There are many benefits to becoming a respected voice within the online poker community. You have to be able to endure endless berating from an opponent who gets the miracle river card then launches into a verbal tirade and then leaves the table with your money. Succeeding in this environment is not easy, but worthwhile. Not just for the money that enters your bankroll but for the respect you gain online as a good poker player.
You can use many ways to increase your profile online and the most obvious is using the Internet Poker forums to increase your notoriety. These forums are frequented by many regular players who respect those who are skilled. Posting your graph will go a long way to instantly prove your credentials and taking part in the debate and offering good advice will also help. People will grow to look upon you as an authority for poker and respect what you say. If your graph is less than ideal they will give you tips on where to improve.
At the table you will see many players both good and bad engage in foul tirades against each other in the chat. The larger poker sites will be quick to ban anyone who does this type of thing too often and I would not recommend players engaging in this behaviour. It makes you appear amateurish and everyone knows you would not do this in a live casino setting. People who hide behind the anonymity of online poker are not respected but you may scare away a weaker opponent. So rather than blast them and call them a fish (or worse), why not say “unlucky” and keep them at your table so you can take their money again in a future hand.
After winning a poker tournament, especially if it is a tournament with a large prize you will instantly be respected in the poker world. What you do with that respect is up to you. You may just enjoy being known as a good player; others take that further and offer coaching and try to get staked for larger events. It all depends on your own poker goals and aspirations as a player.
One of my friends has built up a following on 2+2 after posting many years of playing 1 million hands per year and winning a good amount of money from online poker. He is known as a good player, a good coach and a champion of Internet poker forums. When he set up a blog it gained an instant following, when he wanted people to stake him he was besieged with offers and when he offered players stakes and coaching he had lots of applications. He took his carefully harvested image and reputation online and made it work for him and has turned his poker life into something of a business. He has the respect, now he turns that into dollars. There is nothing wrong with this.
It is possible to be known online if you wish. What you need are good results, a pleasant character and an investment of your time. If you post videos on Pokertube, or answer queries online and take part in discussions showing people your results they will respect your achievements. You will still get the idiots in the chat box, but I always say that the chat is something you should not be looking at if you are serious about focusing hard when playing poker, particularly if you multi-table.
Having fans or a collection of people who respect you as a poker player is helpful if you ever want to launch poker coaching services, or get a stake to either a cash game or poker tournament.
By Malcolm Clarke