A lot of pros refuse to play online poker. While there are plenty of fish in the water and lots of money to be made, a lot of good poker strategy gets tossed to the wind. There are plenty of joe's, emboldened by the recent popularity of television poker, who are too nervous to play in a real casino but won't think twice about signing up online with their credit card and plopping down at a 3/6 table. And they'll play anything. But with this abundance of dumb prey comes an unexpected penalty: be ready for many bad beats.
Be prepared for the guys who play every hand. They like the action and can't stand to sit out of a pot, especially if the last hand they threw away a three-eight before the flop, and two eights and a three landed on the board.
Expect that many people will call any raise, regardless of how weak their hand maybe. It's hard to drive people out of a pot, especially on low-limit tables. They'll call the thrice-raised pot with their Jack-9-offsuit because they've already put three bucks in. People not only defend their blinds very aggressively, they defend the money they've voluntarily put into the pot, too, no matter how little they've committed or how high the stakes have gotten to defend it.
Many online poker players will keep an unpaired overcard 'til the very end, hoping to outdraw you on the river. And they'll do this even with a flush or straight possibility showing on the board. They expect to outdraw you and lead out and bet aggressively with that expectation. Bet, raise, call: you can count on their money being in the pot 'til the last card hits the table.
Sounds wonderful, right? Easy money, offered up by unskilled players with deep wallets. But the game quickly loses its charm when they start to outdraw you, again and again. And it only serves to reinforce their behavior. Bad beats happen all the time in face-to-face play, too, but not nearly as often as in online poker.
Don't be tempted to start playing badly, too. Just because it seems to be working for them in the short-term, calling everything is a losing strategy. You're not just gambling; you're throwing your money away.
Luck will pay you off sometimes, but in the end, luck is fickle. Follow the same sound strategies that you would use in face-to-face play. Play only the cards that you would play if you were physically at a poker table and pushing your chips in with your own hands. Loosening up your play style a little bit is an acceptable strategy, but don't allow yourself to be swayed into playing lackluster hands because some other shmoe got lucky with them earlier. The distinguishing quality in a solid poker player is restraint.