The New E-Poker, my thoughts

I've played online poker and I've played live poker but I have never played E-poker.

This is an in between poker that is trying to capture the best of online poker and live poker.

So at an online poker site, you pretty much are alone in front of a computer terminal playing against faceless players who are limited to what some may type in chat in a text window....

Play is fast and it is often difficult to read the other players because you can only go by the way they bet in the long run.

Live poker is alot slower but lots of players like it anyway because of the social aspect. They find it too boring to sit in front of a computer terminal.

I like playing both. Sometimes when I'm in the mood to just see card after card and not wait for people or feel like talking, I'll play online poker. But sometimes you feel like sharing with players who love the game like you do and you want to sit down and be with poker player's alike.

E-poker is played at a casino and is essentially you sitting down in front of a computer monitor at a table of 10 computer monitors. You are playing everyone at the table but you are dealt your cards and you see the flop, turn, and river on your monitor and their is no live dealer.

E-Poker is suppose to be faster, more accurate, and give you the ability to see your opponents live but without the delays and inaccuracies you sometimes get with live dealers.

I personally don't think I'd ever mix the two ways of playing. I play online and live for different reasons. To sit down and not interact with the other players but look at the cards on a screen seems strange to me if you are playing live.

Why bother playing live if you are looking at a screen?

However, I can see why this would appeal to people who find being alone online just too boring not seeing who you are actually playing with and those who find live too slow.

So it is yet another way to play holdem.

Vegas Cat

Interesting, I hadnt heard of E-Poker. My concern would be other players seeing my cards on the screen. How do they account for that possibility?

You can go here and see a picture of what the table looks like:

http://www.pokertek.com/table.html

From the picture, it seems like someone could probably see your screen, but perhaps Vegas Cat can explain. My guess is that the screen is sunk in alittle.

The screen you sit in front of is a touch screen based system.

Just like when physical cards are dealt to you face down, the cards dealt to you on the screen are face down. You would have to cup your hand around your hole cards, touch the screen to reveal what your hole cards are. Then when the hole cards are face down again, you can uncover the screen.