If you’ve been to a poker or gaming website to check outpoker rules or strategies lately, you may have seen advertisements for sites that feature online poker videos. What are these videos all about? Do you need to watch online poker videos to be a better player? Here’s the lowdown on online poker videos.

How Online Poker Videos Work
In an online poker video, an established pro takes advantage of a poker hand replayer to record a particular game, tournament or gaming situation and does a voice over with his own commentary. The pro examines the relevant hands and tells the viewer what he was thinking at each stage and why he did what he did. In some videos, the pro may be watching amateurs play and simply give commentary on their decisions.

How Online Poker Videos Can Help You
These videos can give players insight into how the pros think, why they do what they do and why many of the same players constantly reach the World and European Poker Tour final tables. Too often, a big bluff or hero call made by a pro seems to be just random – as if the pro decided to make a move and hope he was right.

However, for consistently successful pros, no decision is just random. Each play is the result of careful thinking and planning. With an online poker video, viewers can see exactly what that thought process is and hopefully transfer the ideas to their own play.

How Best to Watch Online Poker Videos
Watch the video once just focusing on the play of the hands. You may even want to turn the volume off and generate your own ideas about how you would play, coming up with your own questions about why certain moves were made.

Then watch it again, this time focusing on the commentary. Consider the thought processes that led to certain decisions and determine if they make sense to you.

Remember, the result does not always matter since you cannot control the cards. What you need to decide is if given the information provided, the pro made the correct play and why. You can then use this information to inform your own games when you play.
February 21, 2009, 7:40 am

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©Martin Muckle & Jan Hvizdak