some very serious questions before you start. Stopping and taking a serious reality check regarding your abilities and winning potential may just be the best thing that you have ever done.
This article has been reproduced with permission by Carl ‘The Dean’ Sampson. Carl, a professional Online Poker Player writes for Poker Pro Europe, World Poker Tour and Online Poker Pro as well as being the author of 2 paperback books! You can visit Carl at http://202203.sharkpool.hop.clickbank.net/
