The mobile market has grown rapidly over the last ten years, and now 49 percent of the global population is connected to the internet through a portable device. This has led internet poker sites to put a greater focus on creating content for mobile audiences. With this switch, there has been a rise in the variety of poker games offered, as well as a greater focus on providing a visually stunning poker experience. It could well be argued that mobile is, therefore, now the best place to play online poker.
The earliest online poker sites were fairly limited in what they could offer players. Most of them had a range of cash or tournament options with varying stakes, but the game of choice was usually Texas Hold’em. In those early days, the prevalence of this strain of poker, now hugely popular, led to the poker boom and the spike in playing numbers worldwide. But as poker has become more competitive, players are seeking other variants of the game as a way to improve their overall skillsets or simply get some respite from traditional Hold’em.
With Hold’em being the most commonly played form of poker, a number of sites have opted to provide different spins on this format. For instance, when players play online poker games at Paddy Power they will be faced with a vast selection of tournaments including Turbo Bounty Hunter and Freezeout Turbo. These faster-paced versions of tournament play are better suited to mobile players who tend to play in shorter bursts than desktop players.
There are other forms of poker emerging for mobile, designed to make the experience even better suited to people who are only able to play for brief periods. For example, one new strain of Hold’em puts players straight into a new hand on a different table after they fold a hand. This means that there is zero waiting time between hands, and the action is constant.
Another new variant has a timer on the screen and, when this runs out, players are all forced to go all-in on every hand until one winner is left at the end. This is an exciting and unpredictable way of playing which may appeal to thrill-seeking younger mobile audiences.
Players who are used to sitting down at their computers for tournaments that can last for many hours may also prefer to switch to mobile. By playing these same lengthy tournaments from a portable device, they are able to do other things while waiting for the action to return to them. This could help mitigate the chances of them getting bored and playing in a less than optimal manner. However, this method of playing would not be a great way to prepare for live tournaments where players have to sit down for long periods of time.
As mobile technology gets even more advanced, portable poker games are only going to get bigger and better. Mobile may well have overtaken desktop as the best way to play poker now, and this is helping the game to evolve massively.
