Pros and Cons of Playing Online Poker: Part II - Poker Disadvantages

In the first part of this Online Poker Considerations series I covered many of the good reasons to play on line – from the easy access of good games to the invisibility of your tells. In this second part of the series I’ll address the negatives of playing poker on the Internet.

Faster Losses

You play many more hands per hour on line than in a real casino because of the instant deal and the lack of delay between hands. This is great if you’re a winning player. But if you’re a losing player, as most players are, then you will lose your money at a faster rate.

Inability to See Tells

While it’s surely true that you will not give off on line any of the tells you may exhibit in a casino that betray the true strength of your hand, so too will you not be able to pick up on the tells of any of your opponents. That may be overstating it a tiny bit – as there are some very subtle and not very reliable tells that players exhibit on line – primarily in how long it takes them to respond. Unfortunately, though much has been written by others on this subject, my experience is that if someone takes a long time before they act, though it may be an indication that they are weak and therefore unsure about what to do, it can just as easily mean that they have a bad connection or are playing in many other poker games.

Easier to get Distracted

In a brick and mortar casino, in spite of all of the noise and hoopla, it is easier to concentrate on the task at hand – which is playing poker. There are many fewer distractions than when you are at home. At home there’s the phone, the door, other people milling about, television, a kitchen, and a real world that you are used to interacting with. It’s very tempting to engage in that world while you are playing poker on line. Similarly, because sitting in front of a computer is by nature boring, players frequently bombard themselves with many distractions while they play to keep from getting bored.

Distractions may not be a disadvantage to an experienced, disciplined player who has learned to stay laser focused on the poker task at hand. But to most of us mere mortals, distraction erodes our ability to play, causes us to miss critical information, and causes us to make mistakes. When you’re playing for money those mistakes can devastate a bankroll.

Faster Action

It is harder on line to follow the action and remember folded cards in stud or prior action in hold ‘em and flop games. This is because the hands are completed so much more quickly. In a casino, players take at least a few moments to think about what they’re doing before they fold. On the computer, their folding can be instantaneous – if they have set their computers on any of a number of auto-feature like auto-fold. It’s often impossible to follow the folds around the table as they happen –as you would do in a live casino. This can diminish the edge you might have, since you won’t be able to accurately recall all of the folded cards.

Of course there is software that can track folded cards in stud for you – though it is officially banned on many on line sites.

Monotony Breeds Mechanical Play

Playing on line, monotonous as it tends to be, screams for a simplified style of play. It’s therefore easier for a player to become mechanical in his play, failing to take advantage of the many nuances of each of his opponents. As I pointed out in the prior article, this can work to a player’s advantage if he can profitably play more than one game at once. But most players are beating the game only barely – if at all. So any diminishment of their edge can turn them from a winning or break-even player into a losing one.

Loss of Personal Interaction

Playing live poker allows the player to interact with other players. This is a source of great pleasure for many of us. In fact, it is often the reason many go to a poker room in the first place – just for that human interaction. On line poker has very little of it. You’re limited to faceless chatting with those who choose to engage you. Not exactly the nice social experience that many players enjoy in live casinos.

There’s often a negative impact on one’s bottom line because of this loss of personal interaction. Getting to know people is one effective way of learning about and manipulating their behavior. If you make friends with the player to your left, I’ve found, he’s less likely to play aggressively against me. This in turn is very useful when it comes to getting a read on them when they are playing – as you try to figure out the hands they have and how you can play against them. Since this information is not available to you when you play on line, if you are good at building relationships with players in the card room, you’ll be depriving yourself of this profitable and, for many, pleasurable activity.

On-line poker can be addicting – or at least habit forming

The ease of access, which is in many ways a plus, can be a minus if you find that it is hard for you to resist the lure of a game. Since games are always available from your home or office computer, you might find it too difficult to restrain yourself from playing poker more than you know you should. It’s not wise for people with an unhealthy desire to drink to work in a bar. Similarly, if you find that you can’t control your urges when it comes to poker, it surely doesn’t make sense to provide yourself with constant temptation.

Even if your interest in poker doesn’t rise to the level of a serious gambling problem, the ease of play on the Internet can cause even responsible players to play more than they really would like – usually by extending their play once they are in a game. It’s so easy to sit down and so hard to get up – especially if you’re stuck. And since you can take advantage of the rest of your life much more easily when you’re playing on a computer in your living room than when you’re playing at some distant poker room, the normal barriers to play – like having to eat, or talk on the phone and see your family – don’t pull with the same power. On line poker can be insidious in a way that live poker is not – as you convince yourself that since you are physically home or at work you are not avoiding or shirking your family or professional duties.

Easier to Lose Money Painlessly

You know how it’s easier to call a bet of $200 when you’re playing with chips than when you’re playing with cash? Well poker chips are to cash what on line chips are to poker chips. Virtual money is much easier to lose. It doesn’t even take the slight effort of counting out chips, lifting them up, and flinging them into the pot. A loose call is as simple as depressing a key on a keyboard.

Difficulty of Funding and Getting Started

When you play poker in a casino you go to the cashier, take money out of your wallet, buy chips, walk over to a poker room, and play. It’s not nearly so easy these days with on line poker.

First, you have to download the software of the on line casino. This is very simple and easy, but still intimidating to the computer neophyte. Many people, myself included, were confused at first about what to do. Absent a person who is with you to give you specific and clear instructions, the process of doing anything on a computer can be difficult for many – especially those raised before computers became ubiquitous.

Once you have the software downloaded you need to have a way to get money to the site. This is usually a two-step process – made more difficult now, as some of the options that used to be available have been eliminated thanks to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) passed by the Republican Congress and signed into law by President Bush. Funding options are available but difficult and often pricey.

Once your poker account is funded you can easily and simply fund any game you wish to play on that site – up to the total amount of money you have put into the poker site. But getting the money there in the first place, or reloading should you deplete all of your poker funds on the site, can prove to be a barrier for the technologically challenged poker player.

I can tell you from personal experience that it took me about 18 months before I felt sufficiently motivated by all of the positive factors to actually dive in and start playing on the Internet. I can also tell you that when the third party poker payer that I used to use, PayPal, decided to stop dealing with on line gambling sites, and when my credit card companies did likewise, I decided that I no longer wanted to play on line. Since then, I have had a change of heart, have opened a Neteller account (which was very simple) and have been playing about 15 hours of one line poker each week – and enjoying it immensely. Since Neteller has stopped doing business, however, my play on the Internet depends on the money I have already accumulated. I’m frankly not sure what I would do if my funds were completely depleted.

Conclusions

Playing on line and playing in a brick and mortar poker room are not mutually exclusive. Many of us do both. To be sure, however, there are pluses and minuses to playing on line. For the serious, skilled, disciplined, winning player, who can play without distraction or addiction, on line play has much to recommend it. Similarly, there are surely risks for the casual player, with a limited bankroll, limited experience, and even a slight lack in the important poker skills of self-control and discipline.

Written by Ashley Adams

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