The Value of Online Poker Forums

Poker players who want to improve their game have many tools at their disposal. They can read books, talk strategy with their other poker playing friends, reflect on their own play, read through their online hand histories, and of course… practice. However, an often overlooked tool among poker players is the online poker forum.

NOTE: For those readers who are unfamiliar with what an online forum is, you can think of it as a free online bulletin board that allows you to find others with similar interests. One person typically starts a discussion thread and others read it and/or post replies to it.

What makes an online poker forum so beneficial is it allows you to converse with other players for free about a wide variety of poker related topics. The most important of which (for players wanting to step up their game) is poker strategy. You can log onto one of these sites for free and post a hand history or a scenario in which you found yourself. Other players will then read your posting and chip in their two cents about how they might have played it differently in your shoes.

Now, this is a fairly serious benefit for any poker player for a few different reasons: 

1. If you’re open-minded, you get to broaden your view on certain poker situations. Oftentimes, it’s easy to treat situations the same each time we encounter them at the table. Learning how others think about it will have you making sure that your strategy is optimal. 
2. While you will encounter some mediocre players giving mediocre advice on these boards, you will quite often get a post or two from a really solid player. It is these posts that will quite often change the way you view a certain poker situation. 
3. Even if you don’t make any posts of your own play, reading the posts of others and thinking about their situations will help to reinforce your own understanding of the game and poker theory. 
4. It’s really easy to get complacent with your play (especially during winning streaks). Visiting online poker forums frequently will help you stay focused on thinking about your own play.

If you find yourself benefiting from strategy discussions with friends or acquaintances, you will most certainly get the benefit of participating in online poker forums. They’re a great way to learn about the game from other players, and they can really help to reinforce what you already know.

If you’re not sure where to start, we keep a running list of free poker forums we're fond of on our Poker Links page.