How to lose a lot of money online (a tactical warning!)

[Jezza]

Bluffing. It is 95% of time a BAD play online. This is from the calling factor online which is a lot different from rl poker. Basically when playing on the net you will tend to find people call your bets more. This is due to a number of factors. Firstly a lot of newbies like to try out poker for the first time on the net rather than in real life. This is understandable as it is not nearly as intimidating or confusing to play poker for the first time on the net as it is in a casino with a lot of old timers. However people new to poker tend to overvalue their hands and are far far more likely to call you if you try to bluff on the end. There is also the removal of the value of money effect. When you gamble in a casino you are given chips instead of cash....This helps you forget you are gambling with real money and tends to make people slightly more reckless with their hard earned. On net poker your money is not only converted into chips but its converted into cyber chips on your screen which are just a bunch of numbers. It's in effect an abstraction of an abstraction. This makes it even more likely people will forget its actually real money they are playing with and do the whole "oh fcuk it lets call" thing - shooting down what you thought was a good bluff! It's so easy just to click the call button on a screen rather than get your hard earned out of your wallet. This is all not forgetting the misclick factor (or even the drunken fanny factor :lol ). But basically it all adds up to if you bet online there is a HIGH chance you will be called. Now I am not saying you should totally disgard the bluff from your plays online (although I am saying it has a lot lower revelance to playing poker on the net than in rl) but you must be very careful about when you do it. Be sure the player you are bluffing is 1) GOOD and 2) Scared about what you now hold. If you bluff on the net you will be leaking a hole in your money... Jez

[dave]

Re: How to lose a lot of money online (a tactical warning!) And obviously the lower the limits, the worse the play is.