Online poker takes the idea of playing poker at home and cranks it up a notch. You can play for pennies, compete for satellite entries to live tournaments around the world and even play for the highest stakes imaginable all from a desktop computer, laptop or smartphone.

To start playing, you have to download the poker software from the site of your choice. This is a relatively minor demand on the memory of your computer and should only take a few minutes even with old hardware. Some poker sites also have no download options that you can use, although these usually don’t provide quite as many features as the full download version.

Once you’re logged in, you can choose which game you want to play and where you want to be seated. If you’re a newbie, it’s often best to stick with low limit games until you get your feet wet and build up a bankroll. You can also try your hand at freerolls and other tournaments to get a feel for the different types of competition.

When it comes to the actual game, you’ll need to learn some basic strategy, but online coaching and guides like this can help you a lot. You can also practice a lot by playing against real people in the poker rooms of the major online poker sites. As you play more and more hands, the numbers that you see in training videos or software output will become ingrained in your brain and you’ll have a good feel for things like frequencies and EV estimation.