How Online Holdem Poker can help maximize your efficiencies!

Although this site deals with the general concepts behind Texas Holdem, more and more, it has become a resource for online Texas holdem players looking to improve.

Many of our strategy pages (in the left column) deal specifically with issues and situations that Texas Holdem players find themselves facing. And now, with the recent explosion in online Texas Holdem I find myself adding content specifically dedicated to help enlighten this new legion of players.

I'm going to write about one of the unique characteristics of playing Texas holdem online: the ability to maximize ones efficiencies. Who ever said you can't be in 5 places at once?

I come from a business background and I treat my online play much like a business. I try not to get too emotional about what I'm doing. I'm always very aware of my environment, how it is changing, and constantly adjusting my play to make more informed decisions based on the new dynamic. The better your decisions, the more success you will achieve, positively impacting your bottom line. Sounds pretty logical.

Well, let's say that you have done all that. Again, using the business analogy, how can we squeeze more productivity out of our business model? In many businesses this is the $64,000 question. Let me answer it for you online Texas Holdem players.

Can you be in two places at one time? Well, when it comes to playing Texas Holdem online you certainly can. This is the way that I, as well as a lot of other good players, maximize our efficiencies. I typically tend to play on 4 real money tables at one time, using two flat screen monitors. I hooked up two nice Dell flatscreens (costing $400 each) and it makes my online poker experience that much nicer.

Some players will play on even more tables than that, simultaneously. Here's what I do...I tend to play one or two real money cash games, two single table tournaments and a multiplayer tournament, if there happens to be one going on at Full Tilt. That's what works for me.

This is a beautiful thing for a good online Texas holdem player because in a real casino you can only be at one table. Playing in a land based casino, there is quite a bit of down time, where online you have little or no downtime, allowing the class player to maximize his (her) opportunites.

You may ask yourself, how can you concentrate when you have so many things going on at once? Well, here's the big secret...a funny thing happens when you are 'maximizing your efficiencies'. You instill a tremendous discipline, only playing the best hands (because you don't have the time to play more), therefore dramatically increasing your odds for success over any longer period of time.

Because you have so many things going... you may decide to only get involved in pots with the best 10 starting hands, (let's say AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, 99, 88, 77, AK, AQ) most of the time folding all other hands, until your short handed (see Lingo)

Three things are achieved here:

  • you're not running around like a madman
  • you're alot less likely to be bored or frustated...cutting down on the number of stupid plays you make and the number of hands you play...preserving your table image, a vital fact.
  • Most importantly, your results should improve dramatically.

At the end of the day, real money online poker becomes a zero sum game, how much $$$ did I start with and what do I have now? Like I said before... if you treat it like a business you can become a successful online holdem poker player. By the way, one of the coolest businesses you'd ever want to be involved in :)

Repeat the process over and over again and make sure to use the 'Tag the Fish' tool at PokerRoom.com to complete your arsenal. This tool will help you to know your opponents tendencies, further boosting your chances. (see review of Best Online Poker Rooms for more on 'tagging the fish'Images-graphics/Core-Graphics/arrow-pokergame-right.gif)

Every player is different and you will find what works best for you. For me, playing on five tables or more, the action gets a bit too hectic and I can't fully focus my attention on isolating player tendencies. Always remember to keep notes since you often will be running into the same players (most online Texas holder sites will give you a drop down menu to make notes)

I often find myself, in single table tournaments, having notes on more then half the players at the table. I can still hear my dad saying to me, "remember that chance favors the prepared mind" and no where is that more true then at the online Texas holdem tables.

This section was not designed to make it seem like playing online is the solution to all your problems. In fact, you will go through periods where things are not going your way, therefore compounding your losses by however many tables you play. But...

All we are saying is if your past results have shown you to be an above average player then the opportunity to maximize your productivity is all you can ask for. And you can do this playing online. If you feel you have a 5% edge on your opponents over any longer period of time, imagine multiplying that by however many Texas Holdem tables you are playing simultaneously?

If you are a relatively new online Texas holdem player then don't start like this. Much like you would not jump off a 50 meter diving board to start, you have to work your way up. Once your results, playing in one online game situations, improves...then you can think about starting to really maximize your efficiencies.

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Good Luck and I'll see you at the tables!

To complete your knowledge of the math behind Texas Holdem Poker, read these sections: Pre Flop Odds, Outs and Odds, Starting Hands and Drawing Hand Odds.

 

Get started at FullTiltPoker.com today!

****Important Update: (for 2008)************

1 - The 2 most popular online poker rooms - FullTiltPoker.com and PokerStars.com - are STILL OPEN TO AMERICAN PLAYERS. In fact, (FT) FullTilt Poker has made it easier than ever to be playing real online poker in less than 5 minutes, no joke! Feel free to take advantage of our customized player bonuses by clicking on any FT links you see.

2 - Our site recently underwent a bit of a facelift, we added many new articles to blend in with our original content - much of which we decided to leave undisturbed. We felt it was important for our audience to have access to all the inside information on playing winning online Texas Holdem. Enjoy!

3 - DuplicatePoker.com is a strange but interesting version of Texas Holdem that I have been trying out. At first, I wasn't too crazy about it but the more I played, the more it started to grow on me.

It's Texas Holdem, with a splash of Chess strategy thrown in. As the banners on our site say, it's 100% legal to US players and they take credit cards! I tried it and it took me about 2 minutes to put money in from my AMEX card. DuplicatePoker.com gives you $FREE MONEY$ just to come and try it out, no strings attached. Be patient, it takes about an hour of play to get the feel for things. After that, I started to enjoy it more and more...

 

 

Get started today, click on any of the links you see throughout the site and take advantage of these very special offers! We have chosen our affiliated sites very carefully, and highly recommend them as places to play Texas Holdem Online. FullTiltPoker.com and PokerStars.com are class organizations and you can feel very comfortable joining their player ranks. Good Luck.