Advantages of Playing Poker Online

For years poker was a pastime that existed mainly in the back of smokey bars or casinos but with online casino sites becoming increasingly popular and mobile technology offering more compact laptops and tablets the game has risen in popularity. Many of the best poker sites offer free play-money games which can be used to familiarize yourself with the rules and nuances of the game before risking any real money. Once you’ve become comfortable with the game and have built up a bankroll it is possible to play for cash at any number of tables on an online poker site. Generally the lobby of an online poker site is categorized by Cash Games, Tournaments and Sit & Go’s and you can usually filter these to see just the types of games you want to play. You can also often set your preferred table size and even the number of tables you want to play on at a time (although multi-tabling can be quite intimidating).

While the game is fun and exciting, it’s important to remember that poker is a game of skill over the long term and that the top pros spend as much time studying the game as they do playing it. Signing up for training at sites such as Chip Leader Coaching or Upswing Poker, networking with experienced players and brutally analyzing your own play after every session can give you an edge over the competition.

Another advantage of poker is that it teaches you how to calculate odds and statistics, which can be invaluable skills in other fields such as investing or evaluating financial deals. Moreover, it can also help improve a player’s social abilities, as the game attracts people from all walks of life and backgrounds.

One of the first things that new players are likely to notice when they start playing poker online is just how strange some of the actions at the tables can be. Often this isn’t the result of the poker room “rigging the games,” but rather a result of the fact that in an eight-hour session at an online poker site you can expect to see more than 800 hands, which means that there are going to be plenty of oddities to be encountered.

One of the biggest advantages of poker is that it can be played almost anywhere there’s an internet connection and a computer or mobile device to use. While some poker rooms require that you download their software, the majority of sites have a quick and easy registration process that only takes a few minutes and most of them are virus-free. You’ll need to provide some personal details such as your name, address and phone number as well as create a screen name. It’s a good idea to keep this screen name to yourself, as multi-accounting is against the rules and can lead to your account being suspended.