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

Like any type of entertainment, online poker has experts ready to sell their secrets to the highest bidders. Professional poker players have published lots of books filled with their advice and bookstores are already quick to follow suit, dedicating valuable shelf space to these online guides. Online poker strategy just isn’t terribly distinctive from that of table poker, and 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 determined by the mathematics of the game. As a player has no real way to understand what cards his opponent is holding, there is no 100% effective outcome for poker players (hence the term, gambling). Conversely, understanding the math behind the poker will allow 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 of the math behind poker depends on the simple fact that you will discover 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 isn’t going to know which cards will be in the hands of the opponents, the remaining cards (a specific few of that are needed for a successful, winning hand) are within plain sight for someone to count. Using these facts, a player can determine the total amount of cash 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.

By way of example, say a Hold ‘Em player needs a single diamond to make a flush, which would be the most effective hand available to any player in the scenario. While you can find 13 diamonds within the deck, the Hold ‘Em player has 2 of them and you will find two on the table (as five are required for a flush). Thus, there are actually only 9 potential diamonds within the remaining cards. Should the player has two cards, his opponent has two cards, and there are actually four cards on the table, there are 44 cards remaining, a 9/44 chance of hitting a diamond or approximately a one in five chance.

In the 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. Even though this particular hand may possibly be won 20% of the time, if it could be played out 100 times, the player would statistically be prone to lose around $400 while winning around $1000.