by Zach Calantini-Miller

Created on: November 02, 2010

Now this may or may not be a debate with your poker buddies, but a debate I’ve thought over is the world of online poker versus traditional live games. I’ve played quite a bit of online poker AND live games in the last 2 years, so I’ve seen the benefits and drawbacks of both formats. Here they are for your reading pleasure:

 Online Poker:

 PROS:

 + Always a game going

 + Any stakes and variety of games

 + You can play anywhere that has an internet connection

 + Tournaments and cash games available

 + Ability to play multiple tables at once

 CONS:

 - Can’t read your opponents facial and body expressions to pick up tells.

 - You have to play poker staring at a screen, instead of real people.

- Staring at a screen all day is not healthy, at least if you’re sitting at a live game there’s no screen and you’re not getting zapped by electro-magnetic fields from the screen.

- The popular online poker sites use “action flops” to create more action and get you to put more chips in the pot. This is not acceptable to modify the cards in my opinion. In live games the cards that flop up can’t usually be predicted, ensuring a fair game.

 Now let’s move on to Live games.

 PROS:

 + Can see other players, able to read their hands’ strength with practice.

 + The cards can’t be predicted or modified easily. No one knows what cards are going to fall, unlike “action flops” only, which are manipulated. This ensures true randomness and a fair game.

 + Poker becomes a social event, unlike sitting online by one’s lonesome and interacting only with a computer.

 CONS:

 - You have to be more patient, as you can only play one “table” at a time!

 - You have to travel to the local card room or much farther to play, instead of just popping onto the computer to play online, therefore saving gas, stress on yourself, and wear-and-tear on your car.

- If the table at your card room of choice is full, you have to wait for a seat to open up.

 With all the Pros and Cons of each poker venue laid out for the reader, now you can decide what’s the best way to get your poker fix. Now, good luck at the tables, either virtual or real! Go all in!

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