You’ll find substantial differences between online poker gaming and conventional, in person gaming.

One obvious difference is the fact that players do not sit right across from each other, removing any capability to observe others’ reactions and body language. Instead, online poker players learn to focus more keenly on betting patterns, reaction time and other behavior tells that can be not physical in nature. Since poker is a game that requires adaptability, successful online players learn to learn the new frontiers of their surroundings.

Another less obvious difference is the rate of play. In local casinos the dealer has to collect the cards, then shuffle and deal them after every hand. Because of this as well as other delays common in offline casinos, a normal rate of play is approximately thirty hands by the hour. Online casinos, in contrast, do not have these delays; the dealing and shuffling are instant, you will discover no delays relating to counting chips (for a split pot), as well as on average the play is faster as a result of “auto-action” buttons (where the player selects his action before his turn). It’s not uncommon for an online poker table to average sixty to eighty hands by the hour.

Another significant change results from the fact that online poker rooms, in certain cases, playing casino offer online poker schools that teach the fundamentals and significantly speed up the learning curve for novices. Many online poker rooms additionally provide free money play in order that players may practice these skills in various poker games and limits without the risk of losing real money. People who previously had no way to learn and improve since they had nobody to play with now have the ability to learn the game much more quickly and gain invaluable experience from free money play.

However, tracking poker play online is easy. Most online poker rooms support “Hand Histories” text files which track every action both you and your opponents made during each hand. The ability to specifically track just about every played hand has advantages. Many third-party software applications process hand history files and return detailed summaries of poker play. These not only include exact tallies of rake and winnings, that are useful for tax purposes, but in addition offer detailed statistics about the person’s poker play. Serious players use these statistics to check for weaknesses or “leaks” (mistakes that leak money from their winnings) within their game. Such detailed analysis of poker play was never available in the past, but with the expansion of online poker play, it is now commonplace among nearly all serious and professional online poker players.