Honest appraisal

	There’s plenty of profit to be made against online donkeys

One of the reasons that poker is so profitable for winning players is that the ‘losers’ are widely off the mark when judging their own ability in a game. The internet’s biggest cash games – $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha and $500/$1,000 six-max no-limit Hold’em – see some of the world’s best players sit down in them, but these same players refuse to play each other in heads-up cash games (apart from the fearless Patrik Antonius) because they’re smart enough to realise they’ve got no edge against each other.

Yet many people are not smart players, as is evident when a ‘live one’ (fish) sits down in a high stakes game – the table suddenly fills up and the waiting list is a mile long as the sharks try to feast before all the food is gone. This process also happens further down the food chain, as no-limit Hold’em players look to branch out and play the increasingly popular pot-limit Omaha games without really knowing how to.

Hee-haw

But all this talk of Omaha is not to say the no-limit Hold’em games are drying up or getting noticeably harder. On the contrary, there’s still plenty of profit to be made against the online donkeys. But isn’t it often the case that the worst players around are the hardest to play against with their unconventional moves, strange betting patterns and weird hand selection? Well, fear not, because by exploiting these weaknesses by playing good, solid poker you can reap the rewards of their poor play.