New to online poker

I've just started playing poker for money online and I was hoping for advice. First let me say that I love this site, and after stumbling on it yesterday I've spent around 3 hours browsing charts, articles, and posts.

I started playing poker last year at my college with a buddy, as we had some knowledge of hold'em and figured we could cash in on the "ESPN boom" that was created during the showings of the WSOP.

I am good at reading people and play just single table, no limit tourneys. I win or place 2nd or 3rd most of the time. Of course, this is small time college games with buyins of around $5.

When I decided to start playing online, I registered at Empire poker and deposited 50 dollars. I quickly lost that after losing with KK to AA and went on tilt. The next day, I bought in with another 50 and won around 170 in the next two hours. However, again poor play caused me to lose most of that and I'm currently back at my initial $100 investment.

I don't understand why it is better to play the tables with 10 players. I play 25 NL and usually seek out the tables of around 4 as I seem to avoid losing streaks there. I'm sure there is a very good reason for playing the larger tables, though I'm afraid I don't understand fully. Also, does anyone have any advice for avoiding slumps, reading online players (I'm too used to reading irl), and not going on tilt when you lose. Any advice for how to help me out and expecially help me improve my table selection would be awesome. Thank you very much! Love the site and hope to be around often.

Its harder to pick up tells online, as you can't rely on body language, the same princiles exist however for player classes.

So you can still catergorise players as tight/loose and weak/aggressive.

Also, if you can increase your bankroll to around 20 buy-ins for the level you have chosen to play at i.e. $500 for $25NL. If you can't afford this its worth dropping down a few levels if possible. The trouble with playing with a low bankroll is that it will only take a few bad beats for you to go broke.

Hope this helps, I'm sure some of the more regular NL players will offer some advice. Fnord made an excellent post about table selection it can be found Here.

Well things are improving, I tighten up my pre-flop game and picked a table where I found a guy going all in and bluffing people. I got him to check raise me and go all in once when I had 3 10s, and then he went all in after I checked on the river with aces. Way up again. Article helped. Now that I think about it, the tables I was losing on were really tight tables where I was trying to push the envelope.

Hi bmunge, welcome to FTR, this is Tyson.

Your post has a lot of questions, too much to address here. Basically your asking how do I play and win? LOL!

I'll tackle some of the easy ones, though. You should start by playing a 10 person table. It is simpler. There are greater implied odds, meaning you can win more with a winning hand, simply because there is more money at the table. You can take advantage of more poor players at your table.

With a 4 person table, the blinds are coming around too often, forcing you to play a more aggressive game. This also means playing a more advanced game. Since you are still a beginner, I would recommend sticking with the 10 person tables and practicing there.

Most beginners underplay their strong hands and over play their weak hands. At a 10 person table, you need to bet and raise your strong hands, and fold your weak hands. This is pretty simple direction, but analyze your play and verify that truth.

A 10 person table takes patience and discipline, you should be folding most of your hands. Perhaps this is why you don't like the 10 person table, I'm not sure, but it is good for you to develop the patience required to be a winning player. Jumping to a 4 player table because of the action is not what a beginner should be doing.

Increase your bankroll or lower your stakes.

If you go on tilt, you have to quit playing until you are no longer on tilt. For me, that may take a few minutes or a few days. No matter what, just don't play on tilt.

Hope some of those basics will help. But more than anything, study and practice. Most of your answers are on this website somewhere.

Good luck!

Welcome to FTR, bmunge.

welcome bud.

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Originally Posted by dwarfman

Welcome to FTR, bmunge.

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Welcome. Practise BR management.

Whatever happened to Toasty? He wrote some of the guides on the front page back in the day didn't he?

i also recommend Aokrongly's post about "Conversations" - This is pretty much the only read you can get online, listening to what people are saying with their bets and, where possible, seeing what hand that said it with. This may sound peculiar, but read the post and see what i mean. It opens up a whole new skill for playing online.

Hi, is it not generally accepted that Empire is a bit of a rock garden now full of bonus hunters? Would there not be better sites to start off at? I left it a while ago and don't feel like going back.

It's just no fun taking down blinds with AA! :roll:

Does nobody ever read the dates!!?

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Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Does nobody ever read the dates!!?

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lol that is funny, i didnt notice it.

I make me laugh.

You and your evil schemes