The Psychology of Online Poker

By David Apostolico

Online poker often takes a back seat whenever credit is given for the recent poker explosion. The lipstick camera, the World Poker Tour and Chris Moneymaker are the usual reasons mentioned. For those who play, though, there’s no denying the contribution made by poker sites. No longer did you need to travel (great distances in some cases) to play a game of poker. With the click of a mouse, you could be in just about any game for whatever stakes you desire. This greatly accelerated the learning curve of beginning poker players.

With the ability to play any time of day or night in the comfort of their own home, players could sit down to the virtual felt for a few hands or a few hours depending on how much time they had. With hands being dealt much quicker than in a brick or mortar card room, a player could gain as much experience in six months as would have previously taken years.

Of course, there are some naysayers who will complain that online play can never duplicate the feel and psychological component of playing face to face. While there are certain advantages to playing in a card room, there are a few advantages to online play as well. The ability to check hand histories, track your statistical play and not worry about giving off tells are just a few.

There is one area of online play, however, that is simply not available in most card rooms. It’s a game that is just not practical to offer in a brick and mortar casino and I find it more useful to my overall development than any other game I play. It’s playing heads-up No-Limit Texas Hold ‘em. While brick and mortar casinos cannot afford to offer head’s up matches (it’s not cost effective), they are available online around the clock..

Many proponents say that online poker is great to work on the fundamentals. Play solid straight forward poker and you’ll do fine. While that is good advice, if that is all you are looking for in your online play, you are doing yourself a disservice. There is a great deal of psychology in poker and you can work on that aspect of your game as well by playing online.

Heads-up is a battle of wits, guts, and determination. If poker is psychological warfare, heads-up matches are played with nuclear warheads. If you’re waiting for cards, you will get eaten alive. You will be forced to see a lot of flops and if you see a ton of flops, you will see how hard it is to hit a flop. That will force you to develop a good post-flop strategy. Post-flop play is probably the weakest area of most players, simply because they don’t get sufficient practice. In a full ring game, it’s too easy to fall into the trap of playing flops you hit and giving up on flops you don’t. I believe most players too easily give their opponents credit for hitting the flop when they don’t.

When you play heads-up, though, you will start to get a better feel for how hard it is to hit a favorable flop. Good hands are hard to come by, which means you have to develop and rely on other aspects of your game. You’ll get extensively more experience playing post-flop than you ever could in a full ring game. This experience alone makes heads-up play worthwhile.

Yet, the psychological development you will enjoy is perhaps the best reason to play heads-up. While position is important, knowing your opponent is critical. Heads-up play affords you the opportunity to study one opponent and learn him inside out. Even though you can’t see him, you’ll see every move he makes and every move he makes will be made directly against you. That’s right. Everything your opponent does will be done in the context of your own game. It’s the ultimate psychological battle. You are engaged the entire time. I’m a big believer in observing and staying involved when you are not in a hand. However, there’s no substitute for facing and making decisions – especially against an opponent who is trying to outplay you. The players who like to play heads-up matches typically enjoy the psychological aspects as well, so you can feel confident that they are not just playing their cards. They are sizing you up and looking for weaknesses to exploit. You will be forced to work on all aspects of your game. While you must be aggressive in finding and attacking your opponent’s vulnerabilities, you have to constantly look inward as well to shore up any cracks in your own game.

Of course, poker is not all psychology. There is the science aspect of the game and I believe heads-up matches will help you in that area as well. By being engaged in every hand, you will consistently be calculating pot odds and making bets and raises accordingly. The comfort and anonymity of a computer will allow you to take your time in making the calculations. Soon, those calculations will become second nature.

Finally, let me make one more pitch for heads-up play. The advent of online play greatly accelerated the learning curve of poker players. Players could get in a game any time of day or night and play in the comfort of their own home even if they only had a short period of time. Additionally, the number of hands dealt per hour is so much greater online. Well, in heads-up play, you will play exponentially more hands and face far more decisions in an average hour than you would in a full ring game. That acceleration of your learning curve will pay dividends in every other game you enter.

This article was published at an earlier date on PokerPages.com and is being rerun due to popular demand.

About the Author
David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker books including Lessons from the Felt, Machiavellian Poker Strategy, and Tournament Poker and the Art of War. You can contact him at thepokerwriter@comcast.net.