Ever since online poker became such a huge thing, there have been two main kinds of poker players. There are those who are still mainly live poker players and who love to have a person opposite them and who like to be able to read and smell the opponent. On the other hand, there are many more online poker players who are more or less serious and who rely on their skills with numbers and with analysis of hands in order to get ahead. Of course, there are also many of those people who play both kinds of poker and who know how to play in either of the situations. In this article, we will be talking about what online poker can do for your live poker skills and whether players who want to excel in live poker can rely on online poker to provide them with some help.
It is our opinion that online poker can definitely help your live poker skills. Namely, since there is no body language involved in online poker and since you cannot see your opponents’ reactions and play the game accordingly, you need to observe the game more closely and the way they play their hands. For instance, instead of looking for telltale signs such as frowning or scratching of the nose, you start looking at how someone plays a high pair or how someone likes to play when they have nothing. This makes things more scientific and mathematical, honing your skills that you will always be able to apply. In fact, by doing so, you will become incredibly effective against live poker players who do not give up too much with their body language.
All of this is made even easier by the fact that you can always review hands, this time also seeing the hands that your opponents had. This is how you can take your analysis to a whole other level and turn into a real math machine when it comes to poker. Of course, if you switch too suddenly from online poker to live poker, you need to be aware of the fact that you yourself need to hide your body language so that the other players will not be able to read you.
Another reason why online poker is a great practice for live poker is that the game is much faster and there is much more that you need to analyze in a minute. This way, when you get to much slower live poker tables, you will have no problems keeping up with the game and paying attention to every little detail. This can be of invaluable help when playing live poker.
The last advantage that you will gain during your online poker games is that you will become impervious to jerks. Namely, whenever you play online poker, there is good chance that one of the opponents is a dumbass who is constantly jeering and provoking. After a while, you become immune to such jerks and the live jerks will not disturb your game at all.