The truth about your opponents when playing online
There is an important thing you need to keep in mind when you sit down to play online poker for the first time. In-fact, you may want to keep it in mind for many months or even years into your poker career. Although plenty of games are filled with grass eating lambs, equally as many are filled with man eating sharks. To make that more clear, some are filled with idiots who will lose money all day and some are filled with true titans who will take your money all day.
Poker sharks are well balanced experienced players who could be playing for any number of reasons. Many of them are real to life professionals; they play to feed themselves and their families. Many of them are hobbyists who have become incredibly good at poker. The important thing to remember is that they are there. If you think when you sit down to play online poker that everyone is just there to have some fun, you are gravely mistaken. These poker sharks mean serious business. They study poker odds, they have untouchable discipline and a bankroll that makes yours look like pocket change. The point is that you need to realize that people are out to get your money. They are watching your play, waiting to exploit any weaknesses and to put you off base and on tilt.
On your quest to become a solid poker player you will be running into many great opponents. You will also run into some real dummies and they will help fund your career, but you have to realize who the real opponents are. You have to know who the sharks are and either avoid them or outplay them. Here are some tips for recognizing sharks when playing an online game:
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Quiet Players. Poker sharks are generally more worried about their game play and their money than much else. In other words, they won’t be talking much. Players who just sit there and never talk in the chat box are ones you need to keep an eye on.
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Players that consistently turn over good cards at the showdown. If you see that quiet player time after time turning over AA, AK or other high quality cards, then keep that in mind. He might just be on a good run of cards, but watch how often he enters the pot. If it’s not too often and he is always turning over good cards, then you need to watch out.
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Players who don’t enter a lot of pots. This one is a little tricky in that a player who doesn’t enter a lot of pots could just be tight. That’s still a good reason not to take them on though. Tight players usually only play good cards so you don’t want to be in the pot with them anyways. If they are truly a shark then you don’t want to mess around with them unless you have a truly premium hand.
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Players with lots of money. This one might seem obvious and it doesn’t always mean a player is good, but it is certainly something to look for. A player who has $2,000 in front of them while playing $2-$4 has probably done something right to get that much money. If they just had that kind of money to throw around, they would be playing at a much higher limit.
Now that you have some tips on how to recognize sharks, you need to know what to do when you have picked one out. The answer is quite simple in that you need to make sure you either have a really good hand or that you can outplay them in the event you decide to take them on. The best advice is to play as few hands against them as possible! These are excellent players and you will lose time and again if you choose to regularly engage in pots with them.
Finding fewer sharks and more lambs
The ultimate piece of advice you could get about playing against sharks is to avoid them. A huge part of poker is game selection. You need to be able to watch a table and decide if it is loose and likely to provide a profitable session, or if it is tight and aggressive, meaning it’s full of sharks and exactly the kind of game you don’t want to be in. You’re not a weak player for playing in games full of lambs. You’re a smart player and its how you make money in poker!
Here is a list of the best loose online poker rooms that are sure to be full of lambs and low on sharks:
Fortune Poker on the Boss Poker network consistently has the worst players on the internet. This room is low on sharks and has tons of bad players for you to take money from. Click here to try Fortune Poker
Cake Poker on the Cake Poker network is a new poker room that accepts Americans and it is full of bad players. A $500 deposit bonus makes this a great room to try out! Click here to try Cake Poker
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Poker Strategy 
