Maquis47 on Aug 30, 2010 Said:

I see 3 main factors involved.

1. Availability. I don’t live near any real casinos, but my computer is always within reach and there’s always a game starting 24/7.

2. Ease of use. I’ve never been to a casino and wouldn’t know what to do. What etiquette rules apply? How much to tip? I don’t want to go to a casino and look like a dweeb walking in the door with no clue what I’m doing. Online, I can learn at my pace and watch others playing for a bit before jumping into the game. I doubt Caesar’s Palace will let me stand over a poker table and watch the players.

3. Stakes. Most casinos have a $5 minimum bet for Blackjack and I don’t even know what is typical for poker tables, but I bet it ain’t 1/2 cent blinds. I’m not a hard core gambler and I don’t spend hundreds of dollars gambling each month. Heck, I’ve been milking the same $25 for years now on pokerstars. I play the occasionally micro-stakes tourney and just enjoy the games.

Perhaps casinos have more to offer the hard core gamblers. The shows in Las Vegas can certainly be entertaining, but it isn’t for me. I’m sure there are a lot of other casual gamblers as well that like a little action but don’t have a casino nearby and don’t want to use their vacation time to find one.

TheMadProfessor on Aug 30, 2010 Said:

I’m nowhere near the category of pro yet, but the thing that online gaming gives you that f2f can’t possibly match is speed and multitabling. When you’re sitting at a real table, you can see maybe 30 hands an hour tops and probably at least half of those you’re sitting out (unless you play really aggressively). At a virtual one, you’re probably getting at least 45-50 hands per hour and can play 2 or more tables simultaneously with little trouble (some pros do as many as 8-10…personally, I start getting overwhelmed at around 4, especially if one or more is down to just a few players.) This means one can quickly be getting 3-5 times as much action per hour with the added flexibility of doing so whenever the mood hits you for as long or short a time as you want – at a brick and mortar casino, one often feels the need to put in as much gambling as possible since you’ve gone to the effort of going there.

huckleberry on Aug 30, 2010 Said:

I’m not an internet pro, as of now I only make my living at the brick-and-mortar games and play online when I’m bored at home, but I think I can say some things on behalf of the internet pros.

Already mentioned: convenience. No commuting. Play in your pajamas from the comfort of your own home. No air-conditioner blasting in the middle of January. No stabbings or shootings (*cough* Taj Mahal). Eat and drink as you please. Listen to music. If you don’t like a table, *click* pick another one instantly.

Already mentioned: SPEED. You get many more hands per hour because you don’t have to wait for shuffling, dealing, disputes, and online the clock is instantly called and is at most 30 seconds, so the decisions are made faster. Playing at a single 9-handed table online for 1 hour is the equivalent of playing at a casino for 3 or 4 hours. If you multitable (which internet pros do), multiply this factor by the number of tables, and you’re looking at 1 internet hour being the same as 12, 16, 20+ hours at a casino! If you play short-handed, that’s even more hands. Table size is another factor: at the casino there’s only 1 size. Online, you can play people heads-up, and if you’re the better player, you’ll profit much faster than you would at a full table.

Not yet mentioned: tournaments. If you’re a tournament player, the internet has wayy more tournaments than a casino. You can play multiple ones at once. You can sign up for another one as soon as you’re eliminated from another. You can choose between so many different types of tournaments. You can choose so many different stakes.

Not yet mentioned: stakes. If you’re a high-stakes player, the internet always has your stakes. A casino might only *sometimes* have the stakes you wanna play at. For instance, Atlantic City’s Borgata has 10/20NL normally, but only sometimes has 25/50, and even less often has 50/100. Online you can find those AND higher at any time.

Another possible factor, you might encounter more fresh faces in a higher-stakes online game than you would at the same stakes at a casino. At a casino you’re probably facing most of the same people at a 5/10 game. Online you are too, but there’s also a good supply of people swinging for the fences playing at a stake they don’t belong at. You and the regulars can chop this person up and then move on to the next fish, instead of trading pots back and forth with each other all day and getting raked away.

“where it’s about memorizing or owning statistical software”
The software isn’t that vital, you can win without it. It helps but it doesn’t make such a colossal difference. It’s just, since it’s available, why NOT use it? Especially since the other good players are using it on you. You seem to be implying that the internet pros would be nothing without their software. This just isn’t true. Most internet pros visit the casinos occasionally and they do just fine there. Usually when I see an internet player at my table, he’s one of the sharks at the table. I’ve said it numerous times, a particular stakes online is as tough as a much higher stakes at a casino.

“And every player can see…the hand and eye movements of all the other players.”
Seeing the people is a nice advantage of live play, but really it isn’t so crucial. 95% of poker is about betting patterns, tactics, and math. So online and live poker are pretty much the same, poker is poker. Especially at the higher stakes, where people have less tells and expressions anyway.

“What brings a person to put money on an imaginary table online and trust an environment…”
Playing tens or hundreds of thousands of hands and coming out a winner, would probably earn YOUR trust as well.

bluffraise on Aug 30, 2010 Said:

couple of obv reasons would be that sometimes you just want to kill 30 mins of your day and it is not worth getting dressed and driving out somewhere to do so. for myself I def prefer playing online because I like to play more than 40 hands per hour.