Getting Started

Getting started playing online poker is the simplest thing in the world. All you need is a computer with a working Internet connection and a small program downloaded from the online poker room of your choice.

You can download this program directly from the website of the poker room, where you most likely will have no problem locating the huge red button saying "Download".
There's absolutely no reason to fear picking up a virus, spyware, ad-ware and all that annoying stuff when downloading this program from a poker room. The poker rooms make a living from people downloading a playing, so they've taken every possible step to maximize security. Downloading the program is therefore 100% safe.

When you click "Download", your computer starts the process of downloading a set-up program. If you have Windows as the operational system on your computer, you will be asked to decide whether you want to run the set-up program directly from the poker room's website or download it to your own computer.

The easiest way is to run the set-up program directly. But if you decide to download it to your own computer before running it, you can just place it on your desktop (where it's easy to find again). As soon as your computer has finished downloading, you can run the set-up program by double-clicking it.

The set-up program will download and install the actual poker software – usually referred to as the poker client – on your computer. Windows users will once again be asked where the program should be placed on the computer's hard disk. When the download and installation is completed after a few minutes a program icon is placed on your desktop.

The poker client is now accessible directly from your desktop is the only program you need to start playing online poker. When you run it by double-clicking the icon, the poker client will connect to the poker room and display all the nifty graphics on your screen.
And that's it. You are ready to play.

Firewalls shouldn't be a problem when installing and later running the poker client.
Most firewalls will prompt you once a new program attempts to access the Internet, and if you just allow the set-up program and the poker client to contact the poker room's servers, everything is fine.
Be aware though, that if you, when prompted by your firewall, deny these programs access to the Internet, they will not run.

Your Internet connection does not need to super-fast. Any broadband connection will easily be fast enough to maintain the required connection speed between your computer and the poker room's server.
You should be aware though, that running too many other programs on your computer also accessing the Internet at the same time might slow your connection quite a bit. If this happens you may experience hang ups playing poker, and that is both annoying and disturbing to your game. So a good idea is to make sure you don't have too many other programs running when playing poker.

The first time you log on, you are requested to type in some personal information like name and email, and this is also when you choose the name you want to be known by at the tables.
This name is called your alias, nickname or screen name, and you should give some thought to what you want to be called. Most poker rooms won't allow you to change this name later, so be sure to pick a name you'll be happy with tomorrow and years from now.

Some of the famous players use their real name – like "Gus Hansen" and "Phil Ivey" at Full Tilt Poker. Others have chosen some really weird names like "bad_ip" (Johnny Lodden), "sbrugby" (Brian Townsend) and "Finddagrind" (Patrik Antonius).

Mac users are a bit worse off than the Windows users when it comes to online poker. This is because most poker rooms only provide their software for Windows.
Currently only Full Tilt Poker, Party Poker, Pacific Poker, Hollywood Poker and PokerRoom have their poker clients available in a Mac-version. Several other poker rooms claim to be close to releasing their Mac-versions though.


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