Online Poker Cheating
Are the bad beats really worse online?
I used to be very suspicious of playing online Texas Holdem, back in the early days, before we knew world champions came from online poker rooms. I couldn't help but think they can see my cards or my cards never allow me to win. I think this was more a function of my poor play, not knowing the rules, and good old fashioned paranoia, rather than online poker cheating conspiracy theory.
Today, because of the exploding popularity of Texas holdem, people are a lot more comfortable playing online. Most of the bigger online sites like FullTilt have established players, including Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Phil Ivey, two WSOP champions.
Online poker sites regularly advertise on TV and host some of the biggest and best multiplayer poker tournaments. In fact, you can't turn on the TV without seeing Texas Holdem on the Travel Channel, ESPN or NBC. The bottom line is they have established credibility and will continue to grow in coming years. So if you enjoy the game, playing online is a great way to do it. Ok now, that's all well and good, but are the bad beats really worse online?
I used to think so because the beats seemed so bad, too often. Three things helped me to change my mind:
#1- I took the same amount of bad beats in person and saw people suffer the same, unbelievable injustices, I suffered. You see bad beats every time you turn on the WPT or the WSOP on TV. In fact, I played a WPT event and took so many bad beats that I started to think I actually have better luck online. (Sidebar - don't take a cruise with 400 poker players for a week if you can't handle hearing about 1000 bad beat stories :-)
Click Here to receive your 50% Bonus (Up to $250) Now!
#2- I magnified the online bad beats, in my own mind, making them seem so much worse and because of this it felt like they were occurring more often than they were. The funny thing is, like Matt Damon quotes, in Rounders, "few players remember big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career."
It's stained into your head and your brain tricks you into thinking you're the unluckiest guy in the world. In fact, I started looking at my stats and over the course of a year I had not been the recipient of an unusual string of bad luck, it just felt that way. You all know, Texas Holdem can do it to ya.
#3- I wasn't a good online Texas Holdem player and made a lot of foolish mistakes. Eventually I learned from this and I adopted a new, Zen-like attitude, and a degree of patience I didn't know I possessed, and a funny thing happened, I started winning. I was honest with myself, knew I wasn't much good, but committed myself to getting better. Most players think they are better than they are and this gets them in trouble, especially these days. They see these skillfully played hands on TV and think they can play like that too. Sorry it doesn't work that way. Remember, before playing Texas Holdem check your ego at the door, otherwise it will be a painful experience for you.
Good Luck!
Click Here to receive your 50% Bonus (Up to $250) Now!
Click here to see our full review of the best online poker rooms.
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.
