The complexities of winning in online poker

Even though most poker articles on the internet go on and on about how easy it is to beat online Texas Hold'em nowadays, because of the apparently endless number of new players flocking to online poker rooms, I beg to differ.

Yes, there is indeed a huge number of fish coming into online poker each day, and yes, most online poker rooms do offer extremely loose games. Just one thing: who said beating rookies in online Texas Hold'em was easy?

In Omaha, it's a different matter. In Stud poker? - I'll buy that too, but not in Hold'em. You don't have to just take my word for it either. I'll give you a few good reasons why it's not that easy to beat Texas Hold'em, even when you're faced with a table full of newbie's. Just read on and see what you think by the time you reach the end of this article.

Many reasonably good poker players hit an online poker room in the hope of squeezing some premium cash from all those rookies that are supposedly playing there. Soon enough our guy sees the fish are there indeed as advertised, but to his horror, in the coming hours he finds it increasingly impossible to eek money out of a game that literally sucks as far as the quality of play goes.

What's the deal here? Could it be that these guys with all their negative expected value plays are the good players and that he is in fact the fish? How come he's constantly outdrawn on the river even as he only commits on absolutely positive expected-value situations?

No, our good player didn't turn into a hapless fish overnight. What he's experiencing is something that often gives players much better than him, headaches: it's the changing face of poker.

Believe it or not, Texas Hold'em is not the most popular poker variant in the world for nothing... It is just about the only poker game which gives rookies a fair fighting chance against much more experienced players. I'm not sure whether this is the cause of its popularity or if popularity is the reason this situation came to be, but whatever the case, novices can give you serious trouble in Hold'em.

In Omaha, fish don't stand a chance against skilled players. It's something of a 10/90 match-up, which is just awful for the fish. In Texas Hold'em, what we're dealing with is more like a 40/60 situation, which is frankly, much more than fish deserve.

The first factor that's going to side with the rookies is luck. Skill might know who its boss is, but luck is as blind as a bat locked into a wooden box and tossed into the river. The short term variance induced by luck in Texas Hold'em is much bigger than it is in Omaha or Stud. This is why a rookie will sometimes outdraw you in extreme situations.

The other factor that works against you is "schooling". It basically means that rookies will gang up on you even though they themselves are unaware they're doing so. Has it ever happened to you that your trips got outdrawn on the river when faced against 3-4 highly-optimistic rookies at showdown? That's right. No matter how much of a long shot a given call is, somebody will certainly make it, provided enough people take a shot at it.

So does this mean you should act like the rookies do? - By no means.

Schooling fish are only successful as a unit. Individually, none of the "schooling" players are successful. Bear in mind that in order for one of these guys to win, 2-3 others have to lose big. Taking advantage of the short-term variance is certainly not the way to build a bankroll in Hold'em.

How can you take these rookies on? See what the other experienced guys are doing. In this dog-eat-dog world of online poker it is no longer enough to sit and wait for the positive expected value to come around to you. You have to go out there and create positive expected value for yourself.

Aggressive pre-flop action is one way to do it, and it actually works on multiple levels: first, it cuts the competition down to size, by making some players fold pre-flop. That will leave you with fewer "mobsters" to go up against in post-flop betting. On top of that, it will capitalize on a huge anti-skill most fish have: pushing chips into the pot to see the flop, but then folding without remorse when the flop misses.

That will leave a lot of dead money in the pot for you, thus further increasing the odds. You should never underestimate the power of fish, especially when they're "schooling". Hit them where it hurts most and always be on your best game. Re-applying your small edges time and time again, will provide you with enough value to become a long-term winner.