Why You Should Avoid Offline Poker Programs

1. Home
2. News
3. Avoid Offline Poker Programs

Recently, I have been testing out a couple of offline programs offering both poker and casino games. These programs supposedly simulate online poker cash games, poker tournaments, and various real money casino games.

However, these games are not a great option for online poker players. Today, we will give you some reasons why offline poker games are not a good way to improve your play.

Offline Games Play Too Fast

One reason that some people like playing offline poker software is that you can get in a lot of poker in a short amount of time. That’s because you can make the software deal cards faster, skip player talk, and even skip to the end of hands you’re not playing.

Many people get spoiled by this and it impacts their ability to be patient in a real money poker game. Unless you’re playing something like Zoom Poker, you cannot fast forward to the next hand when you’re not playing. You also can’t maybe a poker gameplay hyper speed in the real world. While the software deals cards faster, you can’t make your opponents act quicker because they are not machines.

Tournaments Are Not Realistically Structured

Most online poker tournaments are not structured properly in offline poker software. For example, some tournaments have a fixed number of hands to determine those that advance rather than knocking out players.

In other instances, the structure may be weird. For example, some of the old World Series of Poker computer games would have very low antes for Seven Card Stud games at high limits. You could be playing $50,000-$100,000, but only ante $100 and bring in $500 or something outrageously low.

Betting is Not Realistic

One thing that many offline poker games have failed to be able to replicate is appropriate betting patterns. Even if you have players that bet aggressively, you can often exploit them with big hands. Worse still, some have betting tells that let you know when a big bet is a bluff and when they have the nuts.

Another problem is that you can exploit your opponents with insane bets. For example, in one program I play I just wait until I have a near nut hand and just shove. Often, I will get called by one to two opponents. This gives me a ton of chips and I just sit like a rock until I get another big hand.

There’s No Real Risk

The worst part about these games is that you’re not really risking anything. If you start with a $50,000 bankroll in an NL Hold’em cash game and lose it all, you can just start over. Sometimes you will have to create a new player account, but that takes just a few seconds. Often, all you need to do is click a refill button and go back to playing.

Since there’s nothing to risk, most players don’t play optimally or even anything close to optimal. Where there’s no risk, there’s no reason to try and improve. It becomes little more than a glorified pinball game.

Programs Are for Entertainment and Not Game Improvement

The thing you have to remember about most offline poker and casino games programs is that they are developed as a form of entertainment. They are also programmed as such. The opponents are programmed in a way to give you a better than average chance at winning. Figure out how to exploit the program and you can consistently win.

Often, playing a sold poker strategy is not the optimal strategy. Like many video games, once you figure out how the game plays, you can easily beat it. After a while, the game becomes boring and people move on.

While playing play money online poker is not as ideal as playing real money online poker, it does provide better elements of gameplay. If you’re looking to improve your online poker game, you’d be better off playing money poker games over offline poker software.