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Best No Deposit/Starting Site?

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  1. #1

    Default Best No Deposit/Starting Site?

    So I just started playing poker about 2 days ago and I've been sucked in. I've been playing on Poker Stars free tables and after finding this site and reading some strategies, I'm ready to move on to some bigger stakes.

    So I figure before I start playing with my own money, I might as well practice with house money. Out of the sites listed on this page:

    www .flopturnriver .com/Online-Poker-Room-Links.html
    [delete the spaces, I can't post any links]

    which would you guys recommend to start with? And are the smallest rooms like 0.01/0.02? I'm in the US. Thanks a lot!
  2. #2
    I played with this idea myself a little bit when I was just getting started but I'll say it's better for you if you deposit $50 into a good site (for US beginners that's definitely Stars). This way you learn bankroll management as well as poker skills.
  3. #3
    Any other opinions?
  4. #4
    Another vote for depositing here to be honest.

    Thing is, working your way up from $0 is hard enough if you're a very good player. The best thing to do is to throw a modest amount of money at it - call it your learning money - learn about Bankroll Management and try very hard not to go broke. $50 seems very reasonable.
  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    If you REALLY don't want to use your own money (and I'm getting the feeling that you don't and will most likely ignore the deposit advice) then just play Freerolls until you build up a bankroll. It's possible to do.
  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    If you REALLY don't want to use your own money (and I'm getting the feeling that you don't and will most likely ignore the deposit advice) then just play Freerolls until you build up a bankroll. It's possible to do.
    /wrist building br from freerolls.

    Just deposit the money. Getting like 3 bucks is really not worth it tbh. Like do you plan on shortstacking 2nl? Cause really 1-2 badbeats and your done.

    ?wut
  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    If you REALLY don't want to use your own money (and I'm getting the feeling that you don't and will most likely ignore the deposit advice) then just play Freerolls until you build up a bankroll. It's possible to do.
    It's possible, but didn't it take chris ferguson like 9 months to go from 0 - $100 from only freerolls?

    Quite the grind. Not a bad learning experience though, if you've got patience for MTTs, which is all you get in the way of freerolls, no?

    Prolly be quicker to build up a million in play money at stars, then sell them for like $10 & start grinding 2NL...
  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by d0zer
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    If you REALLY don't want to use your own money (and I'm getting the feeling that you don't and will most likely ignore the deposit advice) then just play Freerolls until you build up a bankroll. It's possible to do.
    It's possible, but didn't it take chris ferguson like 9 months to go from 0 - $100 from only freerolls?

    Quite the grind. Not a bad learning experience though, if you've got patience for MTTs, which is all you get in the way of freerolls, no?

    Prolly be quicker to build up a million in play money at stars, then sell them for like $10 & start grinding 2NL...
    An extreme grind. The trick isn't to really aim for final tables/1st places but to play in as many Freeroll MTTs as possible per day and get ITM. I did it a while back and got up to $20 before I moved over to cash tables. It's not easy at all but if you don't want to pay the price of starting off with a small br then this would be my only other suggestion.
  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by d0zer
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    If you REALLY don't want to use your own money (and I'm getting the feeling that you don't and will most likely ignore the deposit advice) then just play Freerolls until you build up a bankroll. It's possible to do.
    It's possible, but didn't it take chris ferguson like 9 months to go from 0 - $100 from only freerolls?

    Quite the grind. Not a bad learning experience though, if you've got patience for MTTs, which is all you get in the way of freerolls, no?

    Prolly be quicker to build up a million in play money at stars, then sell them for like $10 & start grinding 2NL...
    An extreme grind. The trick isn't to really aim for final tables/1st places but to play in as many Freeroll MTTs as possible per day and get ITM. I did it a while back and got up to $20 before I moved over to cash tables. It's not easy at all but if you don't want to pay the price of starting off with a small br then this would be my only other suggestion.
    But I mean, was it worth it? Like that had to be hours upon hours upon hours. Doing that is like a huge accomplishment, I tried and failed so I said fk it and deposited.

    I think its seriously a better investment of time to get like a min wage job for like a few days or w.e and then deposit. If the credit card thing is an issue just get an all access visa. Make sure it's all access though.

    ?wut
  10. #10
    freerolls and play money are pretty worthless as learning tools imo.
  11. #11
    Yeah it's such a grind starting from absolute zero. I'd recommend dropping at least $20 in and playing the lowest stakes possible. You'll be underrolled, and very well might go broke, but what's $20? Unless you're an absolutely god-awful player, at the soft .01/.02 tables you'll be able to make that $20 go a long way, and if you keep learning & improving your game, should be able to make it grow at a reasonable pace...
  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    You've been playing for 2 days so I wouldn't be in such a hurry to play for real dough.

    If you must then, yeah, Stars. Don't sign up on FullTilt without rakeback.
  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Bbickes
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by d0zer
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew
    Quote Originally Posted by pduan
    Any other opinions?
    If you REALLY don't want to use your own money (and I'm getting the feeling that you don't and will most likely ignore the deposit advice) then just play Freerolls until you build up a bankroll. It's possible to do.
    It's possible, but didn't it take chris ferguson like 9 months to go from 0 - $100 from only freerolls?

    Quite the grind. Not a bad learning experience though, if you've got patience for MTTs, which is all you get in the way of freerolls, no?

    Prolly be quicker to build up a million in play money at stars, then sell them for like $10 & start grinding 2NL...
    An extreme grind. The trick isn't to really aim for final tables/1st places but to play in as many Freeroll MTTs as possible per day and get ITM. I did it a while back and got up to $20 before I moved over to cash tables. It's not easy at all but if you don't want to pay the price of starting off with a small br then this would be my only other suggestion.
    But I mean, was it worth it? Like that had to be hours upon hours upon hours. Doing that is like a huge accomplishment, I tried and failed so I said fk it and deposited.

    I think its seriously a better investment of time to get like a min wage job for like a few days or w.e and then deposit. If the credit card thing is an issue just get an all access visa. Make sure it's all access though.
    Completely worth it. Not so much in regards to winrate or $$ earned but in regards to learning how to study the way people play and the patience needed to outlast huge fields. It also showed me that it's possible to win a big pots using aggression as long as I can have some semblance of board reading.

    I don't recommend doing Freerolls if you can avoid it, it can be a complete nightmare if you don't learn patience. However there ARE some things to learn from them if you do it.
  14. #14
    Deposit the money.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bbickes
    April Handz!
    Goal - 40k
    Progress - 7k Cash 4k Tournies 11k Total
    Dude, how many tables and how many hours are you planning to play to get 40K hands in a month?? Are you full time or sthg?

    I'm aiming for 6K hands in April and even that is going to be a bit of a stretch target ...
  15. #15
    I used the free $3 on g2gpoker, and built that up to $300 within a week. The games are ridiculously soft, so it's easy to do, especially once you hit over the $25 mark.

    They also offer beginners freerolls, which aren't crazily populated. I never bothered using them other than to donk around in though.

    The one problem, as with all poker sites, is that to withdraw, you have to deposit anyway. I didn't want to stay on g2g, because there is hardly anyone on their network, so I had to open a moneybookers wallet, deposit into that, then into the site, and then withdraw from that to my bank.

    Took more time to do that than it did to build the $300

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