Today a very intelligent forum mate of mine over at Cardschat posted a very interesting theory. I can tell Bill is used to playing against tight players because he is thinking outside the box on how to pry their chips away from them. The main thing that came to mind when I really got to thinking about his theroy was this, is it necessary or even a good idea to apply this to online ring games? I am not so sure it is, unless you find yourself up against a table full of rocks.

When you get down to the core of poker you win by taking advantage of your opponent’s mistakes and making sure the monetary rewards outweigh the risks you take. Your average online real money player is very inexperienced and prone to making numerous mistakes! Combine all that with a significant increase in the number of hands per hour you get in while playing online, and I think you would end up taking more risk than is necessary to achieve a similar level of success than would be possible in live play. Lets see how well I explain myself

Professional ring or cash game poker players have for a very long time now, measured their success by how many big bets per hour(BB/hr) they make over a long period of time, with 1 BB/hr commonly considered good. Good online ring players obliterate that standard! Quite easily you can find players who will average above 10bb/hr over a years time while playing online only one table at a time. This level of success quite simply would be unsustainable if you played brick and mortor poker exclusively. Mainly because live play is much slower.

We will assume you already play a disciplined tight aggressive style. If the theory is sound won’t I be able to make even more money by loosening up online? The answer is probably not. Mainly because you run into enough really bad players that will pay off your monster hands you don’t need to push the marginal situations playing more hands preflop will put you in. Also we are all human which means we too will make mistakes so I’d say in your average online game the risks involved in playing loosely outweigh the rewards. Having said that if you find yourself at a table with nothing but tight aggressive players, best thing to do is simply find an easier game to beat! If you can’t get another table then loosening up your starting hand requirements to hit monster hands might be the ONLY way you will win any money.