Poker news | Mar 04, 2022

7 Reasons Why Online Poker is Better than Live Poker

By RTR Jamie

There is no wrong or right answer to the question, is Online Poker better than Live Poker? It is all a matter of personal opinion. However, there are a few reasons as to why one may think online is better than live and here are seven of them.

More Variety

When you play online poker, sites offer a wide range of different games you can play including your favourite Texas Hold’em, Omaha and many more, whereas at a live poker room you have limited options.

Not only is there more variety of games to play but there is also a wide range of tournaments that run all day, everday.

Live poker rooms will have a closing time, meaning you can't play whenever you want, you also can't play wherever you want. Of course, there are laws in place in some countries that limit your playability. So, if you can only play at a live poker room where you live then this is more than likely the better option for you.

Online poker rooms offer cash game options for everyone, you are spoilt for choice. These options include six-max, full ring and sometimes fast-fold poker, they also offer the chance to play rebuy and add on tournaments, play turbo structures, small or big fields with guaranteed prize pools.

GGPoker offers a great variety of games and tournaments, for example GG Masters tournaments, Bounty Hunters Series and Short Deck Series. Like many other rooms they offer sit and go and flip or fold games and tournaments, this is something you wouldn’t find in a live poker room.

Easy Access and Use

In a sense, it is easier to play online as it is easier to access. If you have a computer you can access the poker rooms site, whereas compared to its live counterpart, if there are no rooms in your area you will need to travel to get there.

As well as online poker being easy to access, it also allows you to pick and choose when you play, you can take long breaks between games and come back to it whenever you see fit. With live poker, this is not something that is as easy to do, unless you live in or next to a casino.

If you play Multiple table tournaments, online poker offers frequent MTTs you have more opportunity to join in as there will be one at a perfect time for you.

Live poker Multi-table tournaments do not run as often so it is harder to find one that suits you and your needs.

Lower Stakes

Online poker rooms offer tournaments with a lower buy-in price, this could be $5 or under and they run regularly throughout the day. Online cash games can start out at NL2 and have binds as low as 0.1.

It is hard to find a live game tournament that has buy-in under $50 and the smallest stakes poker tables available at live rooms would usually be around $1/$3.

You can even get involved in real money games online without making a deposit, for example if you sign up to a room with a no deposit bonus! 888 Poker is one room that currently has a no deposit welcome bonus that allows you to get £20 to start you off. (Depending on your location.

Heads-Up Displays

Although it has been banned by some poker sites, some still offer HUD’s which is a tracking software that allows you to find out the history and statistics of your opponents.

This is something that is unique to online poker, you would not be able to do this in the live poker industry.

Even though it is banned on some sites, they will usually give you some information on your opponents, usually just the number of hands played.

Speed

Playing poker online allows you to increase your speed of play compared to live poker.

You can average around 60-80 hands per hour for a typical full-ring online poker game for live poker the average is around 25-30 hands an hour compared to its online counterpart, meaning your short term variance will be consistently slowed down.

Playing online will drastically increase your win rate if you are able to get this many hands in on a single table.

At partypoker you can increase your hands per hour even more with their fast-fold variant of No-Limit Texas Hold’em.

Rakeback

Both live and online poker rooms will make you pay a rake fee when playing in a cash game or tournament. However, with online poker rooms you can get a percentage of this back!

Nowadays, many poker rooms will offer a cashback/rakeback scheme which allows you to get a percentage of the rake paid back.

At RakeTheRake, we arrange the poker rooms to give players back some of this rake as well as offer extras on top of this, which you can find at a live poker room! You can get involved in rake races which allow you to give an even higher percentage back.

Check out the rooms that we currently have available in your area and start getting the rakeback you deserve.