Online Texas Holdem vs. Live Texas Holdem

[James]

Online Texas Holdem and offline Texas Holdem, while technically the same game, are played vastly differently. Even though the game is the same, there are many differences between the two that have an effect on how you play. One major difference between playing online and playing offline is the fact that there is no visual connection between the players.

<p>The lack of a visual connection removes an entire element of the game of poker when playing online. A big factor of playing poker offline is the fact that you can look at your opponents and glean information from what they do visually. There are many visual cues that players give off and a good offline poker player can use this information to his or her advantage. One very important thing to do when playing offline is to make sure that you are watching your opponents at all times and paying more attention to them than you do to your cards. You should only look at your cards once, when action comes to you pre-flop, and then you should spend the rest of your time and energy focused on watching your opponents and what they are doing.

<p>In online Texas Holdem Poker, you cannot watch what your opponent is doing, see how they react to their cards, or see how their hands move when pushing the chips out into the center. Nor can you see how they react to the flop, turn, and river, for that matter. This lack of visual information forces players to focus more on the cards and less on the players at the table. While you can still take information on general play style and other informational hints, you cannot react to visual information. This fact has a big impact on the games in the sense that bluffing and its ease of use is vastly different between online and off.

Bluffing online is, usually, a lot easier to do because any tells that you may have or weaknesses that can be extremely difficult to hide from someone who is staring at your every movement are completely obscured by the computer screen. You could be sitting at your computer literally saying to the screen that you are bluffing and quaking with fear about being called, but no one will have any idea because there is no visual cue. Because of this, players have to play their hands and the board more heavily than playing the players they are against online because it is so much harder to determine whether a person is bluffing. In offline poker, someone who has spent an hour or two watching that player play can easily read most players’ bluffs.

Overall, despite being the same game, online and live Texas Holdem are played quite differently because of one very important fact: online play does not offer visual data of the players at the table.

[BetPreFlop]

There's no much difference on them. They both use money for betting and gambling. The only difference is, in online, you can't see whom you are playing with. Unlike on live poker game, you will see each other face to face and eye to eye.

For me, i prefer online games because your opponent will not notice what's on your mind, facial expression and physical actions during poker plays.