While True Grinders love nothing more than a great live-action poker game, the most successful TG’s will still earn the bulk of their ‘roll playing online poker. The advantages for playing online poker are numerous and should prove to be a guaranteed profit center if played correctly in conjunction with the right poker strategies.

Musical Table - Advantages Of Easy Table Selections In Online Poker

In a live poker room you're often on a waiting list just to get into a game. If the table you draw winds up looking more like a bingo game than a poker game, you're faced with the option of going BACK onto the waiting list or continuing to grind it out with the geriatric crowd. Even with no list, you will typically only see 3-5 additional tables spreading the game/limit that you want to play. Conversely, an online poker site like Bovada will have dozens of tables at the lower and middle limits running 24/7.

Also, you can quickly sort tables by stats such as how many players see a flop and hands played per hour. There's virtually no way to get these types of stats in real time in a live poker room. Knowing what they mean and how to interpret them can pay off big dividends in the long run. We'll talk about these in a later article.

Faster, Bigger And Better

Compared to the largest live poker rooms in the world, even some of the smaller online poker sites such as Bovada Poker will have more active tables at any given time. Since there’s neither a dealer nor a shuffle to contend with (it’s all automated when playing online) you can play far more hands per hour as well. This is a very important distinction for the True Grinder because the more hands per hour = the more dollars EARNED per hour so playing online poker offers a huge advantage in this respect.

The hourly earn rate will become a critical area to track accurately because when you’re serious about grinding it out and making a living, you have to know how much you’re earning. You wouldn’t take a job anywhere not knowing what your pay would be; the poker table should be no different. Yes, you will take swings and have losing sessions but overall you should have a grip on what your hourly win rate is going to be in any given situation.

Just taking these two factors into account make playing poker online far more attractive than playing live if you’re grinding it out. Should you abandon playing live poker then? Of course not, it’s important to maintain discipline in both forms of poker but when you factor in the online advantages of more hands per hour, the ability to multi-table, and the stats and metrics you can track with poker software, online poker wins hands down each time.

Deposit Bonuses Offered At Online Poker

Let us not forget this one! While you may occasionally see a live poker room with some sort of hourly bonus to regulars or a promotion here or there, you will rarely see them offer the types of poker deposit bonuses like 100% free deposit bonus up to $1000 like Bovada offers. Since there's so much competition online for poker players, the majority of rooms offer deposit and reload bonuses. Many also offer loyalty bonuses for playing x number of hands in a month and/or FPP's (Frequent Player Points) earned. Some of these deposit bonuses exceed $500 so you'd be wise to shop around and find a room with a good bonus. Make sure to read the fine print on the playing requirements to release the bonus as well.

Value Advantages For Playing Online

Aside from all the other reasons you should be playing poker online, there is one very important advantage that stands out which relates to guaranteed tournaments. In short, players can get killer value if they pay attention to the guaranteed tournaments poker rooms offer on a daily basis and find the ones that offer incredible pot odds. For example, I was playing at Bodog the other day and they had a $3K guaranteed tournament with a $20 buy in. The reason this tournament offered me tons of value is because there were only 57 players in the tourney, so I was getting incredible pot odds on my buyin. The point is simple, shop around, look for value and exploit it when your getting the right odds on your money. In the long run this is going to turn into a huge profit center for you. This is the one common sense online poker advantage that all players should really look into.

Summary

So you can play more tables at once, the hands are dealt far quicker, the stats are a big plus, and you can make money just by depositing at a certain site? Are there any downsides to playing online poker? Of course there are and we will talk about that at a later date. Things to beware of online are cheaters, tilting (the advantages in the speed of online can cause you lose money as fast as you can make it), and losing focus are all potential traps. However, the advantages for playing poker online still outweigh the disadvantages versus live poker. The top TG's understand this and will adopt a balanced approach to the game that suits their style the best. You should continue to educate yourself with our various articles here at The Poker Grind to help discover your TG style, too. In the end, your bankroll will thank you for it!