Online poker strategy is a hot topic throughout the Internet considering that 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 poker aficionados to their sites. While advertising for online gambling is not legal in many states, these poker sites quickly sidestep the legality by advertising “for fun” sites where customers cannot use their own money, with a near-identical domain name registered for actual monetary commitment nearby. For this reason, online poker draws countless new customers each day and fortunes are won and lost at Internet card tables.

Like any form of entertainment, online poker has experts prepared to sell their secrets to the highest bidders. Professional poker players have published lots of books filled with their advice and bookstores are already quick to follow suit, dedicating valuable shelf space to these online guides. Online poker strategy is just not terribly different from that of table poker, and also a novice player will benefit from the tactics of both online and table poker books.

Much of the strategy behind winning consistently at poker relies on the mathematics of the game. As a player has no real way to understand what cards his opponent is holding, there’s absolutely no 100% effective outcome for poker players (hence the term, gambling). On the contrary, comprehending the math behind the poker will allow the player to understand situations where calling or folding, based upon nothing but the odds of the game, is in his or her best interest.

All of the math behind poker depends on the simple fact that there are actually 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 within the hands of the opponents, the remaining cards (a particular few of which are needed for a successful, winning hand) will be in plain sight for anyone to count. Using these facts, a player can determine the amount of cash in 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.

As an 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 in the scenario. While you will discover 13 diamonds within the deck, the Hold ‘Em player has 2 of them and you can find two on the table (as five are required for a flush). Thus, there are actually only 9 potential diamonds in the remaining cards. In the event the player has two cards, his opponent has two cards, and you can find four cards on the table, there are 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 only be won 20% of the time, if it would be played out 100 times, the player would statistically be more likely to lose around $400 while winning around $1000.