How to Master Low Limit Texas Holdem, Part 2 - The Online Poker Game

I continue my articles about learning to master online poker at low limit stakes. In the last article I wrote about the chance of winning in a casino. So you can ask why poker is different.

In online poker you don’t play against the casino, you play against other players!

That’s why your chance of winning (not losing) is so different than in the case of casino games.

Some additional thoughts: Of course the casino has its revenue on this game too, but this is not a prize rather a fix or percentage fee. You can imagine this fee like a hosting fee for the game. Live casinos used to collect hourly fees but on the internet there is the so-called “rake”. It means that at the end of every hand the casino gets some percentage of the prize (the pot).

Back to the point, the poker is not played against the casino it is played against other players. That’s why there is no system determined in advance against which you cannot win, the chance of winning only depends on your game play and the playing style of your opponents.

So if you want to win you have to pay attention to 2 things:

You have to play better and better.
You have to play with weaker opponents.

The first point goes without saying but let’s talk about the second. What if everybody at the table plays with the same skills? Depending on the hand one will win a bit then other will win but in the long run nobody will win. The casino will collect the rake so all of them will lose. It means that you can win if the difference of the average skills of the other players and your skills is bigger than the rake. ( Because you have to pay for the rake).

How can you win then? The two extreme cases are:

You are the best poker player on the world.
You play only with someone who doesn’t even know the rules.

Unfortunately none of the cases seem to achieve easy, but there is no need to. It is enough if you take into consideration them at the same time. When you are a new player try to find opponents weaker than you, and if you gets a lot of experience you can try with stronger opponents.

You can say here that it is ethical to get the money of a weaker player? Well, let’s see this question from another point of view. Those who read this article want to win money in the poker. So we can see this like a business. And in the business world there are competitors. And in the business world the weak will become bankrupt. A little bit cynical? Yes. But that is what the poker about.

You can find the previous article with the following name: How to master low limit Texas Holdem part 1 - Introduction