Poker Tips from Jake

Today, a friend of mine asked about the difference between playing with money and without money. Eg: In many online poker sites you can play with the “play” money first and then if you would like, progress to the money tables.

You see, poker, is very different from other games you see in casino in two very major aspects:

(1) It is the only game in which you do not play against the house (like blackjack, roulette, etc), and you play against other players.

(2) It is a strategic game, and not just of luck. For example, the odds of winning a powerball jackpot (from what the Internet says, and you know the internet is always right), is 1 in 195249054. However, in many cases of poker, it also takes alot of strategy with a much lesser percentage of luck (Approximately 2/3 chances of winning if you are good). As such, every year in the grand dame of poker tournaments, the World Series of Poker WSOP, you see players who have won before, end up once again in the top few on October 9.

As such, when playing poker. One of the key aspects in winning poker, especially tournaments (in which you are not just in there for the fast cash, or cross my fingers I’m wearing my lucky red underpants today), is knowing the psychology of the players. Furthermore, knowing what the players think about money.

As such, in an online poker room, what you would see is a range of different profiles of players. I’m going to illustrate the top three:

(1) Mr/Ms. I’m too scared to lose big money

These people are fish (stated further in Jake’s eBook). They are the fish whose psychology is to bluff and hope that all goes well. But because they are there for the short run – just like in the turbulent stock market – they are in the rooms in which the small blind are very low, ranging from $0.01 to $0.50. The most the pot ever goes is about $2.00, and they are just plain scared. Go into rooms like these to meet these players.

(2) Mr/Ms. I’m here to eat all you losers (Pretend sharks – in small playgrounds)

These players are the sharks. They head up in rooms which range mostly from $1.00 to $10.00, simply because they would not lose too much money, but since there are fish who swim in those rooms too, aim to fleece the newbies as they can. They know the little tricks, from checking the profiles of users, to using poker calculators. And they purposely do not head to the rooms with the larger blinds because they do not want to encounter the real sharks.

(3) Mr/Ms. I’m here to learn strategy 

These people are here to learn. Graduating from the smaller rooms, to gradually the bigger ones. They are the ones who also have alot of patience and know that poker is not a gambling game. They do however, participate in Tournament poker, where the odds of winning are much higher if you have the correct strategy. (These are also the people in which we are also targeting with Jake’s winning tournament poker eBook) because they are the people who are in this for the long run.

And there you go, just a short summary of the most common profiles. And as you can see, vary very much from the people which you see in the play money poker rooms – which are just kind of boring and possibly filled with pensioners (nothing wrong with that, I don’t mind doing that when I’m older). So never forget the effect of money (even if it is $0.01) has on the players in any poker room.