The Online Poker Professional's Guide

First Steps

Signing Up

First you find a site that works for you. Its very simple. You use an online payment service like Paypal or Neteller, or you use your credit card to buy chips. But you shouldn't do that first - they all offer free games without signing up. You should play these for a little while first to get the hang of online speeds and formatting. These games won't teach you how to win though, since poker is not poker without an element of RISK. However they are excellent for learning how to calculate pot odds and finding out how strong certain hands are. But you should get off these games ASAP. The .50/1.00 games have much more to offer.

When signing up, you get to chose a "handle" or login name. Take a moment for this. Some want shock, some anonymity, some distinction from their name. Ever see Raymer at WSOP with those goofy glasses? This is your chance for some "table image". Take advantage of you handle to convey your personality to your competition.

Building an Internet Poker Bankroll

The first enormous difference you confront between playing online and in a casino is when you go to buy chips (you can also send a bank draft or do wire transfers). In Paradise's case, you are limited to $600 a day, and $1500 a week in purchases. Since they offer $20/40 as a limit, this restriction seems ludicrous. No sensible person can play $20/40 with only a $600 bankroll. The first day I played, playing $10/20, I lost my first two hands and was down almost $200. Clearly I could not play optimally, taking the normal swings involved when playing a sensibly aggressive game. If I lost my remaining $400, I was simply done for the day. Winning ring game poker is all about putting in the hours. If all games are about equal, and you always play the same winning way, the more you play, the more you make. So, putting yourself out of action by losing your bankroll is a critical mistake.

In casino poker, you can just reach into your pocket and grab more cash (for good or ill). Not so online. The first thing you need to do is build an online bankroll. No matter if you are properly bankrolled to play $40/80 in a casino, when you first join, you should avoid playing anything higher than $5/10 for 48 hours. (This also makes sense just to get used to the technology.) If you want to play bigger than $5/10, charge up $600 the first day, then $600 twenty-four hours later (even if you don’t play), then $300 the next day. Now with a $1500 bankroll you can carefully play $10/20 -- at least as long as you stay above $500. If you sink that low, it is important to again play smaller, even $3/6 or $2/4, until a week passes and you can again add another $1500 to your bankroll. Basically, you can’t play correctly online until you have accumulated a correct bankroll.

The online cardrooms have their reasons for limiting buy-ins, from protecting players from blowing their brains out in one session to not wanting to deal with substantial contested credit card charges. While these are legitimate concerns on the cardrooms' part, the restricted buy-in is an artificial obstacle to winning that has to be overcome by new players. It's not commonly known, but after establishing a record of play over a period of time, players can Email customer support for an increase in the different bankroll restrictions.

Cashing Out and Your Bankroll

Another artificial problem the online cardrooms create out of necessity involves cashing out. Suppose you have carefully charged up a $1500 bankroll, and you have won $800 in a week. Not bad. You want that $800 in your pocket and you want to make another similar amount the next week. Well, you can't do it using a credit card. The cash out rules require you to first pay back your original deposit method, and then get sent your profit. So, to get your $800, you have to pay off that $1500 you sensibly charged up, leaving you with a zero bankroll. It's a bit complicated, but in essence, cardrooms require winning players to play on their profits, not on their credit cards.

So, the process you need to do is: play carefully at a moderate limit until you have been able to charge up an adequate bankroll, play at your chosen limit, pay off your original deposit as you win amounts above that adequate bankroll figure, then finally cash out your profits that exceed your chosen bankroll. For example, you want to play $20/40. You buy $1500 your first week, and win a few hundred dollars playing $5/10, $8/16 and $10/20. The second week you charge an additional $500, ($2000 monthly maximum) so now you bankroll stands at $2400, and you begin playing $15/30. As you continue to win, you pay off your credit card (or Neteller) to the level that you always have a $3000 bankroll (or perhaps a $2000 bankroll with your entire weekly $1500 worth of charges available to you). Finally, on a weekly basis you cash out your winnings that exceed your $3000 bankroll.

I don’t mean this to be taken exactly literally, but it should be clear that much more so than in casino poker, you need to manage your bankroll online. (leaving some liquid cash on Neteller is a good idea too so you can be sure to take advantage of any deposit bonus a cardroom might be offering. You have to adapt and work around the cardroom restrictions. Being in action every day at the limit you want to play at is how you maximize profits, and online it takes some strategic planning to accomplish this.

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