Although online poker was born in the late 90’s (Planet Poker offered the first "real money" online poker game on January 1, 1998), online "pokermania" really started when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event, after having won his seat through a $39 satellite tournament at the PokerStars online poker room.

It was obvious since the first day of the tournament that Chris was a very talented player, but people started to think that they could, like him, learn to play online and qualify for big events by winning one of these WSOP packages that online poker rooms were offering.

That’s only partially true: since 2003, several online players have reached the final table of world class tournaments (the World Series of Poker, the Aussie Million or the World Poker Tour) and Joe Cada, the winner of the 2009 WSOP Main Event also started his career as an online poker professionnal. But these guys are not anybody: they are as talented as most of the "brick and mortars" professional players, even when they don’t know how to handle their chips the first time they seat at a real poker table.

The only real difference between online poker and "brick and mortar" poker is that you can’t rely on tells (eyes movements, facial expressions, trembling hands) to read your opponents. The only tells that can be used by online poker players are betting patterns [1] and betting speed. Except that, both games require the same set of skills: calculating pot equity, implied odds, counting outs, adapting to position, mastering bluff and semi-bluff, managing a bankroll are some of the skills that need to be acquired and applied to both worlds.