For many of us, our first poker experience was no place near a casino. Either we learned from friends or family members in home games, or we connected to the online poker trend. Still, the idea of playing poker in an actual offline (B&M) casino, with all the clerk sights and sounds, is very tempting for most. So what do you need to know when transferring your home or online skills to casino play? There are many dissimilarities between online and B&M play, but two factors you may immediately want to consider are tells and casino type.
Tells
The main concern most people have when moving from online to B&M play relation tells. A tell is a physical action a player performs that may give idn poker opponents a hint as to to his hand, such as putting a hand to the face when bluffing. Online, since your opponents cannot see you, physical tells are not really concern (there are online tells, but that is beyond the scope of this article). In fact, one popular poker site has an advertising where they invite those players who have a “bad poker face” to join, since no one can see your face online. In the movie “Rounders, inch estimated at the beginning of this article, the villain is undone by just how he handles an Oreo candy bar depending on whether or not he’s a big hand. In reality, tells are rarely this extreme. Most of the time when you play in a casino, especially a “tourist” casino (see following), your opponents are much more concerned with what they are holding than what you are. Even when an opponent scrutinizes you, gazing you down while contemplating a call, they’re generally just considering how much they like their own hand. Real tell-spotting requires long, careful remark of a player’s tendencies; you are not likely to give much away on an individual hand. Professionals like to give the impression that they can just look promptly into your soul and know what you’re holding, but there’s a lot more to it than that. If you’re really worried you can purchase a pair of reflective sunglasses to wear so no one can see your eyes. You can also always wait a established amount of time (five or ten seconds) before acting whether your hand is strong or not so strong and choose a established spot on the table to look at while waiting for anyone to respond to your action.
Type of Casino
All casinos are not created equal. A decade ago, before the exploding market in poker popularity, most casinos did not have a poker room at all, or at best, a small section of the blackjack floor partitioned away where two or three $1 to $2 limit games might take place. Obviously, things will vary now, but it is possible to definitely different types of casinos where one might play poker. You are a Card Club. These are most commonly found in places like California, where poker as a game of skill is legal, but some other playing games are not. Although they have expanded to other games, these clubs are primarily designed to play poker. As a result, you are likely to find the most experienced poker players here, although not necessarily the most robust and they have their share of tourists as well. The more common type of casino is a Nevada Style Casino. These casinos have made fortunes on blackjack, slot machines and roulette and did not really focus on poker in the past as it is not a big money maker for the casino. Unlike the other games, which are contrary to the House (the casino) and are structured so your House always wins in the long run, poker is a game where the casino only makes money by taking a portion of each pot (called “the rake, inch usually no more than $4 a pot) for themselves. Although now rare, some casinos take “time” instead of a rake, meaning every half hour a representative of the casino comes around and gathers a established sum of money from each player in the game.
Of these Nevada Style Casinos, you will find what I think of as Poker Casinos versus. Tourist Casinos. A Poker Casino is one that has always had poker as part of its draw. These include The Bellagio and the Mirage in Nevada and the Taj Mahal and Borgata in Atlantic City. A Tourist Casino is one of the abovementioned casinos that did not have poker at all prior to the recent thrive made it worthwhile as a draw to get players into their casino. Of course both of these types of casinos cater to tourists, but the Poker Casinos are where you may find professionals. Which of these types is more to your taste is for the individual to decide.