In current years internet based poker and particularly the Hold’em variant of the game has come to dominate our television sets. I’m often asked to comment on the differences in play involving web based poker and real world rooms which I look to set out in this article.
1. Speed of on-line poker wager on is roughly twice that of traditional poker play. The amount of hands per hour in a land poker site would be circa thirty per hour at very best, perhaps as low as twenty. Typical web-based poker game would see fifty to sixty hands per hour, and anything as much as one hundred twenty per hour for short handed "Turbo" play.
2. Rake collected by a web-based poker room is going to be 5 % or less of each pot whereas brick and mortar rooms might be 10 percent or even higher. In this regard web-based play is the superior value option. A few countries, such as the Great Britain have laws against the taking of rake. Instead they either charge by the hour or by the tournament. This may be the reason that Caribbean Poker is favoured over Texas hold’em in traditional gambling houses in the UK.
3. The high quality of gambler identified in an on-line poker site will generally be lower than that in land based rooms. There are lots of reasons for this except to actually go to a land based smoky area sitting down at a table of 10 takes an element of confidence that you don’t require in a web based poker environment. Land based players are typically superior in that they usually understand the game prior to wagering it. By way of contrast your average internet poker newbie has just watched the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel or ESPN. The only exceptions to this that I’ve discovered occur in Sin City where you obtain the full variety of extremes from holiday makers attempting their hand with the best in the world.
Four. Net poker players can pick and pick the time of day they wager on as they can bet on 24 hrs a day, five days a week and do so from the comfort of their own home. Real world gamblers must plan ahead and obtain to the venue at the due starting time.
Five. Internet based poker gamblers have far more option, in the quantity and selection of games to select from, ranging from absolutely free wager on to cash games to tournaments of all sizes. If you want to win a seat at the upcoming 2006 WSOP, then you have to be looking towards on-line poker tournaments exactly where a far greater array of options await such as satellite entries from as little as $5.
6. Poker Tells in between web based and brick and mortar poker play are really different. Land based players spend more time observing body language and voice tells through opponent questioning than they do observing time delays in between wagers and wager size relative to the possible odds of larger hands. Net Poker Tells have extra to complete with timing, wager size, and table position instead of the judgement of facial expression.
Seven. Poker etiquette is more disciplined in brick and mortar poker rooms. The on line poker experience can usually be spoiled by drunken fools who believe they have Phil Ivey’s skill level even though they clearly don’t. Catch a lucky card in a web-based poker site and you may possibly come across your self on the end of a few verbal abuse (via the typed chat system). Phrases such as "you are an idiot" and worse wouldn’t be tolerated in a traditional home but go largely unchecked internet based. You often have the alternative to turn off gambler chat except my preferred playing style is always to goad the offending player into wagering on tilt (usually a basic thing to complete). One recourse you do have against abuse is to report the player to the pit boss and they might be either banned from chat or thrown out of the room altogether.
Eight. Internet poker gives you the unique capability to play extra than one space at a time. Clearly this is not an choice open to traditional players. I know of individuals who wager on as much as six tables simultaneously.
As you can see both environments have the prospective for a really very good casino game of poker. Various experiences to suit different player needs. Personally I don’t have a preference between the two. I worth the convenience of web based wager on, except still get pleasure from the interaction of a live room.