Internet poker action may seem fast and furious compared to in-the flesh games. Additionally, you may feel a bit disoriented. If you're brand new to online play, the visual aspects are somewhat jarring: Cards appear briskly out of nowhere from a disembodied dealer, only to whisk off into cyberspace when players fold. This combination of faster action and visual shorthand can be disorienting until you're used to it.

While it's always important in poker to know your opponents, in Internet poker it's just as important - if not more so - to know the virtual territory. If you don't know how to quickly and without confusion replenish your chip stack, ask for a hand history or your games statistics, observe a game you're waiting for while playing in another, take notes on-site that remain in your hard drive, adjust audio and visual options, or monitor the lobby to spot more desirable games, you'll be at a disadvantage to those who can.

Therefore, before playing at a site, explore all options available to you on both the individual games screen and the lobby screen. This will be much easier if you've already oriented yourself to the site's programming and features in play-money games. If you take a seat in a cash games and you're new to the site, at least sit out a round or two before playing to make sure you know how everything works. What you don't know can cost you money.

Clicking on the dealer's tray at some sites brings up an option screen whereby you can do such things as replenish your stack by buying more chips, request a four-color deck, make adjustments in sound or graphics, ask for one or more hand histories, ask to have your all-in allotment reset, or request further assistance.

If clicking on the dealer's tray doesn't bring up an option command list - or if you're at a site where the table looks more like a home games table lacking a dealer box - just look around the games screen for a link labeled "Options" or the equivalent. If you don't see such a link, click back to the lobby and look for it there. Then examine each command on the link's pull-down list to see what it does.

At some sites, even if there's an "Options" link on the games screen, many other important options, such as games sounds and chat features, the decision to always muck losing hands without showing them, or to add or remove various types of animation, are available from the lobby screen rather than from the virtual table screen.