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Setting up Your Online Poker Game for Success

With a few clicks of the mouse you can have your game set up like you have been playing for years. Some of
the following suggestions can save you in the long run.

Buttons

Have you ever played 2 tables at once and accidentally folded the wrong table when you should have raised? Next time, slide one table over slightly to prevent the buttons from overlapping. Most sites now allow different sizing of tables. Place your mouse over the bottom right corner of a table and adjust it to the size you prefer.

Tip - Do you have an extra monitor at hand? How about a LCD TV? Either way, hook up
the LCD or extra monitor into the side connection of your laptop. On the desktop, right
click and select properties – settings. Select the 2nd monitor icon and then click off the
“Extend my Windows desktop on to this monitor” option. Click apply and
OK. Now you can slide a table onto the other monitor and also have one up on your
laptop.

Acting in Turn

The great thing about online poker is the advance button options. Before it's your turn, you can select your action before it even gets to you. This speeds up the game for everyone. You get to see more hands and more pots (and hopefully more wins). You can use this feature to your advantage, as well. If everyone has seen you auto check/fold often, when you do pause to make a decision it may cause concern to the observant players. With a less than premium hand, you can appear to have a monster. Players may give you respect, allowing you to take a pot without the best hand.

Reading the bets

You can place your mouse over the chips a player bets out with. An amount should appear, or you can read it in the game information in the bottom left action screen. Once you play for a bit, you will be able to tell a bet just from looking at the chips a player throws out or you can place your mouse over the chips for a displayed count. Look for the area where it tells you the pot amount. This will help in calculating pot odds quickly.

The Chat Window

When you first start playing online, try to refrain from chatting. More than likely you will only draw attention to the fact that you are a newbie. Once you get to know the online lingo and abbreviations, you will want to appear like you have been playing for years. Players will take advantage of you if they know you are new to online poker.

Change the Deck Color

Online poker moves at a fast pace. Being able to read the board quickly will help your game. One feature that will help you is the 4 color deck. Selecting this feature will change the deck from black and red to one color per suit. You will be able to quickly see that flush draw and play accordingly. You can also change the color of the deck when the cards are face down. Sometimes you may want the cards to be a stark contrast to the table in order to see who is in the hand. If the card color is close to the table color you may be thinking you are heads up when suddenly a third player reraises you. They were there the whole time but because your card color was similar to the table you missed them.

Big Stacks, Big Pots and Big Cards

No. I am not talking about winning the big pots with big pairs. I am referring to a software feature that allows the cards to appear larger. It makes it easier to see, especially on a laptop or for playing multiple tables.

Are you missing in Action?

If the hand went by too quickly you can always see what people typed or who won by looking closer at the Chat Action Screen (usually in the bottom left of the screen). Choosing “chat only” allows you to look back over what people were typing. Choosing “table action details” allows you to see each players actions on the previous hands. Some sites like Poker Stars show your individual statistics on your hands. This is a nice feature that shows if you are playing too many hands or if you are always getting beat on the river. Remember, you always have the “hand history” feature to look back on previous action, but I will talk more about this later.