Don’t you just love generalizations?

Let me expand a bit on today’s title: Online players aren’t, as a rule of thumb, complete beginners. I see so many posts and references to “complete donks” that I think many people forget just how horrible a truly horrible player is. Not that there aren’t truly horrible players online, it’s just that they tend to lose their buy-in so quickly that they’re not around for very many hands. A sobering experience for me was playing live recently with a couple of friends, and none of them had played a lot of poker before, or in one notable case, at all. I realized then just how awful a truly new player really is, and all of a sudden “complete donk” isn’t an expression that I find fitting for very many online players. Some examples:

– One guy missed the fact that there were four to a flush on the board, and raised his second pair on the river.

– One would never raise preflop, including with AK or QQ. Not because he was slowplaying or afraid to gamble, he just didn’t think to raise.

– All of them would call preflop for one bet, regardless of holding.

– They weren’t sure who won when they both had two pair (but different kickers).

– They had to ask - often - if it was on the turn or the flop that the bet size doubled.

I’m sure these players exist online as well (and I know we’ve all seen examples of the above mistakes online, but rarely all of them, consistently), but I think it’s worth pointing out that many - most - players online these days, even at the lowest limits, are quite a bit more skilled than a complete beginner. They may make many mistakes, but they’re usually not truly horrible. I bet the vast majority have seen the same starting hands charts that you have, read the same books that you have and purchased the same hand tracking software that you have.

There are two reasons I bring this up:

1. Play live with your friends if you can. If you play within comfortable limits for everyone, you can make a pretty good win out of it and still remain friends.

2. You should realize that just reading the starting hands chart, the books and getting PokerTracker isn’t necessarily enough to beat the online game. It’s true that solid, ABC poker is usually enough to win, but if you want to make the most of your poker, you need to work harder - harder than your opposition. Remember that you’re not just playing against your opponents, you’re also fighting the rake - which, insignificant as it may seem on a per-pot basis, means that you have to be quite a bit better than your opponents to make decent money in the long run.

I think there’s a noticeable difference in the quality of play between today and a year ago, even at the very lowest of limits. The crowd is wisening up; stay ahead of them.