Poker Winner Blog

If you’re serious about improving your poker skills — especially if you’re a beginner — you need to get cozy with a personal computer. Here’s why:

The union of poker and computer technology offers an opportunity to jump- start your poker progress and move up the learning curve with ease. Playing poker on your PC will also save you money: Dump those beginner boo-boos before they cost you dearly in real games!

Today’s poker students can use a personal computer as the cornerstone of a comprehensive, interactive self-study course in poker. If you study poker books and use a computer to practice your newfound skills, you can leapfrog past the anguish and expense of gaining experience the old-fashioned way (by losing your greenhorn’s money to the sharks).

With a PC you can try out your fledgling poker skills in games against surprisingly tough computer opponents. On the Internet you can play against human opponents for play-money or even real money, gaining valuable experience for live casino play.

Once online, you participate in the newsgroup rec.gambling.poker (RGP) and other sites dedicated strictly to poker. Here you will find stimulating discussions to sharpen your thinking and deepen your understanding. You’ll receive feedback from more experienced players, including experts, and you’ll be able to get information about games anywhere in the world.

Choosing the Right Computer for Poker Study

What, you don’t have a computer yet but are thinking of taking the plunge? Do you have an old computer and wonder if you can get by? If you don’t have a computer, now is the time to get one. Anyone serious about becoming a consistent winner in poker is handicapped without a PC. Whenever you sit in a game for cash stakes, you’ll be facing opponents who use computers for poker study.

Some of those players are even doing computer simulations to discover the lifetime results of playing the same hand several different ways. The latest PCs can handle this chore in less time than it takes you to watch a movie — and we’re talking about three million hands or so! Do you really want your competitors to have this kind of resource at their fingertips when you don’t?

Getting by with a used computer

Okay, we’ve convinced you — you need a computer. But remember, it can’t be just any PC. The dinosaur your brother-in-law dumped on your front lawn ten years ago when his pizza business went under just won’t make the grade, nor will most computers that are more than a few years old.

Realistic computer poker has arrived, but you have to meet it head-on with the right equipment. Advances in computers in just the past year or two have already left earlier models dead in the water, matching the astounding advances in poker software step for step.

Computers just aren’t like cars. An old, well-maintained PC may be okay for your bookkeeping, but it won’t have the pickup and speed you need on the Internet superhighway, nor will it have “the right stuff” to cope with the complex graphics of quality poker programs. Assigning an old computer to handle these tasks is not like putting an old car on the freeway, but more like putting a hay wagon out there! Trying to get somewhere on the Internet? You may get there, but you won’t like the bumpy ride!

Face it. If you’re serious about improving your poker skills and have a computer more than a few years old, you probably need to replace it, unless you’re a computer whiz who is capable of doing lots of fancy upgrades. Keep your blood pressure somewhere beneath the stratosphere by turning it in lots, a new model.

Our final word: Buy new if you possibly can. The ease, speed, and convenience offered by the latest computers are worth it. Most new computers will have most — if not all — of the following accoutrements already built-in, but it doesn’t hurt to check.

For the computer activities we recommend in this and the following, you’ll avoid problems by having at least …

• The Windows 95 (or higher if you’re buying new) operating system. (Poker program designers love Windows. In fact, many poker programs won’t work with anything but Windows. Don’t try to swim upstream by buying a Macintosh!)
• A Pentium-class (or equivalent) processor incorporating MMX technology (which improves a computer’s ability to run complex stuff like videos and the sophisticated graphics of today’s realistic poker programs).
• 64 megabytes or more of RAM (random access memory). Poker programs are greedy — they eat up lots of computer memory space, especially when you’re playing on the Internet.
• A modem with a minimum speed of 33,600 bits per second (bps). 56,800 bps is even better. (A modem is a device that enables a computer to send and receive data through an ordinary phone line.)
• Note: You may see the numbers written as 33.6Kbps or 56Kbps, with the K standing for kilo (thousand). The faster your modem connection, the easier it will be to use the Internet.
• A sound card so you can hear neat things like the clacking of chips when the pot is pushed to you; the warning beep when it’s your turn to act and you’re buried in the sports pages; or the canned laughter of your opponents when you do something dumb.
• A CD-ROM or DVD drive for installing poker software and other programs, and for playing cool music to calm your nerves when the poker god is smiling everywhere but in your direction.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The Computer: Your Shortcut to Poker Mastery part 1

• The Computer: Your Shortcut to Poker Mastery part 2
• The Computer: Your Shortcut to Poker Mastery part 3
• The Computer: Your Shortcut to Poker Mastery part 4
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