Making Money at Online Poker

So you fancy having a go at making some extra money from playing online poker? Well, I'm here to show you how it's done but before I get into it I need to write a disclaimer

Disclaimer : Poker is gambling and as in any gambling you can lose money as well as win. Please gamble responsibly and only risk what you can reasonably afford to lose

^^ This is the first rule of any gambling. Only risk what you can afford to lose. In fact, when you deposit money on an online poker site it is best to consider that money "lost", that way you are already prepared for the worst.

With that out of the way, your first question might be, how much money do I need? The answer to that is, it depends at what level you wish to begin/ how much disposable income you have and how risk-averse you are. Some people have managed to build up a bankroll from no deposit at all. There are freeroll tournaments which you can enter at no cost and potentially win (usually very small) prizes. However, this is a slow and frustrating process and I wouldn't recommend doing it that way.

Firstly, you will want to try some of the play money games which are available on most poker sites. These will give you an idea of how the game works and you'll get used to the software, where the buttons are, how to see when it is your turn to act... etc, etc. However, to learn to play poker properly you really need to graduate to real money games, since the play money versions are often full of wild and reckless players, who literally have nothing to lose, so it is difficult to get an idea from these of how to play in real games

My recommendation would be that once you have got a feel for how the game works then you try to deposit a minimum of $50. The poker site you are using will usually give you a bonus, perhaps another $50 on top of that plus a few free tickets to some small tournaments. Note, the $50 bonus will not be immediately available for you to use - you will need to unlock this bonus and it will usually be released to your account in smaller increments, (perhaps $5 at a time). This is dependent on how much you play and how much rake you pay, so it may take some time before you receive anything from the bonus at all.

What is "rake"? The rake is the amount that the poker site takes for providing a poker game. It is either in the form of a fee, in the case of tournaments, or in a small amount from the winner of a pot in the case of cash games. So, for example, a tournament may cost $5.50 to enter - from this $5 will go to the prize pool and 50c will go to the poker site. This is how they make money from you, the player

Which poker site should I choose to play on? I would recommend Pokerstars or Partypoker as two of the biggest in the industry, although GGpoker are also very popular these days, although I have not personally played on there. Also, there are a number of other smaller poker sites available which are perfectly fine to use. The bigger and more popular the poker site is, however, the more likely you are to find the game you want to play available at the times you want to play. For most lower stakes games (where you will no doubt be starting) this isn't usually an issue as there are often many players wanting to join those games.

Which type of poker game should I play? Good question. There are 2 main formats of poker, tournaments and cashgames.

In tournaments, you pay an entry fee and then you get given a certain amount of chips. Your goal is to make it to the end of the tournament, being the player with all the chips, which means you will be awarded 1st prize! There are also prizes for being runner-up, finishing 3rd, 4th etc depending on how many players entered the tournament

In cashgames, you place your money on the table and play poker directly for your money. If you win a pot, that will add to the amount of money in your stack and if you choose to you can leave the table, taking that money with you. In this way, it differs from a tournament because you are free to leave at any time, taking your winnings (or losses) with you, whilst in a tournament, you pay the entry fee and then need to play until you have lost all your chips (or have won the tournament)

This means that cashgames are more time flexible since you are able to jump in and out of them at will. That doesn't necessarily make them the better choice, however. The two different formats require different strategies, as well as a different psychological approach. Some players enjoy tournaments, others enjoy cashgames. Some are good at cashgames but find they struggle at tournaments and vice versa. No doubt, you will have your own preference but the good news is that at the lower levels the overall strategies overlap, so whichever format you ultimately lean towards, your skills will still translate from one to the other.

For this series of articles, I will be focusing on NLHE (no limit hold'em) which is a game where you are dealt 2 cards and up to 5 cards are dealt in the community cards and your hand strength is determined by the best 5 card hand using both, one or none of your "hole cards" (the two cards you were dealt personally). NLHE is by far the most popular poker format, although PLO (pot limit Omaha), a game where you are dealt 4 cards instead of 2 is also popular but for our purposes, I will stick to NLHE as that is the place most players will want to start as it has the most choice of games as well as availability of players (known as "traffic") and also the game I have the most experience in myself.

How to play NLHE poker? Rather than spend a lot of time and energy explaining the rules and the hand rankings I will simply show you a link

https://www.cardplayer.com/rules-of-poker/how-to-play-poker

Or you can google "how to play nlhe poker" and get many similar results. So, if you don't know the basic rules and what constitutes a weak, medium or strong poker hand then I suggest you read the article I have linked or another of your choosing and familiarise yourself with the basics. A good way to do this is to read the rules and then download a poker site, make an account and then find the play money games so you can experience playing poker in real-time. Then, if there is something you don't understand you can go back and read the rules once more until you have a general understanding of how the game works.

From this point on, I will assume the reader understands the simple mechanics of the game, so I can start to get into what our strategy should be to start beating our opponents and beginning to make some profit!