The good thing about playing poker online is that you can virtually play whenever you have some free time. Got 30 minutes to spare? Then just sign on, find a game you like and start playing. It's really that simple.

The only problem as I see it, you can find a range of places to play online, how do you choose? By whoever offers the largest bonus? The fanciest looking site?

When trying to find an area to play online, consider how long the card room has been in business for - 4-5 years is a while within the online gaming world. Sites associated with professional poker players are also more very likely to be reputable - the theory being that they don't want to be related to a shady outfit. The pro players don't want to put their reputations on the line.

You can belong to more than one online casino or poker room as I do. Some poker rooms provide a better sign up bonus, some have better or maybe more frequent freeroll tournaments. Another may have easier ring games. There's no limit to the number of poker rooms that one can join.

Do some research at a site that you trust which reviews online casino and poker rooms. Start out by making a small deposit. Try out the software and find out should the site fits your requirements. Does the site offer games at the limits that you want? Is it easy to withdraw cash? Are there enough players online whenever you are likely to play to ensure that you'll always have the best game available?

By checking out the lobby of an online site you could possibly get to view who the players will be in a particular game, the number of flops that they may be seeing - which helps you locate a tight or loose game, the number of hands being played each hour.

The most profitable games will be the ones that have larger than average pots as well as a high percentage of players which are seeing the flop.

Because of the relative ease that players have in switching tables, playing during lunch or before dinner implies that sometimes you will be playing in shorthanded games.

Whenever you are playing in a shorthanded game you should anticipate to play in a larger number of games. You should anticipate to play more hands as the value of low pairs now increases. The value of drawing hands may also decrease because there typically inadequate players within the hand to make the pot large enough to chase.

Just about all online casinos have games that start out at limits as low as .05/.10 which are great poker for a novice and increase in increments small enough in order that you may slowly get acclimated to playing for larger pots. Of course if you prefer to go to the larger limit or no limit games, there isn't any shortage of these either.