Originally Posted by Pelion
How much do you have to spend? I dont know about full tilt but if you want to start playing at empire (after they kick you off the beginner tables) youll need a good $300 for the 0.50/1 limit or $500 for $25NL.
If you have less than this youll need to start somewhere like pokerstars who offer 0.02/0.04 limit or $2NL or maybe paradise.
I personally think pokerstars is the best site to start by far. Maybe im just biased because its where i grew up or maybe i actually have a point but here are my reasons.
1) The software is simple and it doesnt break down to often (infact it never has in my experience).
2) The customer support is the best of any site that I know of. I heard a story where some guy took a bad beat and jokely threatened to kill himself because of it. A few minutes later the guy in charge of the entire site, Lee Jones phoned his house to check he was ok.
3) The stakes are Low and the players are Bad. Although the games get pretty tight at medium stakes the low stakes games are still easily beatable and IMO the slightly tougher competition will help your development as a player.
4) The bonuses are crap.
This may sound like an odd one, but depositing $50-$100 into most sites will mean you forfeit a good $100 worth of bonus later on. Pokerstars on the other hand sucks for bonuses so you arent wasting anything by making a small deposit and once you work up a sizable bankroll you can move it around to other sites to capitalise on their first deposit bonuses.
5) Its awsome - No really :)