Choosing a Poker Room
If you are about to play Poker Online
first is to find a poker room that you can trust. A poker room has to be financially reliable
technologically stable
and generally honest. Your deposits should be safe
your details secure
and when you want to get your money out that will also present no problem.
It is highly recommended to Play for free at a poker room before you make an initial deposit
simply to become familiar with the various software features
the time they give you to make a decision in each hand
feeling comfortable with the pre-select buttons that are available
and getting used to the way information is presented to you. Each room is different in most of these regards
and you need to feel comfortable with the interface before you play for real money.
Most of the poker rooms offer a first-time bonus when you make an initial deposit
and many poker websites offer incentives that are linked to the number of raked hands you play there. Many new poker players lose out by making a first-time deposit that is too small. Make sure that you qualify for the largest possible match bonus offered by the poker room. If the bonus is 50% of your deposit up to a maximum bonus of $100 then make sure you deposit $200 first time out. They are giving you free money
which will help to offset the cost of the rake over time
so you must take it all.
Newer rooms feel a more urgent need to increase their volume of players so they offer better bonuses than the more established poker rooms. As a new player the volume of players at a poker room is not a primary concern. You are more likely to play low-limit games initially
and the newer poker rooms always have more users at lower-limits than they do at big-limits. If you are already a serious high-stakes player you will probably not choose a new online poker room precisely because they do not have enough consistent games at high levels. Make sure that there are games offered at your stakes level throughout the day. But a less-established poker room also has one other big advantage for shrewd online poker players
namely that they tend to attract very weak players. There is a clever way to ascertain if an online poker table is full of weak players
and every poker room has this functionality: go to the “lobby” of an online poker room and look at the percentage of players that see the flop at a table. This pre-flop % should be around 30% at the most for limit-stakes games and the higher the % the softer the game. When you see that the average number of players staying to see the flop is over 50% at a table you should jump in immediately and take advantage!