Online poker is one of the fastest growing and most popular forms of gambling available. It’s a fun and easy to play game that rewards actual skill unlike slots or the lottery. It also allows you to play at any time and for any stakes from the comfort of your own home. However, online poker is not without its risks and it’s important to understand the risks before you start playing.
Online Poker and Internet Banking
Getting money on and off of an online poker site used to be a long and complicated process but these days most sites offer a variety of secure deposit and withdrawal options. Depending on your location and the regulations in place you can use credit cards, e-checks, bank transfers and third party eWallets to make deposits and withdraw winnings. Most online poker sites are highly regulated and the vast majority of players are treated fairly.
The first step in learning to play online poker is finding a good poker site with reliable software. The software should be fast and intuitive to navigate and the poker rooms should not lag or crash too often. Trying to grind long sessions on unintuitive or crashing poker software will hurt your win rate more than you think. The more you have to focus on the software and your opponents the less you’re able to concentrate on the strategy of the game itself.
Another great way to learn to play is by reading books or joining poker forums. There are a huge number of poker books and a never-ending list of new ones being written. You can also find a wealth of poker forums and Discord channels to join and talk with other players. These resources are essential to learning the game and will give you a solid foundation to build upon.
Playing Online Poker
Once you’ve got a feel for the game and have learned a few fundamentals it’s time to start playing real money hands. You can find cash games at most online poker sites and they are very easy to join. There are usually a number of stakes to choose from and most players stick with the small ones.
A great benefit of playing cash games is that you can learn to read the game faster. You can quickly pick up concepts like frequencies and EV estimation and they’ll begin to get ingrained in your brain over time. You can also track your session stats which will help you figure out what works and what doesn’t.
If you want to take your online poker skills to the next level you can check out Ignition Poker and try their Anonymous Tables feature. This allows you to play anonymously and prevents your opponents from being able to use Heads-Up Displays (HUD) to analyze your play and counter your strategies. This is a great option for newer players who don’t want to risk losing their hard-earned money to sharks.