Real Money Online Poker

[mooreadamc]

Hey all,

As you can see in my signature I have no problem gambling a bit online. I have played the Play Money tournaments on Party Poker and have had good luck and fun doing that so i've thought about putting a modest $50 and try for some real money.

Anyone have any good/bad experiences doing this? I'm assuming the players are much better that play for real money? Are there small money tables so to speak? If I created a $50 account I wouldn't want to play blinds of $1/$2 .

Thanks for the input.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by mooreadamc

Hey all,

As you can see in my signature I have no problem gambling a bit online. I have played the Play Money tournaments on Party Poker and have had good luck and fun doing that so i've thought about putting a modest $50 and try for some real money.

Anyone have any good/bad experiences doing this? I'm assuming the players are much better that play for real money? Are there small money tables so to speak? If I created a $50 account I wouldn't want to play blinds of $1/$2 .

Thanks for the input.

I put in $50 on Party about 6 months ago. I played off and on until the last couple of months when I decided I really wanted to work on and improve my poker game.

I play at the 1/2 tables and am getting close to moving up to the 2/4. (I have extra money to put on there, but I want to stay where I'm at until that initial $50 turns into $400. (no reason for that number, it's just a goal I want to hit, I'm nearly there now)

I play some $5 sit and go's for experience and also try to play in some of the cheaper tournies. (anywhere between 2 to 6 dollar entry fees)

I'd strongly reccomend picking up a book or two about small stakes hold em to help you out.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by mooreadamc

I'm assuming the players are much better that play for real money?

Yes, at the play money tables everyone plays every hand and doesnt care. At the low limit money tables only most of the people play every hand

[Radii]

$50 is not enough to play 1/2 without a very signifigant risk of dropping your $50. The smallest games party has is .5/1, which I still wouldn't play on $50.

Pokerstars has micro limit games lower than that which is what i'd recommend if you only want to deposit $50 and have it last for awhile.

[mooreadamc]

Originally Posted by Radii

$50 is not enough to play 1/2 without a very signifigant risk of dropping your $50. The smallest games party has is .5/1, which I still wouldn't play on $50.

Pokerstars has micro limit games lower than that which is what i'd recommend if you only want to deposit $50 and have it last for awhile.

That was kind of my thinking. I can see it easy to lose the $50 playing at those kinds of stakes. How much do you suggest for a $.5/$1?

[Subby]

The general rule of thumb for online poker bankroll is 500 big bets for whichever limit you play. So if I play 2/4, I'll want $2,000 in my roll. .50/1 you'll want $500.

Not saying you can't take shots with less - but its nice to be able to concentrate on playing poker and not worry about the dents the bad beats are putting in your roll.


Stars microlimits are probably a good start - the games are always going and I am almost certain they aren't raked.

[GoldenEagle]

Subby plays 30/60 and he does not have the bankroll for it!

If you want to go in risk free, there are some places that will give away a free $50 for signing up at Party Poker. I think one site might give away $100 or something like that. Part also has the beginnier tables that are micro limits, so it would be a good place to start (the high-roller Radii forgot about that). Try it out risk free, see if you like it, and then start spending some money on books.

[mooreadamc]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

Subby plays 30/60 and he does not have the bankroll for it!

If you want to go in risk free, there are some places that will give away a free $50 for signing up at Party Poker. I think one site might give away $100 or something like that. Part also has the beginnier tables that are micro limits, so it would be a good place to start (the high-roller Radii forgot about that). Try it out risk free, see if you like it, and then start spending some money on books.

Party Poker gives you $50 for signing up? I haven't seen that before??

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by mooreadamc

Party Poker gives you $50 for signing up? I haven't seen that before??

Party Poker does not. Affliates of Party Poker do. There are some conditions that apply. This site gives away $100: http://instantbankroll.com/

On the other hand, you could go to a site like Boogster, deposit your own money, and get some free gifts. With those 5000 points, you could get like three books sent to you after completing the requirements.

I think with the first site, you do not get a bonus. If you did it through Boogster, you would get like a $25 bonus or something like that after playing some hands.

[mooreadamc]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

Party Poker does not. Affliates of Party Poker do. There are some conditions that apply. This site gives away $100: http://instantbankroll.com/

On the other hand, you could go to a site like Boogster, deposit your own money, and get some free gifts. With those 5000 points, you could get like three books sent to you after completing the requirements.

I think with the first site, you do not get a bonus. If you did it through Boogster, you would get like a $25 bonus or something like that after playing some hands.

Just read the first site and the $100 dollar offer works as follows: you get $75 right away and after 500 raked hands you get $25 more. Any idea how the raked hands work for this affiliate? Thanks for the great info!

[Subby]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

Subby plays 30/60 and he does not have the bankroll for it!

Played

I am the poster child for why playing above your roll is no good.

Anyway - another nice way to build your bankroll is to bonuswhore.

Check out Bonuswhores.com as well as the Internet Bonuses forum at twoplustwo.com.

And if you do nothing else - read Ed Miller's Small Stakes Hold 'Em.

And of course - read anything by Hellmuth that you can get your hands on. (just kidding)

PS. everybody defines raked hands differently - but the major sites like party and stars define it as a hand in which you were dealt cards in a hand where rake was taken from the pot.

[Radii]

Party's beginner tables have micro limit games? I wasn't aware of that. Kudos to party for setting that up.

[primelord]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I play at the 1/2 tables and am getting close to moving up to the 2/4. (I have extra money to put on there, but I want to stay where I'm at until that initial $50 turns into $400. (no reason for that number, it's just a goal I want to hit, I'm nearly there now)

Just an FYI, but you should really have at least $1,200 in your bank roll if you are going to play 2/4. The 2/4 game at Party is quite a bit more aggressive than the 1/2 game. Regardless of how good you are at this point a bad run of cards and suck outs in a somewhat aggressive game like that could eat through your 100 BBs quite quickly.

[Pumpy Tudors]

oh also online poker sites cheat and make the underdogs win a lot to generate lots of rake. you will get bad beats in ways that you never imagined. i suggest not playing. i play 13 hours a day and its amazing how much i lose with the best hand.

(I'm joking)

[primelord]

Originally Posted by mooreadamc

Hey all,

As you can see in my signature I have no problem gambling a bit online. I have played the Play Money tournaments on Party Poker and have had good luck and fun doing that so i've thought about putting a modest $50 and try for some real money.

Anyone have any good/bad experiences doing this? I'm assuming the players are much better that play for real money? Are there small money tables so to speak? If I created a $50 account I wouldn't want to play blinds of $1/$2 .

Thanks for the input.

The best advice I can give you starting out is not to play above your bankroll. You are going to find that the micro limit games are insanely soft. With $50 you are really best off not playing any higher than .10/.20 to start off. .05/.10 would be even better.

The problem most people have starting that low is they start to beat that game and realize they are not making much money doing it. So they jump up several levels to something like .25/.50 or higher and run a ver high risk of losing their money. There is a ton of short term luck in poker. No matter how much better you are than your opponents, if you are under rolled it can bite you in the ass.

You alos want to be properly rolled in the micro limit games because you are going to find your self in situations where you have KK against 6 or 7 other players. This is a fantastic situation for you to be in. KK against 6 or 7 random hands has about 33% equity. The pots you win with your hand are going to be huge and in the long run you will make a lot of money (big bet wise at least) in that situation. However you are going to lose the hand about 66% of the time. You want to make sure you have plenty of bets to ride it out to get to that long term.

The best thing to do is to take it slow and focus more on improving your game than on the amount of money you are making.

[mooreadamc]

Originally Posted by primelord

The best advice I can give you starting out is not to play above your bankroll. You are going to find that the micro limit games are insanely soft. With $50 you are really best off not playing any higher than .10/.20 to start off. .05/.10 would be even better.

The problem most people have starting that low is they start to beat that game and realize they are not making much money doing it. So they jump up several levels to something like .25/.50 or higher and run a ver high risk of losing their money. There is a ton of short term luck in poker. No matter how much better you are than your opponents, if you are under rolled it can bite you in the ass.

You alos want to be properly rolled in the micro limit games because you are going to find your self in situations where you have KK against 6 or 7 other players. This is a fantastic situation for you to be in. KK against 6 or 7 random hands has about 33% equity. The pots you win with your hand are going to be huge and in the long run you will make a lot of money (big bet wise at least) in that situation. However you are going to lose the hand about 66% of the time. You want to make sure you have plenty of bets to ride it out to get to that long term.

The best thing to do is to take it slow and focus more on improving your game than on the amount of money you are making.

Good sound advise. Do you think I should sign up with one of those affiliates? I don't mind the idea of free money. But there has to be some kind of downfall to it isn't there??

[primelord]

Originally Posted by mooreadamc

Good sound advise. Do you think I should sign up with one of those affiliates? I don't mind the idea of free money. But there has to be some kind of downfall to it isn't there??

There really isn't a down fall to signing up with an affiliate. The poker sites give affiliate a portion of the rake you generate to get them to go out and sign people up. To entice you to sign up with them they then in turn offer you a sign up bonus. Once you are signed up whether it is through an affiliate or directly through the poker site it will be all the same to you.

Different affiliates offer different incentives to sign up so you should probably do a little research to see which one offers the deal you are most interested in, but like I said in the long run it shouldn't make much of a difference.