
As some of the more experienced players undoubtedly already know, table selection is an important part of playing online poker with earning money in mind. What even fewer people realize is that finding a fishy poker room is potentially even more lucrative than looking for a particularly weak table – after all, the game will end at one point or another and you’ll have to waste time looking for more easy prey. This statement is even more true if you’re looking to play online poker on your Android mobile device, as only a select few apps allow you to observe numerous tables without taking part in the action yourself.
Consequently, if you want to optimize your profits, you’ll have to find a room that has enough traffic to allow you to plan your poker sessions in accordance with your day schedule while simultaneously offering rather soft competition that will allow you to take advantage of your superior knowledge of the game. Finding data on traffic is fairly simple, as all you have to do is to visit a statistical website and look up the specific poker room. Unfortunately, player skill is hard to represent using numbers and tables, but don’t worry just yet – there are some indicators that a poker network you’re looking at might in fact be a great hunting ground.
A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF CASINO GAMERS = SOFT COMPETITION
The first thing to look for is whether the site offers casino games aside from poker – a rule of thumb is that people wagering their money on slots or roulette tend to treat poker like yet another luck-based game, which means that they won’t bring any poker-specific skills to the tables. Sites with large casino player bases like mFortune (Read mFortune Review) and 888 (Read 888 Review) are a good example of that trend. What’s more, those sites offer interesting no-deposit bonuses, which attract recreational players who don’t really care all that much about winning or losing since they haven’t invested a penny into their real money poker accounts yet.
Much like in the actual game, once you make your pick, it’s important to keep reassessing your decision and reevaluating the player base. Poker is a dynamically changing game, so it is quite common for regulars to flock to rooms which started off with extremely fishy tables and increasing the overall level of competition there. Unfortunately, such changes are very subjective, so it’s quite hard to give any solid advice on the matter – generally speaking the best idea would be to try and keep track of how the behavior of players changes over time; you'll need a tool like PokerTracker for that of course. Make sure to keep notes on players, if only to see just how often you run into the exact same people (the ones who are regulars are more likely to be skilled).
A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF CASINO GAMERS = SOFT COMPETITION
The first thing to look for is whether the site offers casino games aside from poker – a rule of thumb is that people wagering their money on slots or roulette tend to treat poker like yet another luck-based game, which means that they won’t bring any poker-specific skills to the tables. Sites with large casino player bases like mFortune (Read mFortune Review) and 888 (Read 888 Review) are a good example of that trend. What’s more, those sites offer interesting no-deposit bonuses, which attract recreational players who don’t really care all that much about winning or losing since they haven’t invested a penny into their real money poker accounts yet.
- Another great way of identifying weak player pools is to check whether the specific poker room is based around a gimmick designed to lure new and young players who care more about presentation than the real substance of the game. For example, PKR 3D (Read PKR Review) for Android offers top-notch three dimensional graphics and fully customizable avatars, so there’s plenty of players who chose this room based on this fact alone. As you’d expect, most of them are completely clueless when it comes to calculating odds or understanding the intricacies of playing a drawing hand, so exploiting their flaws shouldn’t be a problem for someone knowledgeable about basic poker strategy.
Much like in the actual game, once you make your pick, it’s important to keep reassessing your decision and reevaluating the player base. Poker is a dynamically changing game, so it is quite common for regulars to flock to rooms which started off with extremely fishy tables and increasing the overall level of competition there. Unfortunately, such changes are very subjective, so it’s quite hard to give any solid advice on the matter – generally speaking the best idea would be to try and keep track of how the behavior of players changes over time; you'll need a tool like PokerTracker for that of course. Make sure to keep notes on players, if only to see just how often you run into the exact same people (the ones who are regulars are more likely to be skilled).