Online poker strategy is a hot topic across the Internet since the explosion of poker’s popularity within the past decade. Since the inception of televised poker (most notably by ESPN), online gambling web pages have invested millions of dollars’ worth of advertising on television networks for the sole purpose of luring safe poker aficionados to their sites. While advertising for online gambling is not legal in several states, these poker web pages quickly sidestep the legality by advertising “for fun” sites where customers can not use their very own money, with a near-identical domain name registered for actual monetary commitment nearby. As such, online poker draws countless new customers each day and fortunes are won and lost at Internet card tables.

Like any type of entertainment, online poker has experts willing to sell their secrets to the highest bidders. Professional poker players have published dozens of books filled with their advice and bookstores have been quick to follow suit, dedicating valuable shelf space to these online guides. Online poker strategy is not terribly distinctive from that of table poker, as well as a novice player will take advantage of the tactics of both online and table poker books.

Much of the strategy behind winning consistently at poker is determined by the mathematics of the game. As a player has no real way to understand what cards his opponent is holding, there is no 100% effective outcome for poker players (hence the term, gambling). On the flip side, comprehending the math behind the poker shall allow the player to understand situations where calling or folding, determined by nothing however the odds of the game, is in his or her best interest.

All of the math behind poker depends on the simple idea that you can find 52 cards in a deck. In a game of Hold ‘Em poker, a player receives two cards, in a game of Omaha four, in a game of Stud, five. Thus, while a player will not know which cards are in the hands of the opponents, the remaining cards (a specific few of which are needed for a successful, winning hand) are in plain sight for anyone to count. Using this data, a player can determine the amount of money within the pot to calculate what is called “pot odds”. Pot odds will either favor the player based upon the rewards weighed against the statistical chance of success, or favor folding his or her hand given the lack of a successful hand being dealt.

By way of example, say a Hold ‘Em player needs a single diamond to make a flush, which may be the very best hand available to any player inside this scenario. While you can find 13 diamonds in the deck, the Hold ‘Em player has two of them and you can find two on the table (as five are needed for a flush). Thus, you will discover only 9 potential diamonds within the remaining cards. If the player has two cards, his opponent has two cards, and you’ll find four cards on the table, you can find 44 cards remaining, a 9/44 chance of hitting a diamond or approximately a one in five chance.

In this particular scenario, the pot is $50, with a $5 call for the player with the flush draw. The potential payout is ten to one as the odds are one to five — thus, the pot odds favor calling the $5 for the payout is double the opportunity of winning the hand. While this particular hand may possibly be won 20% of the time, if it might be played out 100 times, the player would statistically be likely to lose around $400 while winning around $1000.