Why Staying Cool Can Help You Master Bet365 Poker’s Speed Tables

The traditional cash table game is the quintessential form of poker for many die-hard traditionalists. The ability to play for just a few minutes or in some extreme cases, days at a time, with no rising blinds and where every aspect of your poker game and psyche is laid bare, is hugely appealing to many.

Of course, not all people have the ability to sit at a cash table for hours at a time and slowly, methodically and patiently build their stack and thus their bankroll. Modern life places demands on many people that mean there isn’t the time we’d all like to hit the tables and grind.

If you are a Bet365 Poker customer however, and if you are not then you can click on the link here for the latest Bet365 no deposit bonus information to help you get signed up immediately,  then you have access to a type of Cash Game that allows you to play far more hands in the same amount of time.

That game is called Speed Poker and it offers punters the best of both worlds: The same style of gaming as at the cash tables, but at a much, much faster pace allowing you to play many more hands per hour than you would in a traditional cash table game.

Let’s learn a little about this version of the game at Bet365 Poker, before we then take a look at the different skills and strategies you can employ to enjoy more success when at the Speed Poker tables.

What is Speed Poker on Bet365 and how is it organised?

Speed Poker is essentially a Cash Table game but one that is set up very differently to a usual Cash Game to enable players to play hands at a faster rate. Speed Poker is only really playable in this format in the online environment.

In Bet365 Speed Poker, players play in a “pool” rather than at a table and a pool of players can number tens if not hundreds of players. The game progresses with players being randomly seated at a table (at Blind levels of their choice) with other people from the pool.

A hand is then dealt and players can then elect to play the hand (and wait until it is their turn to act at the table) or fold the hand. Once a player folds their cards at any point in the current hand, then they are immediately dealt in at a new table of players and dealt new cards and thus the process continues.

If you are dealt a poor hand that you wish to fold, you don’t even need to wait until your turn at the table to fold your hand. You can fold immediately, be dealt into a new hand and when it comes to act at the table, the computer will remember that you folded and make that play for you at the table.

Because of this ‘fast-fold’ rule, this means you only ever become involved in hands that you want to play. The rest of the time you just fold and are then immediately re-seated at a new table and dealt a fresh pair of hole cards.  Thus you can play many more hands per hour than in the cash game where you have to wait for each hand to be completed before you are dealt into the next hand.

Other than this rule about fast-folding cards and playing against a pool of players at the chosen stake level, rather than simply a table of players, the actual mechanics of the game of Hold’em played at the Speed Poker tables is exactly the same as what you’d play at the Cash Tables, just much, much quicker.

You can play Speed Poker at Bet365 for the following stakes:

• €0.02 /€0.05 (Min buy in €2, Max buy in €5)
• €0.05 /€0.10 (Min buy in €4, Max buy in €10)
• €0.10 /€0.20 (Min buy in €8, Max buy in €20)
• €0.25 /€0.50 (Min buy in €20, Max buy in €50)
• €0.50 /€1 (Min buy in €40, Max buy in €100)
• €1 /€2 (Min buy in €80, Max buy in €200)

What strategies and skills do I need to be a stronger Speed Poker player at Bet365?

With Speed Poker essentially being a Cash Table game, then the first thing to note here is that many of the skills that serve you well as a proficient player at the cash tables, will serve you equally well in the Speed Poker arena.

Certainly, having a good knowledge of at least basic poker strategy and having a generally tight but aggressive mindset for the majority of the time are probably the two initial criteria you need to play well.

What does differ however at the Speed Poker tables is the time you have to devise your strategy when you become involved in a hand.  When you fold hands, you are not involved, but if you decide to wait and play through a hand, then the amount of time you have to make your decisions is only short.

In a standard cash game, you have a relatively long time to make your choice. In Speed Poker, you have a timer acting against you that does not give you anywhere near as much time to make your decision. This means you need to be able to “think on your feet”.

It also has implications for your poker game. Can you accurately work out how many outs you have based on the cards you can see? What are your pot odds and can you calculate them accurately in a short space of time? Can you get a read on how your opponent is playing and analyse how the hand has played out very quickly to help you decide when to push home an advantage, or when to fold knowing that your opponent has you beaten?

Most talented poker players can do this in a traditional cash game situation but it becomes much more difficult to do this when you are playing Speed Poker and you have very limited time in which to make your decision.

As such, one of the key skills you will need to be proficient at Speed Poker is the ability to be able to remain calm and think clearly under pressure. This and being able to undertake the tasks above almost instantaneously will make you a stronger Speed Poker player overnight.