Online poker strategy is a hot topic across the Internet since the explosion of poker’s popularity within the past decade. Considering that the inception of televised poker (most notably by ESPN), online gambling sites have invested millions of dollars’ worth of advertising on tv networks for the sole purpose of luring poker aficionados to their sites. While advertising for online gambling just isn’t legal in lots of states, these poker web pages easily sidestep the legality by advertising “for fun” sites where customers can’t use their very own money, with a near-identical domain name registered for actual monetary commitment nearby. So, 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 ready to sell their secrets to the highest bidders. Professional poker players have published dozens of books filled with their advice and bookstores happen to be quick to follow suit, dedicating valuable shelf space to these learn online poker guides. Online poker strategy isn’t terribly distinctive from that of table poker, and 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 relies on the mathematics of the game. As a player has no real way to understand what cards his opponent is holding, there’s 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, according to nothing but the odds of the game, is in his or her best interest.

All the math behind poker depends on the simple proven fact 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 doesn’t know which cards will be in the hands of the opponents, the remaining cards (a specific few of that are needed for a successful, winning hand) are in plain sight for someone to count. Using these facts, a player can determine the total 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 an individual diamond to make a flush, which may be the most effective hand available to any player inside this scenario. While there are 13 diamonds within the deck, the Hold ‘Em player has two of them and you’ll find two on the table (as five are needed for a flush). Thus, you will find only 9 potential diamonds within the remaining cards. Should the player has two cards, his opponent has two cards, and there are actually 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.

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