Party Poker and other questions

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08-13-2015, 04:41 PM
D.O.A

Party Poker and other questions

Friends, Romans, Gentlemen,

Lend me your aces. I am about to immerse myself seriously into the murky waters of microstakes and have a few questions.

1) As an EU resident, can you recommend softer but reputable sites - ideally with good game choice and srakeback - that are easy on the eye and with nice features? I like a classy, elegant look and I like the current look at - new-partypoker-table.jpg - and I can get 50% rakeback from ********* but is this a soft site?

2) Speaking of rakeback, I am so confused. All the rakeback sites offering so many incentives. Some offer up to 83% rake but others just 30%. There must be a catch otherwise no one would bother wth the lower-priced deals so is there anything to look out for when assessing offers?

As a sub-question, I saw Stars advertised as 80% RB but they don't offer rake so what's the score?

3) Should the VIP deals be avoided in favour of RB-only?

4) Should I dive it at 2NL or 5NL (ie: is there a noticable skill gap between the two?)

Thanks in advance.
08-13-2015, 04:47 PM
spoonitnow

First, here is the picture you tried to link to. You got hit with the anti-spam filter since your account is new, etc.:

http://i.imgur.com/sr8X4xY.jpg

Second, the incentive programs that give huge percentages of effective rakeback are for high-volume players. At the microstakes, you're much better off taking a flat-rate rakeback deal in the range of 30 percent.

PokerStars is probably home to the toughest games on the Internet right now.

Any site on the Winning Poker Network (WPN) is going to be pretty decent for microstakes players right now. Most of them also have a flat 27 percent rakeback structure that works well.

Third, start at 2nl. There is no advantage to starting at 5nl.
08-13-2015, 06:10 PM
D.O.A

Thanks for updating the link. I've never heard of the skins on WPN - BlackChipPoker, Americas Cardroom, BetCrisis, BetDSI, Ya Poker, True Poker, Bookmaker - so do they all share the same pool of players/games or are some more suited to the Americas than Europe?

Also, you recommend them over Party?

I also noticed they accept US players but I thought online poker was banned for America and banks are not allowed to make deposits/accept payouts?

Is 25-30% flat rate a good deal?

Should I consider gambling sites that offer poker - like Bodog and 888 - on the udnerstanding that they'll have more casual players as opposed to learned players?
08-13-2015, 06:24 PM
Cobra_1878

Quote:

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

PokerStars is probably home to the toughest games on the Internet right now.

Is this a bad thing? I mean, I understand we want the softest games possible but if we want to get better at poker do we need to be playing with good players?

I have been thinking about trying some of the gambling sites/casino sites to see how it turns out. So I second DOA's question about whether you think it would be something worth pursuing.
08-14-2015, 01:14 AM
MadMojoMonkey

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobra_1878

Is this a bad thing? I mean, I understand we want the softest games possible but if we want to get better at poker do we need to be playing with good players?

I have been thinking about trying some of the gambling sites/casino sites to see how it turns out. So I second DOA's question about whether you think it would be something worth pursuing.

Yes, it's a bad thing. You do not need to be playing against good players; you need to be studying with good players.

When you have softer opponents, then you will win money from them and move up in stakes more rapidly. Learning the whole time, I propose. Eventually you will get to the stakes where your opponents begin to challenge you, and that will not be a great day for your BR. Luckily, you'll have a nice fat BR to sit on and a world of fish to dip into in the lower stakes while you tackle the new concepts.
08-14-2015, 07:19 AM
spoonitnow

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobra_1878

...if we want to get better at poker do we need to be playing with good players?

Learning to exploit bad players to the fullest can help to teach you poker in the same ways as playing against good players. In my opinion, there's not much of a difference.
08-14-2015, 02:16 PM
D.O.A

Quote:

Originally Posted by D.O.A

Thanks for updating the link. I've never heard of the skins on WPN - BlackChipPoker, Americas Cardroom, BetCrisis, BetDSI, Ya Poker, True Poker, Bookmaker - so do they all share the same pool of players/games or are some more suited to the Americas than Europe?

Also, you recommend them over Party?

I also noticed they accept US players but I thought online poker was banned for America and banks are not allowed to make deposits/accept payouts?

Is 25-30% flat rate a good deal?

Should I consider gambling sites that offer poker - like Bodog and 888 - on the udnerstanding that they'll have more casual players as opposed to learned players?

I think my q's got overlooked in thr responses to Cobra. Your help is appreciated. :)
08-14-2015, 02:45 PM
spoonitnow

Quote:

Originally Posted by D.O.A

Thanks for updating the link. I've never heard of the skins on WPN - BlackChipPoker, Americas Cardroom, BetCrisis, BetDSI, Ya Poker, True Poker, Bookmaker - so do they all share the same pool of players/games or are some more suited to the Americas than Europe?

They all share the same player pools, but they're not really geared towards any particular group of people. The name "Americas Cardroom" was really just given for that niche appeal because the parent company purchased DoylesRoom several years back and rebranded it into that.

Quote:

Also, you recommend them over Party?

I don't really know enough about Party Poker right now to recommend them or recommend against them. This link has some good information, and they seem to be geared towards Europeans.

Quote:

I also noticed they accept US players but I thought online poker was banned for America and banks are not allowed to make deposits/accept payouts?

Nope. There's no federal law making online poker illegal, though it is illegal in some states based on state law.

Quote:

Is 25-30% flat rate a good deal?

For microstakes or recreational players, yes.

Quote:

Should I consider gambling sites that offer poker - like Bodog and 888 - on the udnerstanding that they'll have more casual players as opposed to learned players?

Everybody is going to suck at microstakes, so I don't think it'll really matter that much.
08-14-2015, 03:27 PM
D.O.A

Thanks very much for your answers.
08-20-2015, 11:54 AM
Keith

Quote:

Originally Posted by D.O.A

Friends, Romans, Gentlemen,

Lend me your aces. I am about to immerse myself seriously into the murky waters of microstakes and have a few questions.

1) As an EU resident, can you recommend softer but reputable sites - ideally with good game choice and srakeback - that are easy on the eye and with nice features? I like a classy, elegant look and I like the current look at - new-partypoker-table.jpg - and I can get 50% rakeback from ********* but is this a soft site?

I think you are making a huge mistake worrying about rakeback if you are playing 2nl . Plus you won't get anything like 50% rakeback from party poker as they have a VIP scheme and it pays pretty poorly for micro players. at 2nl your winrate will come from beating poor players at a decent rate. Big rakeback sites will have the disadvantage of a disproportionate number of better players on them attracted by the rakeback making the games harder and winrates worse, especially as you move up the stakes.

Quote:

2) Speaking of rakeback, I am so confused. All the rakeback sites offering so many incentives. Some offer up to 83% rake but others just 30%. There must be a catch otherwise no one would bother wth the lower-priced deals so is there anything to look out for when assessing offers?

depends how much the rooms are paying the affiliates to atttract custom, but will also have a knock on effect of how hard the games are to beat as a result

Quote:

As a sub-question, I saw Stars advertised as 80% RB but they don't offer rake so what's the score?

Again , false advertising and you probably missed the "up to" infront of most of those numbers . stars willl only be paying 80% rakeback to supernova elite players and even then only some of them probably and to get that you will need to be paying them over 100k in rake in the year. for micros you can probably work on the vip being worth 8-15% depending on where you come from and how much stars deduct to pay their tax bill.

Quote:

3) Should the VIP deals be avoided in favour of RB-only?

Apples and oranges i'm afraid , stop worrying about rewards and focus on how much you can make from a site taking into consideration rewards and how much you actually win/lose at the tables.I have high% rakeback deals, have pt4 and HEM2 and im currently playing on a site where huds are banned , VIP is in the form of challenges to complete and winrate is through the roof. without depositing I took my bankroll from 0 to 900 since the end of march just playing in the evenings whilst watching telly.

Quote:

4) Should I dive it at 2NL or 5NL (ie: is there a noticable skill gap between the two?)

Thanks in advance.

ALways start at the bottom and work up , knowing that you can beat the lowest levels means that you don't have to deposit again .
bad players are at all levels , its just that at as you move up the ratio of good to bad players gets worse for you and the good players also get better as well.
08-20-2015, 12:12 PM
Keith

oh , and have to disagree with spoon on one thing, since you appear to be UK based from your IP address its best to steer clear of any sites that allow American players to play on them. Having the US DOJ swoop in and confiscate your bankroll as happened to many of us non americans with Full tilt , and pokerstars and Absolute and ultimate bet etc is a risk that is not worth taking. You can't even register on bodog/bovada since they won't accept european registrations either .Your rewards are also reduced at stars since they pass on half of the UK's point of consumption gambling tax to the player by reducing the rate that UK pplayers earn vpps.
08-20-2015, 06:55 PM
The Bean Counter

Forget rakeback, but definitely focus on sites with good promos for beginners to boost your roll. Anything other than Stars and Full Tilt are good for this in my experience.