Poker - an old game with new technologies

We all have heard about poker. Even if you are not into gambling or casinos, you have definitely seen this game in various movies, like “Casino Royale”, or even music videos like “The Ace of Spades”. Poker is, perhaps, one of the most modern card games, yet it is also the most widespread one. Started somewhere in the middle of 19th century, poker was much simpler than it is today.

In our times the most widespread way to play poker is Texas Hold’em, which involves dealing 2 cards to each of the players and later revealing 5 “common” cards. Even though the largest winnings happen offline, most of the volumes are done online. Next to this, the technology has influenced poker to quite some extend. Let’s find out more about it.

Online poker rooms

The main catalysator of poker was an ability to play it from the comfort of your couch. There is no more need to dress up, take a cab, go to a casino and be on time, if you want to participate in a certain tournament. Today you can play with hundreds of thousands of players from all over the world just by installing the gaming software.

Benefits of online poker

The main benefit of playing poker from your computer is that it allows you to perform the decisions better. Even though you do not get to see the people you play with, and hence, cannot assess their psychology so well, you do get to benefit from a crystal clear view. Unlike offline poker, when playing online you don’t really have to perform all of the complex calculations when determining your stack, your opponent's’ chip count, the pot and so on. This speeds up the game quite a lot.

How about deposits?

Typically a poker room would accept all sorts of deposits: wire transfer, credit card or various online wallets. However, if you are super cautious about the anonymity of your deposit, you will certainly find playing poker with bitcoins useful. Bitcoin poker rooms generally offer the same type of service with one main difference - you have to deposit using your bitcoin wallet, hence your identity is not revealed anywhere through the process. This is also quite handy for the residents of countries that offer high taxes on gambling earnings.

Statistics

Next to the obvious benefits of accessibility and anonymity of the payments, you can also get various tracking software. Perhaps the most common one is PokerTracker 4, an app that lets you memorise the movements of your opponents in an easy way. The more hands you play, the more data the app receives, and based on this data, you will be able to make more informed decisions.

The final point

Technology has certainly revolutionised the way we play poker today, and even though offline tournaments are still popular, online poker is certainly overtaking due to a vast amount of benefits.