Getting Your Online Poker Game In Line

One of the most successful online players in the world, Patrik Antonius, breaks down the little things you need to do to get your online game in line

THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN playing poker online and playing live, but one overriding principle is true regardless of where you are playing: Poker is about so much more than just the game. There are many outside factors that affect how you play more than people realize. If you have problems in your life outside of the game, if you’re feeling sick, if you’re in a bad frame of mind, you really should not play. I have such strong instincts when I play, and I usually know right away when I start to play if I am going to win or lose.
The truth is, I could have saved maybe $1-million or $2-million over the years if I wouldn’t have played when my back has been bothering me, or when I’ve had a cold, or when I’ve just been otherwise pissed off or steaming. Instincts are very important in this game, and you have to be in really good shape physically so you can use them. The better your body feels, the sharper your head will be as well.

And where that really becomes important is when it comes to bad beats. Everyone gets bad beats, everyone gets unlucky. And I really feel that if I’m not in good shape, or I haven’t slept well or been eating well or been working out enough, and I take some bad beats, I reach my boiling point sooner. On days when you do everything well, when you’ve been eating well and sleeping well and working out well, you can take more bad beats and not start steaming. And of course, when you’re steaming, that’s the point at which you should quit the game because it’s going to be tough to play well.

So why do I bring all of this up in a column about improving your online play? Because when you play online, you see so many more hands per hour than you do live, and it’s just a fact that you’re going to take many more bad beats online. And in online cash games especially, you can run through a lot of money in a hurry if you’re not careful.

I recently had an example of a time when I absolutely should have walked away from the game, and I didn’t, and it caused me to have the worst losing session of my life. I lost over two times more money in three hours than I have ever lost in one day online. I’ve been playing the $200/$400 No-Limit game, basically the biggest game you can find online. And there were two key pots I lost, one of which was the biggest pot I’ve ever played.

Playing heads up, I had As-Qs, so I raised from the button to $1,400, and my opponent made it $4,200. He’d been raising something like every fifth hand or so, he’d been coming over the top like that without position. And we had really deep stacks. So I wanted to make it more because I really didn’t want him to take a flop with 5-7 again and hit against my A-Q, because A-Q is really not that great of a hand. But I kind of had a bad feeling when I raised it to $12,400 and he called. The flop came 2-4-Q. So he checked, and this is where I made the first mistake, because I bet $22,000. I had a lot of chips, like $350,000, and he had like $150,000. So he moved all in with his last $137,000 or so, and I was thinking about calling. And I made the call based a lot of hands we had played during the last six months and based on what I’ve heard about him playing big pots like these against other players. I felt the most likely hand that he was holding was K-K, but I was thinking that he was capable of making the same kind of move with the same pair as me—queens—with a worse kicker then I was holding. But I was steaming a bit and I didn’t have much time to think about it since you only have about 30 seconds to make a decision online, so I made the call. One thing about online play is that you don’t have a lot of time to make decisions. So I didn’t think it through properly, I called, and he had kings.

But the turn was an ace, and I jumped from my chair. It looked like I was going to win the pot. And I looked at the board and I said, “no king.” and then the river came a king. And I lost a $300,000 pot. And losing that pot, I really felt like I took a punch to the head. Hitting the ace, then having him hit the king, with that much money at stake, it was just devastating. I don’t think I have felt anything like that in my poker career.

I should have quit at that point in the game, but I still had like $185,000 on the table, and I didn’t know what to do, so I kept playing, and that was a mistake. So I lost some more small pots after that, $10,000 here, $10,000 there, and I had like $90,000 left on the table, and then I took a terrible beat.

At least with A-Q against kings, when the money went in, he was the favorite. But this hand happened maybe one hour later, and this time I was the favorite when we got the money in. He raised from the button, and I had A-Q again, and he had A-3. He made it $1,400, and I just called; I didn’t want to raise it this time. So there’s $2,800 on the flop, and the flop came A-10-4, and I checked. And he bet $2,400 into a $2,800 pot, and I raised it to $9,600. I wanted to make it look like a bluff or like I had a flush draw. He called, we had $22,000 in the pot on the turn, and the turn was an ace. So I had three aces with a queen kicker, and he had three aces with no kicker. So I bet $18,000, and he raised me all in for his last $60,000 or so, and I saw his hand, and I was like, Yes! I got him! And the river came a three. That day was just plain sick.

But there was a lot for me to learn from that day. If your instincts are saying something, usually they’re right. If you have a bad feeling about the way things are going and the way they’re going to go, you should trust that feeling.

And there always comes a point at which it’s wise to walk away. I think two or three hours per day is the optimum amount people should play online. Barry Greenstein has said people should play for short periods—you can play three times per day for short bursts, rather than play four hours straight. When I play more than two hours, I lose focus a bit. That was part of what hurt me on that day where I lost those two huge pots.

Fortunately for me, I’ve come back from that painful day, and I started running good again soon after. But when something like that happens, or when you feel like you’re losing every pot—which especially tends to happen sometimes in Limit games—it’s going to hurt your confidence, and it’s going to hurt your game. The way it’s going to hurt is that you’re going to be afraid of the scary cards. So I recommend that when that happens, you should play smaller limits for one or two days until you get the good feeling again, until you’re winning and hitting your cards. Even a couple of hours can be enough. But it helps to win the small games before going back to the big games. That’s how you minimize your losses when you’re on a bad rush. The better your self-confidence, the more you’ll trust yourself, and the better you’ll play.

Here’s an important thought about online play: People tend to play looser online. Especially in full ring games, people seem to be looser. People are more aggressive online. So a really good online player should play smart and take advantage of that.

The most important piece of advice for playing online poker is to think through the game in your mind after you quit. I think about where could I have saved money, and I also think about what I did well. That’s how you improve. I’ve been working really hard on thinking about the game when I haven’t been playing. And I’ve been doing really well because of that. People don’t think enough about the game, they just go and play. They try to improve their game that way, and I don’t agree with that. You should improve your game while you’re not playing. You make mistakes, and you remember them. You go through all the different situations, and hopefully you don’t make the same mistakes again.

If you play against weaker players and you’re winning almost all the time, I don’t think that’s going to improve your game at all. You have to challenge yourself against better players sometimes. You can learn from those better players. You play against weaker players to get money, and then you play against better players to learn. When you win, you’re usually just happy and you don’t think about why you won. But when people beat you, you think about the game. And thinking about the game, thinking about the pots, why you lost them, how you could have saved some money—that’s going to benefit your game immensely.