Play Poker Online in 3 Easy Steps
Online poker is a great game and very easy to get started with. To play poker online, you just need to download a poker program and start playing, it’s easy.
All well-known poker rooms offer safe and secure settings. There are usually no problems with deposits and withdrawals. And of course, you can play online poker without depositing any money too.
Play poker – the short version
We’ll go through all the steps involved in starting up an online poker career below. But first let’s do the quick version for those who are impatient to get started:
- Choose a poker room
Download and install the software or use the Flash software. - Create a poker nick
This will be your name at the tables. - Start playing
Start at the play money tables until you’re comfortable with the buttons.
Now we’ll go into a little more detail. Hopefully you can find answers to your questions on how to create a poker account and start playing poker on the internet.
If you still have questions, though, please feel free to ask us directly, using the email form at the site.
1. Choose a poker room
Of course, your first move is to choose a place to play at. All the online poker rooms that we recommend here at the site are safe and secure. They run on reliable software and manage their payments well. They are well reputed.
Among the large number of available poker rooms, the choice usually comes down to a number of practical details:
- The game variety
What games can you play? - The poker bonus offered
How much do you get for opening an account? - The poker traffic
How many players are there?
Poker bonus
Never sign up to an online poker room without securing a good online poker bonus. Playing with a bonus is always better than without bonus.
A poker bonus is a sum of cash that the poker room transfers to your account to reward your registration with the site.
Sometimes the bonus is paid straight off, no questions asked. Mostly, though, there are some playing requirements involved. That is, you must play a certain number of hands at the site before the bonus is paid out.
Our goal at PokerJunkie.com is to offer the best possible poker bonuses for our visitors who want to play poker on the internet.
Game variety
Most people who play poker play Texas Holdem, and this the one game that all online poker rooms offer. If you want to play Texas Holdem poker, you’re cool.
On the other hand, it you’re looking for other games, things may get a little more complicated. Omaha is also very common, as well as seven card stud, but for other games you may have to pick a certain poker room to get your desired game.
Poker traffic
Some poker rooms are really big and some are smaller. Do you want to play poker in a crowded environment where you never see the same player two days in a row, or do you prefer a cozier place where you get familiar with your opponents?
Low traffic figures can lead to your preferred games not always being available. Sometimes there are simply no one else who wants to play your game at your preferred stakes. This is rarely a problem for Texas Holdem, but it may be for more exotic games like 5 Card Draw or Pineapple.
You geographical location plays a role, too. Some sites have mostly American players, and the traffic boosts during American evening time. Other sites are mostly European, and then the traffic peaks maybe 8 hours earlier every day.
If you’re really ambitious you may even move your game from the first category of sites to the other and then back again to match the variations in traffic over the day.
2. Create a poker nick
To play online poker at a site, you must have a nick name. Before you rush away and make up some random name, realize that you’ll have to live with this name at this poker room forever.
Online poker rooms are very restrictive in allowing players to change their nick names.
Also realize that your nick name may actually give away some information to your opponents when you play poker online. Make sure that whatever your nick gives away is either not important or not true.
Omen est nomen (“names have meaning”)
It’s very common with nick names that radiate self confidence, aggression, or fearlessness. Like IAlwaysWin, UFoldNow or NumberOne.
If you’re thinking of choosing a more humble name, like MrNiceGuy or SplitThePot, realize that a soft name just might invite increased aggression from the opponents.
If they think that maybe, just maybe, your nick name actually says something about your game style, they may very well put in one or two extra bets and raises against you.
Don’t draw that upon yourself!
Famous poker nicks
Among the famous poker pros who play poker online, nick name strategies vary. Many use their own name, like the Full Tilt Poker pros Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen and David Benyamine.
Self-assured nick names that signal aggression, skill or just a lot of luck are quite common:
- #1_Lucky_One – Phil Hellmuth
- Urindanger - Di Dang
- NoMercy - Isabelle Mercier
- I_Tilt_You - Ilari Sahamies
- Quiet Lion - Richard Brodie
- doublesuited - Daniel Negreanu
- LuckBox - John Juanda
- TexasLimitKing - Alexandros Dalaklis
- Who is next - Noah Boeken
Then there some famous poker nicks that are not so easy to understand:
- Durrrr - Tom Dwan
- Luigi66369 - Patrik Antonius
- OMGClayAiken – Phil Galfond
- ElkY - Bertrand Grospellier
- Nebuchad - Jonas Danielsson
- Nytorget - Johan Storakers
When you create your account at the poker room, you’ll probably notice that a lot of names are already taken. In this case you can either try another name, or if you’re attached to the one you tried, add some combination of numbers and other symbols to it, like # $ _ - and +.
Some famous online poker players have immortalized this kind of poker nicks:
- Erik123 - Erik Sagstrom
- Annette_15 – Annette Obrestad
- Mazak14 - Mats Rahmn
In the case of Annette Obrestad the figure signifies her age when she created the poker account – four years before winning the Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe.
Some successful players go for a laugh as well:
- looseslots - David Benyamine
- BadAtThis - April Zwick-Friedman
- dam_straight - David Miller
- Dan Druff - Todd Witteles
- jennicide - Jennifer Leigh
- 410 - bad_ip - Johnny Lodden
Choosing a poker variation
In today’s poker, Texas Holdem is very dominant. Everybody plays Texas Holdem and every online poker room has it in its game offer. It’s the game you see on TV, and the game that decides most of the biggest poker competitions world wide.
Texas Holdem
Of course this is the most natural choice for a beginning poker player. If not for any other reason, it’s probably the only poker game that you can play with your friends and other people you’re likely to meet in a poker home game.
So, Texas Holdem is a natural and easy choice. But before you make up your mind, consider a few arguments that would indicate choosing another game.
First of all, the fact that holdem is so popular and well described in many books on poker strategy makes is a very hard game to beat. Regardless of the stakes you play at, there are often some pretty strong players at the tables.
Omaha
Omaha is a game on the come. More and more players discover this exciting game, but the typical opponent on lower stakes is much less proficient than at the holdem tables. If you learn Omaha, you’ll probably have a greater edge than in holdem.
Seven card stud
Seven card stud is another very popular poker variation, and maybe the most classical one in the US. It’s being played more or less everywhere, and it stimulates a different set of skills than holdem, for example, a good memory is more useful in this game.
Mixing games
Also, even if you do chose holdem as your first game, remember that you can always try other games at the poker sites. Playing different games is a good way to improve your first game; it can make you discover some new angles. It’s a lot of fun too.
Besides, mixed games has sailed up as a new very popular breed of poker games. Many online poker sites offer mixed games, and there are mixed events in the WSOP.
The most well-known of the mixed games is called HORSE. It contains five games – Holdem, Omaha High/Low, Razz, Stud and Stu High/Low. Each year, the WSOP features a HORSE event with $50K buy-in. It’s the biggest event in the world.
3. Play and study – a lot of both
Once you’re up and running and feel comfortable in the game, where do you go? How do you go from noob to pro?
Of course, not everyone can become a pro. Almost no one, to be correct. A very small share of all players.
But most players can enjoy poker as a nice hobby. Trying to improve your game, maybe trying to climb in the stakes. Getting better is part of the fun in poker, and there’s no end to how much a player can improve.
Some players ask if books are any good. “Isn’t it better to play and learn from experience?” This question could be answered by another question:
“If you’re going to war, what do you bring: a machine gun or a tooth brush?” The correct answer, of course, is: both. Playing a lot of poker AND reading good books is definitely more effective than either method in isolation.
Poker forums, poker videos and more
Of course, all education doesn’t come from books. A lot of good advice is shared by the members in the poker forums, and many pros have gone the “forum way” to their greatness.
The good thing about a forum is that the communication isn’t one-way. You can ask questions and engage in discussions on poker theory and strategy concepts, or even discuss actual hands that you have played.
More and more sites offer instructional poker videos. Typically you’ll be observing successful online pros play online, and hear them comment on their game in real-time. This can be very interesting and useful, but it’s mostly something that you have to pay for.
Poker Junkie offers both a poker forum and instructional poker videos, and it’s all free:
Analyzing hands you’ve played
When you play poker online, a very important tool for improving your game is the “post game analysis”, that is, when you sit down and review the hands that you have played.
When you look at the hands a second time, you may see them in a quite different light. Now there’s no adrenaline pumping in your ears, no timer counting down to zero.
Chances are good you’ll discover flaws in your game. Situations where you should have played differently. Sometimes you can’t even understand what you were thinking.
Each time this happens, you learn something. You pick up some small idea or insight and embed it in your overall game plan.
Poker stats - tracking your results
Besides replaying hands you have played, you should also use the power of statistics to your benefit. With statistics you may discover patterns in your game that aren’t clear when looking at isolated hands one at a time. Things like how many hands you play, how often you raise it up pre-flop, how many showdowns you lose are important statistics in poker.
There are a few very useful statistic programs available for poker players, for example, Poker Tracker and Poker Office.
The best way to gather statistics of your game is by downloading hand histories from the poker room to your hard disk. Most poker rooms allow you to do this automatically, which allows you to make sure that you have all the data and don’t miss out on any important pieces.
When you play live poker, or if you just want to keep track of your online poker games on a session level, you can also use a free Bankroll Tracker tool, like the one here at Poker Junkie.
If you’ve read this far and still feel excited about poker, chances are you have a bright future in the game. Good luck, or shall we say, good skill!
