Bonjour Beginners!

I'd like to introduce myself...

My name is Fred, I am a poker player. I have been playing poker regularly for a few months now (9-10) at my local casino. I have done pretty well there, but have found that I am a bit of a blackjack degenerate. After talking about online poker with a few of the other regular players in my games I have decided to give online poker a go ahead.

My goals for playing online are to play more hands, beat the games, also to continue on in poker while avoiding the pitfalls of casinos. I've got a total of $1500 that I'm willing to invest into my game, but I am not sure exactly what my best bet is. Should I throw it all onto Full Tilt and Pokerstars? Should I keep some of it for stuff like poker tracker and what not? (my friend told me about it, but doesn't really play too much online. Or should I just start slow, by depositing $600, then seeing how things go from there?

Thanks everyone! See you on the tables.

introduction thread is stickied, but welcome
my advice is deposit $50 into stars and clear the bonus at microstakes

you really like to reply to me. $50 would be way to boring. I've been playing $1/$2 to $2/$5 NL and $3/$6 LHE. So you can see where my dilemma is. I don't expect to jump right into those games online, but I don't want to play too small where I feel like I ought have just gone to the casino.

casino $1/$2 NL = 0.05/0.10 online in skill level

Originally Posted by iopq

casino $1/$2 NL = 0.05/0.10 online in skill level

QFT

You need to adjust your outlook or you're doomed to fail. You could deposit $500 and start at 25NL (which is really just good BR management). Set some stop loss where you're going to re-evaluate. Playing 50NL would likely be BR suicide.

Welcome, BTW.

I say deposit $750 at pokerstars. Try the free trials of PT3 and holdem manager to see which one you like better.
Play $25nl until you have $1k. If you get to $500 or below switch to $10nl.

I really see no reason for him to start at $10nl.

Read stickies in beginners circle and play solid ABC poker.

When I started playing online I made the mistake of thinking I could play the same stakes online as I played live. Puh! I play $2/5NL live but got a rude awakening at the $2/4 NLHE tables. The skill set is just not the same.

$2NL is sometimes really nitty, believe it or not.
$5NL & $10NL is about the same and I actually believe the players here are better than $25NL.
I also believe the players are better at $50NL than they are at $100NL.
At $200NL is where you'll find a lot of really solid players. There's still fish but just a different breed of fish and they're not as abundant.

I don't think anyone should start playing online any higher that $50NL. Play a few thousand hands, get used to it, then move up if your bankroll permits.

And yeah, read the stickies.

However much you deposit, follow good bankroll management. That is for whatever stakes you want to play have >20 full 100bb buyins for that game (example $500 for 25nl).

Another suggestion is whatever your rolled for, play the stake below it for a little while and see if you are beating the game. If so, then you can play the states you are rolled for. If not stay at that level until you are beating it, or need to drop down further. That is if you deposit $600, play 10nl for maybe 5-10k hands. If you are beating it, then move up to 25nl and play, following good bankroll management on when to move up to 50nl.

Remember, moving up isn't just about your bankroll. It's about your skill level also. If you aren't beating 10nl you shouldn't expect to be able to beat 25nl. Same goes for all stakes. So just because you can deposit $1500 or whatever doesn't mean you are ready for 50nl.

Good luck OP. Stay patient, listen, and try and you will succeed.

Your best choice is to put at least $650 on Full Tilt on an account with rakeback and clear the $650 bonus playing whatever you decide to play.

Also keep in mind that online NLHE is a lot harder than live. I would suggest starting at no higher than $0.25/0.50 before you play at least 20-30k hands and find out how you're going to do. Best of luck.

Read:
http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/a...ort-level.html

it's not so much about the results, but what edge you have on your competition
it's about hand reading as much as comfort with the game, knowledge of how your opponents play, etc.
even a bad player can run good for 10K hands, and a good player can run bad for 10K hands
"Am I outplaying my competition?" is the question you should ask