Finding a Good Online Game

Your profits don't depend on your skill... the depend on the DIFFERENCE between your skill and your opponent's skill. If you are a great player playing against world-class players, you will lose money. If you are a bad player playing against terrible players, you will make money.

The secret of making money in poker is finding "good" games - games where the average skill level is lower than yours. The bigger the difference, the more money you will make.

In a card room, it can be hard to figure out where the best game is (but see my next blog post for tips). Online, you have great tools at your disposal.

Most online poker websites let you observe a table. Further, they will show you the hand history of that table, whether or not you played in the game. At Full Tilt, I like to open up 4-5 tables at the stakes I want to play and just let them run. I can answer email, get a cup of coffee, or whatever for about 15 minutes while the tables are played. Then, I come back and look at the hands that played while I was away. Usually you'll get about 20 hands per game. Flip through the hand history, looking at:

• The cards people saw the flop with. Do they have the same high starting requirements you have? Pay attention to whether they were in the blinds. If they were big blind and played 5-2, that might not be a bad thing (you could look at the chat window in the hand history to see if they stayed in with a raised pot, but it's usually not worth that much effort).
• Watch how they played after the flop. If they won with 5's full of 2's, was the flop 5-5-2 (obviously good to stay in with 5-2) or A-K-2 (pretty stupid to stay in with 5-2)

With a tiny amount of up-front effort, you can find that really profitable game that can add a bunch to your bankroll.