Book Review: Killer Poker Online by John Vorhaus

The minute Chris Moneymaker turned a $40 satellite entry from Pokerstars.com into $2.5 million in cash for winning the World Series of Poker, the already surging market for online poker went through the roof. How prescient of authors Lou Krieger and John Vorhaus to have written books on online poker that were published within months of this phenomenon.

While I haven't read Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games by Lou Krieger and Kathleen Keller Watterson, I've read enough of Krieger's material over the years to know that anything he puts his name on has to be solid.

I have read Killer Poker Online: Crushing the Internet Game (Kensington/Lyle Stuart), the second in the Killer Poker series from John Vorhaus. The book covers the gamut, from the mechanics needed to get started to money management and online tells. And as he does best, Vorhaus also covers the intangibles of poker, including chapters on mood management, mind management, and online pitfalls. Those who like to debate where poker is going will especially enjoy Chapter 14: The Future of Online Poker.

In typical Vorhaus style, the book is highly interactive. He starts by asking the reader a question: Why do you want to play online in the first place? And then, after he gives you space to write down your answer, he gets inside your head to walk you through why you're playing in the game and what you can expect.

Vorhaus explains that online play has a unique emotional impact upon you. Whether you realize it or not, you take steps to prepare yourself to play poker at a cardroom. Even if you're only traveling across a casino from your hotel room to the poker room, you're involved in a change of space, and this physical transition naturally brings about a mental transition, as well. Online, it's different. You can go from cleaning the cat box to posting a blind in the time it takes to click "deal me in." If you make the jump into online play without proper mental preparation, Vorhaus explains, you run the risk of playing badly to start and getting stuck right away. He provides a list of mental exercises that will allow you to play your best from the minute you log on.

Vorhaus also describes how the visceral impact of poker is less potent online than it is in a cardroom. If you lose a big pot in a live game, you see those chips go away and your stack get smaller. Online, the only thing that changes is a number on the screen. It's all too easy to treat that number as insignificant, all too easy not to feel the loss, deep down in your gut where it counts. When that happens – when you disconnect from the emotional impact of losing – you run the risk of not caring whether you win or lose.

Vorhaus explains that some of your flaws will actually hurt you less online, because the online environment doesn't give them a chance to do damage. Thus, if you have great discipline and a solid knowledge of odds, but are terrible at picking up tells or, worse, good at giving them off, playing online will highlight your strengths and camouflage your weaknesses. He warns, however, that your flaws are compounded for the simple reason that you'll see a lot more hands. And there again is the opportunity – if you're a winning player, your hourly rate should be higher online because you'll be dealt more than twice as many hands per hour than in most real-world games.

Vorhaus points out something to which I hadn't given much thought, but now see that it makes perfect sense: In cardrooms, peer pressure keeps players from playing poorly. You'll often hear players joke about how they're embarrassed to be playing a certain hand or how they "hope they don't have to turn this one up." In a game with players who play to impress as much as they do to win, it's the fear of being thought of as a live one that actually makes people play better. Lots of us, for example, don't like to get "caught" playing bad hands from out of position and earning disapproval from our poker peers. In cyberspace, except for the chat boxes, which can be easily ignored, that peer pressure is gone. The good news is that it can have a negative effect on your opponents' play. The bad news is that it can have a noticeable negative effect on your play. Vorhaus gives solid techniques for taking advantage of the anonymity of playing online, rather than falling prey to it.

Five years ago, Internet poker didn't exist. Now, it's a wild frontier of nonstop action as players – and companies – from every corner of the globe fight for their share of the big bucks floating around in cyberspace. Vorhaus' book, said Linda Johnson, "belongs in the library of anyone who plays online." If you play online, it certainly belongs in yours. If you don't, and you're an opportunistic poker player, how much longer can you put it off? Maybe you should ask Chris Moneymaker.

Greg Dinkin is the author of three books, including The Poker MBA (see www.thepokermba.com). He is also the co-founder of Venture Literary (www.ventureliterary.com), where he works with writers to find publishers for their books and studios for their screenplays. For information about his keynote speaking and poker tournaments for corporate events, send an e-mail to [email protected].