Starting Online Poker Seriously(A little long)

Z

ZSebag

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Welp, I've been playing freerolls on and off for the past couple years and reading everything I can, and am finally about to start playing poker seriously. Now I was wondering what you think the best course of action is. I'm going to deposit on poker stars and begin playing ring games/tournaments, however I was wondering what you think I should start with?

Do you think I should deposit 2k and start on the 100 dollar NL ring game tournies and drop down if I get below, etc etc.

Or do you think I should put in 500, and play on the 25 NL ring games and work my way up.

Now i'm not looking for "fast" or "easy" money, I'm looking to learn the play the game well first off. I play some live and think i'm decent, but of course as does everyone else!

The reason I was considering starting off higher is that it will be more like the competition I can expect later, so i figure it might be better to just throw my self in the ring and learn with experience than work my way up from micro limits. I might loose a grand or so to start, but I can always work my way back up. If I had to guess a weak part in my game I'd say hand reading, I've always been mathematically inclined and have the math down pretty well.

Anyways, thanks in advance.
 
stormswa

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this is a real good starting post nice job and welcome to forum, wish we had more people that made posts like this.


It really depends on you to be honest. I have no problem at all with you depositing more as a 1st time. To be honest with you its where you feel like you are in your game. If you would rather grind tourneys or ring, see take me for instance I like tourneys so I deposit a couple hundred and basically play every single tourney from $10 down that I can and usually 8 table tourney's. I like doing it this way because I Realize that in tourneys you can got 10-20 tourneys without a serious cash so I hit up as many as I can.

I don't know if I would start at $100 buy in's though those are the players that do this for a living (well some of them are), you will be playing against people like Mkind and zspaceman that seriously you are not ready for, hell I'm not ready for them. So if you don't like doing it my way and grinding low limit tourneys then play $20 - $30 ones, the money is decent and the play is half decent also.

as for rings well again that just depends on you and your starting bankroll, it doesnt matter what you want to play as long as you have bankroll play whatever level you feel most comfortable in.
 
eyetrace

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I say start low and go up, if you start with the low deposit and you find out that you suck online, you only lost that much, and if you do good, you should get up to a grand fairly quickly at the 10/20 so get your game on.
 
stormswa

stormswa

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I say start low and go up, if you start with the low deposit and you find out that you suck online, you only lost that much, and if you do good, you should get up to a grand fairly quickly at the 10/20 so get your game on.


so let me see if I can follow this you want him to start low for some reason? your bankroll dictates where you play if he finds out he sucks at that level he can drop down, he already stated that the money he can lose and not be in trouble. There is no reason not to deposit say $500 and play 25nl instead of depositing $200 and play $10 NL if he loses $300 he can always drop down.

and then you want him to play 10/20? what that is like a 2k buy in. :confused:
so you would need 40k bankroll to play that .
 
Z

ZSebag

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so let me see if I can follow this you want him to start low for some reason? your bankroll dictates where you play if he finds out he sucks at that level he can drop down, he already stated that the money he can lose and not be in trouble. There is no reason not to deposit say $500 and play 25nl instead of depositing $200 and play $10 NL if he loses $300 he can always drop down.

and then you want him to play 10/20? what that is like a 2k buy in. :confused:
so you would need 40k bankroll to play that .


Well.... I don't think I can afford to lose 40k :). I really like the idea of tournament play, I really think I'm a better tournament player than I am ring game player.

I dunno, I'm thinking I'm going to start at 25 nl and build from there, and instead of just testing the waters at higher everyonce in a while, buy a ticket to a over my limit guaranteed tourny and see how I do once every couple weeks. Sort of as a reward :)

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it!
 
stormswa

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Well.... I don't think I can afford to lose 40k :). I really like the idea of tournament play, I really think I'm a better tournament player than I am ring game player.

I dunno, I'm thinking I'm going to start at 25 nl and build from there, and instead of just testing the waters at higher everyonce in a while, buy a ticket to a over my limit guaranteed tourny and see how I do once every couple weeks. Sort of as a reward :)

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it!


np I do tourney alot, I will start running dual monitors for just that reason so I can play 8 at once. Love to talk more tourney strategy with you later on and welcome to forum.

plan on doing a video next week of me 8 tableing tourneys only 4 on video though.
 
Z

ZSebag

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Anytime, I'm always open for talking strategy and expanding my game. I find I develope much more when I'm discussing strategy with someone than when I'm just reading. You solidify your point of view/strategy when you have an open mind and learn another.
 
tonymaclennan

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Do you not think it would be better if he tested the waters first Storm? Rather than going straight in at the deep end at $25 (Ring Games) - get a feel for the online environment first at say $1/$2 or $5/$10 - after-all, he has NEVER played with real money online.

Should he not familiarize himself first? Because play money and real money games are completely different.

I know he said he can afford to loose about 1K - but wouldn't it be better if he worked his way up rather than moving down if loosing a-lot of money.
 
stormswa

stormswa

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Do you not think it would be better if he tested the waters first Storm? Rather than going straight in at the deep end at $25 (Ring Games) - get a feel for the online environment first at say $1/$2 or $5/$10 - after-all, he has NEVER played with real money online.

Should he not familiarize himself first? Because play money and real money games are completely different.

as long as you have the disapline to move down if you lose the amount of money that is required to play that level it really does not matter what level you start at. It sounds weird and maybe reckless to some but if you think about it then it makes perfect sense.

this way you can find out where you stand by going backwards instead of forwards. Both ways are very acceptable, if you start at .05/.10 and take a year of grinding to finally figure out where you stand or you buy in higher and find out maybe in month where you stand. Does that make sense?

ok take this for instance you have 2k to play with and here are your choices.

play .05/.10 and get good hand sample, maybe say 1k hands to see if you are really beating this level before you move up. Ok so now you are beating it and it took maybe a month to get those 1k hands.

now you move up to next level and repeat until you finally are stable at $1/$2

or

put that 2k on and start at .50/1.00 ($100 buy in, 20 buy ins) play and if you lose the 10 buy ins drop down or if you win the 10 go up to $1/$2 it took alot less time. Again this is only if you can drop down if you lose some buy ins if you are not sure if you can then you should do the 1st option and work your way up.


It really depends on the person and how good he is with money managment.
 
Four Dogs

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I think you're going to find that real money games play alot different than freerolls. Also , my guess is that you don't have alot of experience with on-line cash games either. Looks like you're discressional cash is burning a hole in your e-wallet. IMO, you're better off grinding it out for 20,000 hands or so at the micro limits. The games are sloppy for sure, but I think learning to win at those limits before you move up is important regardless of your financial situation.
 
Effexor

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I understand what Storm is getting at, with proper bankroll management you may as well start with what you can afford. I disagree though, I think the prudent action is to start at a level like the $25 max buy in for ring games. There is going to be a learning curve when moving from freerolls to real cash, may as well make the lessons relatively inexpensive.
 
ripptyde

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I think you would be better served making a smaller deposit and abusing the lower limits. If you are a solid player the .25/.50 NL full ring on Stars is consistently beatable, but the competition starts to get better as you move up. It would be wise to 'cut your teeth' so to speak on micros and get a feel for the real money games before moving up.

Barry Greenstein said that he built his bankroll by playing against inferior players....not by beating the best in the game. Don't be in too much of a hurry to test the competition...Stars has some pretty talented players at the higher limit level. You can make a ton of money just beating up on n00bz
 
Z

ZSebag

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I've taken your considerations and thought about them and I've decided that I am going to start at NL 25 and work my way up. I think I'll be depositing 1k. 500 for bankroll and 500 for decent sized mtt to reward my self every 2 weeks or so for solid play :)
 
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