Top Rated Poker Sites

5 Tips to Help You Beat the Top Rated Poker Sites

Beating the games at top rated poker sites doesn't have to be difficult. As long as you know some basic strategy, take advantage of your poker room's special features, and practice a bit of patience, the road to profits is quite smooth. Here are 5 solid tips to help you crush the games at top rated poker sites. Take these gems to heart, and you'll be winning stacks in no time.

Tip #1: Use Software Features to Your Advantage

All the top rated poker sites have killer software clients, jam-packed with features aimed at improving your game. If you want to beat the games, you should know about these features and use them to your advantage.

Multi-tabling is critical to keeping your hourly rate high. Luckily, the best poker software clients have features built in to help you play lots of tables. For example, the top rated poker sites have quick-resize features that allow you to easily manipulate your table arrangement as you play. There's nothing worse than losing track of a table in the middle of a hand, and quick-resize features were designed to prevent it. Make sure you use them!

Most of the top rated poker sites have an auto-rebuy feature as well. At Full Tilt Poker, for example, you can set the auto-rebuy monitor to recognize when your stack at any cash game table falls below a certain number. When your stack hits this trigger number, the software automatically tops you up. This ensures that you don't lose any EV by playing unintentionally short-stacked. It's certainly a time saver.

Tip #2: Top Rated Poker Sites Give Bonuses -- Use Them!

All of the top rated poker sites give poker bonuses to players as an incentive to keep playing. These bonuses come in different forms. The most important kinds are first deposit bonuses, reload bonuses, and VIP programs. By taking advantage of these types of bonuses, you can significantly increase your winrate.

The first deposit bonus is self-explanatory. If you've never played at a poker room before, you'll be eligible for a cash-matching bonus upon your first deposit. The top rated poker rooms tend to be pretty generous with these. If you're a small-stakes player, the bonus you're offered could potentially double your bankroll!

Poker sites will offer reload bonuses from time to time, which are like first deposit bonuses but for existing players. All you have to do to claim a reload bonus is make a deposit; the site will generally match whatever amount you put in. Even if you've got money in your account, it makes sense to take advantage of reload bonuses whenever they come up. Free money is free money.

Most of the best rated poker sites also maintain VIP loyalty programs, which are ongoing poker bonus programs for players who put in volume. A VIP program usually works by awarding you 'points' as you produce rake. You can then redeem your points for products in a site's VIP store, or you can exchange your points for cash. Essentially what these programs do is cut back on your rake, which is certainly good for your winrate.

Tip #3: Play Your Strongest Game

Once you've discovered all the features and bonuses offered by your poker site of choice, winning comes down to you. You need to play your A-game 100% of the time, or close to it. And your A-game can't be leaky -- you need to know what you're doing. Thus you should only play whichever poker game you consider to be your best. If you're a Draw newbie but you know Holdem by heart, go with the Holdem poker rooms. Not only will you profit more in the short term, you'll improve your game faster if you go with what you know.

This doesn't mean you can't play unfamiliar games online. It's actually a great idea to learn online poker. But if you're learning, you should stick to the play money or micro-stakes tables. If you're looking to beat the top poker sites, you certainly play where you're strongest.

Tip #4: Avoid Clashing With Other Regulars

You'll have an easier time beating the games if you stay away from other regular players. If you notice an opponent playing all the time, and you see him on a couple of your tables, chances are he's a regular. Avoid clashing with him at first, because he's probably pretty good; or at least he's better than most fish. There is easier money to be made than from grinders.

Once you get to know a site and its player pool, you can start harassing the regs. But you'll need to make sure you've studied their games before you start exploiting them. That's the name of the game -- exploitation. And you can't exploit a player if you don't know what his unique weaknesses are.

The fish have obvious weaknesses. They play too passively and shy away from aggression. You can notice these things immediately, and start pounding away right off the bat. With regs, it's not so simple. So avoid playing them where possible. Pick off the easy targets, and you'll see an improvement in your bottom-line.

Tip #5: Play More In Position

Position is everything in poker. If someone held a gun to my head and told me I had to forget everything about poker strategy except for one thing, I'd choose position. It's that important.

Here's the gist of it. When you're in late position -- on the button, or in the cutoff seat -- you can go nuts with preflop aggression. You have an advantage over everyone at the table, because you'll be privy to more information postflop. So what you hold on the button or in the cutoff isn't really that important -- the fact that you're in position is. Most players play too tight from the cutoff and the button, and thus don't win as much as they could. Don't give up profit by playing too tight in late position. Raise it up!

On the flipside, you should play extremely tight when in early position. Early position means the first couple of seats to the left of the big blind. When in these seats, you're at a severe disadvantage in terms of information. You'll always have to act first in the hand, meaning you'll be forced to act blind. That sucks, so we try to avoid it. That is, unless we've got premium holdings -- then it's business as usual.