Online poker strategy is a hot topic through the Internet considering that the explosion of poker’s popularity in the past decade. Considering that the inception of televised poker (most notably by ESPN), online gambling web sites have invested millions of dollars’ worth of advertising on television networks for the sole purpose of luring poker aficionados to their sites. While advertising for online gambling is not legal in many states, these poker web pages conveniently sidestep the legality by advertising “for fun” sites where customers cannot use their very own money, with a near-identical domain name registered for actual monetary commitment nearby. Consequently, online poker draws countless new customers each day and fortunes are won and lost at Internet card tables.

Like any form of entertainment, online poker has experts willing talking to sell their secrets to the highest bidders. Professional poker players have published lots of books filled with their advice and bookstores happen to be quick to follow suit, dedicating valuable shelf space to these online guides. Online poker strategy just isn’t terribly different from that of table poker, as well as a novice player will take advantage of the tactics of both online and table poker books.

Much of the strategy behind winning consistently at poker is dependent upon the mathematics of the game. As a player has no real way to learn what cards his opponent is holding, there’s absolutely no 100% effective outcome for poker players (hence the term, gambling). Alternatively, knowing the math behind the poker will permit the player to understand situations where calling or folding, according to nothing but the odds of the game, is in his or her best interest.

All the math behind poker relies on the simple idea that there are 52 cards in a deck. In a game of Hold ‘Em poker, a player receives two cards, in a game of Omaha four, in a game of Stud, five. Thus, while a player doesn’t know which cards are in the hands of the opponents, the remaining cards (a certain few of that are needed for a successful, winning hand) are in plain sight for someone to count. Using these details, a player can determine the amount of money within the pot to calculate what is called “pot odds”. Pot odds will either favor the player based upon the rewards weighed against the statistical chance of success, or favor folding his or her hand given the lack of a successful hand being dealt.

As an example, say a Hold ‘Em player needs just one diamond to make a flush, which would be the very best hand available to any player in this particular scenario. While you will find 13 diamonds in the deck, the Hold ‘Em player has 2 of them and there are actually two on the table (as five are needed for a flush). Thus, you’ll find only 9 potential diamonds in the remaining cards. Should the player has two cards, his opponent has two cards, and there are actually four cards on the table, you can find 44 cards remaining, a 9/44 chance of hitting a diamond or approximately a one in five chance.

Inside this scenario, the pot is $50, with a $5 call for the player with the flush draw. The potential payout is ten to one as the odds are one to five — thus, the pot odds favor calling the $5 for the payout is double the chance of winning the hand. Although this particular hand may possibly be won 20% of the time, if it might be played out 100 times, the player would statistically be very likely to lose around $400 while winning around $1000.