Specialize
The most efficient way to make money playing online poker is to pick a type of poker and devote all your energy towards it until you are a solid winning player. This was probably my biggest mistake – I played limit hold’em, sit-n-go’s, and multi table tournaments before hitting a sweet spot playing no limit hold’em six handed cash games. (Most online poker sites offer two, six and nine player cash games). If you don’t know what the difference between these forms of poker, just head over the rules page and read the summaries before going any further.
I would definitely recommend learning either no limit hold’em or pot limit omaha cash games (see the differences). I suggest this because these are the two most popular types of poker online. Cash games are nice in that when something interrupts you, or if you are going on tilt, you can just leave at the end of the orbit. In addition, due to lower rake and the ability to choose who you play with, cash games are the most profitable form of poker. Definitely do not focus on long tournaments to start off with unless you are very willing to alter your daily schedule for the sake of tournaments and are willing to commit 5+ hour chunks of time to non-stop poker. In fact, even if you are willing to do that, I’d still say you shouldn’t do it.
I’m going to assume you chose no limit hold’em cash games for the purposes of this guide, but if your heart is set on another type of poker, there will still be plenty of useful information for you as well.
Rules
Read a copy of the rules of your chosen type of poker. If you are reading this, you most likely know the rules for no limit hold’em but there is no harm in going through them again. If you are going to make serious money from poker you will need to have serious knowledge about poker.
Poker Terminology
You are going to need to keep this page of poker terms open in a separate window to use as a reference for both content in this guide and throughout the poker world. I’m doing my best to use words that casual poker players will understand but sometimes there will be no layman’s alternative. Some abbreviations will save my fingers a lot of work so learn these right now.
NLHE or NL = no limit hold’em
PLO = pot limit omaha
SNG’s = sit-n-go’s (usually single table tournaments that start when the table fills up, not at a scheduled time)
MTT = multi table tournament
HU = heads up (one versus one)
6max or 6m = six person poker game
FR = fullring (nine or ten person poker game)
FT = final table
100nl, 200PLO, etc. = In online poker, cash games are generally referred to by the big blind multiplied by one hundred followed by the abbreviation of the game type. This is because 100 big blinds is usually the maximum buy-in for the game and the preferred buy-in amount for winning players. For example, a no limit hold’em game with a small blind of fifty cents and a big blind of one dollar would be referred to as 100nl. People also use the more traditional method where you write the small blind value separated by a slash from the big blind (.50/1 NLHE), but I tend to use the first method.
Now you should know what it means if someone says, “I FT’ed a PLO FR SNG and cashed for 4k.”