If like most people, your experience of poker began with playing at home among friends, there are several things you need to consider before launching into the world of online poker.

For starters, playing in a comfortable environment at home is clearly very different than playing online, with simple, clear rules agreed on before you begin. You agree on minimum and maximum bets (say $0.25 - $2 for bets and raises in each round) and all the players ante a set amount (in this example, say $0.25).

At home, you may have played with bets and calls, or possibly with bets, raises and calls. Hands usually are played until there’s a showdown and the player with the best cards is normally the winner. At home, the best player may often lose to whoever holds the best cards.

So, online poker requires an adjustment to settle in to the virtual environment. But, once you’ve adapted your style of play, it can be even more fun that playing a game at home! There are 3 main differences for you to keep in mind: competition online, the ante structure and the betting arrangement.

1. Online competition
When playing at home, the player with the best cards may end up winning ahead of the most skillful poker player at the table just because of a lucky hand. When playing online however, your skill can count much more than it does at home. When you consider that usually larger amounts of money are at stake in online poker rooms than home games, it’s understandable that people try harder to win. It’s advisable to take things a little more seriously when playing online, don’t just call to the river because you want to see your opponent’s cards. Give more thought to your strategy if you’re really in it to win. Read up on strategies that could help you when online, doing some research could well pay off. It’s advisable to adapt the strategy you’ve been using at home for the online rooms; remember you could be (and more than likely will be) up against a different class of talent online.

2. Ante Structure
Now to the practical differences… Online poker does not usually require you to place an ante – with the exception of Seven Stud. But, the “forced bets” work similarly to at home: the player to the dealer’s left must post the small blind, and the next player must post the big blind. The other players must then match the big blind or any raise to the big blind to be able to see the flop, but they don’t have to bet anything in order to get cards.

Let’s take a simple example: A game has 6 players, the small blind is $0.50 and the big blind is $1.00. Before the flop, play starts with player 1 posting the small blind ($0.50), player 2 posts the big blind ($1), player 3 folds, player 4 calls the big blind ($1), player 5 raises the big blind ($2), player 6 (the dealer for the hand) folds. Action returns to player 1, who folds, player 2 calls the raise ($1), player 3 calls the raise ($1). Betting then begins with the big blind, since the small blind (player 1) folded, after the flop.

3. Betting Arrangement
No-limit online poker is the most similar arrangement to the spread limit that is often used in games at home. In no-limit games, the maximum bet is the total number of chips you have on the table. There is still a set minimum bet. It’s a popular misconception that in no-limit poker you must fold if another player bets more chips than you have left. This is actually not the case! If the player before you bets $20 and you’ve only got $10 left, you only have to put in your $10 to call his bet. If you’re the only other player in the pot, your opponent has wagered $10.

But, if there is a third player involved, who has over $20 left, he/she must match the $20 bet. Your $10 bet is then placed in a side pot. When it comes to the showdown, you’re still in contention for the pot up until the point when you couldn’t match the bet ($30). The other two players can compete for this $30 plus the extra $20. If you have the best hand, you win the $30. The player with the second-best hand wins the rest. But if another player has a better hand, he/she wins all the money from the main and the side pots.

The betting arrangement for pot-limit poker is similar to no-limit poker, in that bets can be placed between the set minimum and the size of the pot.

That said, the most popular version of online poker is limit poker, where bets are fixed. For example, in a $5/$10 game, the bets are limited to $5 in rounds 1 and 2, and increase to $10 in round 3 and all subsequent rounds. Here’s another example, in this case at a $2/$4 table with 4 players, pre-flop:

Player 1 checks, player 2 bets ($2), player 3 raises ($4), player 4 calls ($4).
Player 1 folds, player 2 calls ($4)

The betting limit now changes to the higher limit of $4 for bets on the turn (4 cards out) and the river (all cards out). Play may continue as follows:

Player 2 bets ($4), player 3 folds, player 4 raises ($8), player 2 calls ($4).

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