I thought poker is about reading the emotions of people to gain an advantage and try to estimate what cards they have. Online poker doesnt show them only their avatars, that takes away a huge expected value from the game, and could shrink your potential profit, might even make it negative.
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see all those multi-colored numbers by each player... theyre percentages. How often they raise, how often they fold, how often they call, from what position etc.
Ill take that data over physical tells any day of the week
Your potential profit come from the edge you have by playing perfectly your ranges over the ranges of your opponent. There are very rare ocasions when you could effectively use "tells" to decide whether you call or fold a big hand. Most of the time, it's the cards on the board and the ones you are holding that gives you the information you need to decide.
Well you could if you play hustling style, going in as a pro amongst newbies who will all sweat and make very telling emotions with the inability to hide their emotions. That is some bonus edge.
But if you are a good card counter, that is the main talent I assume.
There is no card counting at poker. You only see the cards on the table, flop (3), turn(1), river(1) and the cards in your hands(2).
Go in as a pro against newbies and there will undoubtedly be a noob who is a pro in disguise, there to take advantage of your prestige, giving out bad hands and emotional tells like hot cakes.
As the man said: strategy.
Moreover, casino is very slow, why would you play 30 hands / hour sitting there when you can open 12 tables and play around 1000 hands / hour at home ?
BTW, I'm mainly a cash game player.
I'm pretty sure most casual poker players don't know about ranges.
Indeed, most of them don't know what is a range, nor they know about equity, odds, pot odds, ... even when they know about, they don't know how to use it.