by Travis Mitchell

Created on: May 15, 2010

While there are many differences between playing poker online and playing poker in person, the main difference is that while playing online, you don’t deal with people in the same direct fashion that you would if you were playing in person. Before we get into that however, let’s take a look at some of the other differences between online poker and live poker.

If you’re a skilled poker player then you know that all standard bets are based on the size of the pot. So for example, if the pot is 100 and you are going to bet, you would rarely bet more than the actual size of the pot. In live poker, what this means is that you must keep track of the pot size in your head as the hand progresses. If you don’t, you will be unable to make properly sized bets. Online poker eliminates this however, as the pot size is automatically tallied while the hand plays out.

Pot sizes are not the only numbers automatically displayed though. Your opponent’s stack sizes (as well as your own) are always on display, as are the blind levels. This makes basic calculations much easier to make and again, eliminates the need to do manual counts and checks.

The automation of online poker also means that game speed goes way up. There is no human dealer who must collect the cards from the previous hand and shuffle the deck before ultimately dealing them out. This takes time, just like other live poker staples such as counting out chips to make a call, bet or raise, table banter, etc. And so online poker provides the opportunity to play a lot more hands per hour than live poker. This ability to get more volume in is then multiplied by the fact that you can play multiple tables at once when playing online. It’s actually not uncommon for online poker pros to play upwards of 20 tables at once. This gives an already winning poker player a hands per hour rate (and therefore a win rate) that a live poker grinder could only dream of.

Finally, the main difference between playing poker online and playing poker in person is the players themselves. In a live game, psychology plays a much larger role than it does online. People can see your face, your eyes, and you can see theirs. This creates the opportunity for you to pick up on “tells” from your opponents, but also for them to pick up on tells from you. This in turn makes it possible for you to put false tells out there to throw your opponents off. And it only progresses from there. Whereas with online poker, traditional tells and reads are not really a part of the game.

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