When you are playing on-line afapoker there are not so many details that you need to worry about. That is, you can’t lose your bankroll, you can’t get kicked out, and you can’t get diagnosed with a rare disease. Unfortunately, most of us are human beings and we get emotional when we lose a pot that we thought was ours.
Whenever you start out playing poker, you want to purchase your bankroll from the cheapest place possible. For example, if you start at 50 big blinds, you want to wait for your pocket cards to come down and you can grow your bankroll by using that to your advantage.
What should you do with your bankroll as it grows? You should always keep to a plan and try to play a limit every other time you are dealt a hand. That way, you will never get too tightly invested in a hand because you are attached to it in a way that you never want to be.
For example, you start with 50 big blinds and you move up to 100 big blinds every time you are dealt a hand. That way, when you hit a long losing streak, you still have enough in your stack to continue. You don’t want to lose your stack to a cold table, so you should always maintain the 80% goal or more.
When you are playing cash games, you should never bet your whole bankroll in one hand. If you are following the 80% rule, that would mean you had to take a shot at the higher limit once every four or five sessions. You could do this, but you should always bet a percentage of your bankroll in every hand.
For instance, if you have 150 and the blinds are 20/40, you should never bet all of 150 in one session. Instead, spread it out in small increments of about 10 buyins. This will ensure that you never go broke with a single hand, but if you go broke with four hands, you bust. Therefore, you should never bet the whole amount in one session.
This is a simple example of betting because it is the easiest. You can also bet a little more, like 20 buying, when you hit a hot streak. The important thing to remember is that you should never bet more than you can afford to lose. If you are on a losing streak, never continue gambling. If you can’t afford to lose that much, don’t gamble.
However, you also need to know when to bluff. When you are not too confident in your hand, you can bluff. For example, if you have AA and the flop is Qh, Js, 3s. There is a lot of straight and flush draws, so you may want to bet the opponent more than you would normally bet.
When you lose, and especially if there are several callers, you might want to bluff. You don’t want to bluff when you have already shown that you are willing to bluff, but when you are playing tight to protect your hand, it may be a good idea to try to steal the blinds.
Online poker is a little bit different than live poker. When you are playing online poker, you don’t see the facial expression or hand gestures of your opponents. You just have to feel the cards and make decisions. If you are good enough, you can win money in online poker, but it is hard to make a living. However, with the skills you can learn and lots of time to practice, you can make a lot of money in live online poker as well.