I recently joined an online poker site and I have been playing with fake money at low tables. I sucked but then I started to figure things out.
I improved, went to higher stakes fake money tables and lost, bumping me back down to lower stakes.
Then, I got smarter about things, got back up the the higher stakes, and have now racked up a nice chunk of fake change at higher stakes. I started with $1000 in fake money and now have over $40,000. It would be nice to have $40,000 IRL.
At what point is a person generally ready for real money tables and is there a big difference between real money low stakes and fake money high stakes?
I can only assume the fake money players are more willing to chase down tough draws and bluff more.
Am I really becoming a decent online poker player, or am I only becoming a decent FAKE MONEY player who would likely get quick beat down at real money tables?
Also, how much does online success usually translate to winning IRL at a live poker table?
I’m not an expert, but I’ve played a few low-stake money tournaments.
My suggestion is that fake money games are almost useless for learning how the opposition play (although they can teach you the odds of improving).
I read that, for example, (on sites where new fake money games are always starting) players will go all-in with nothing on the first hand. if they win, they double up; if they lose they join another table.
It’s hard to bluff someone if they don’t care if they lose.
In any case, you are ready to play poker for money when:
you know how much you can afford to lose
you know you will walk away when you lose that amount
you enjoy playing, even if you lose
P.S. You posted “It would be nice to have $40,000 IRL.”
Yes it would. It would also be bad to lose that amount of money!
Fake money poker does nothing but give you a false sense of confidence. Play for real money, even if it’s microstakes. (I think PokerStars has $0.01/$0.02, although I haven’t played there in a while.)
A recent thread dealing with some of the same questions. There’s some good advice in Post #5.
As I’m sure you’re aware play money tables bear only scant relation to real money tables. However, real money micro-stakes tables (PokerStars has .01/.02 NLHE, e.g.) also bear little resemblance to poker played for meaningful sums, so you could try getting acclimated fairly cheaply. Read some of the right books, and subject yourself to criticism.
It’s the same game. In fact, online tables are generally much more difficult that live games with identical stakes. Skills such as reading physical tells and maintaining a poker face are real, but their importance is greatly overstated in the popular imagination.
I’ve said it before and I’m just about to say it again: the only thing more useless than play money poker is nipples on a man. Poker just doesn’t work without the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
So, just load up twenty whole dollars and play really low stakes real money poker.
I’m sure you know this, but the answer is much more likely to be the latter than the former.
I would echo the advice already given in this thread, with this addition: view any money you put down on a poker table as a fee for the entertainment you will get from the game. In other words, if you buy into a micro-stakes game on-line for $2, and you play for an hour, you’re just paying $2 for an hour of entertainment. This means that if you lose the $2, it’s just the same as if you went to a bar for 2 hours and bought one beer for $4 (same hourly rate). Anything you win is then a bonus. You have to have a lot of winning days before you can seriously poker as a money-making proposition.
I have played poker for extra income for the last seven years. I am not a professional, but I am a consistently winning player at mid stakes.
Online poker is actually a very tough game, even at very low stakes. Once you get to the $25buy in level in no limit you are playing against professional or semi-professional players who are playing 20 tables at once. They play fairly robotically and according to formula so they are beatable. I would not recommend playing play money. I don’t think you learn anything of value except for coming to understand the relative frequency of how often draws hit and how the cards are distributed.
I would deposit a small amount on Poker Stars and start by reading the Micro Limit forums on www.twoplustwo.com. 2+2 is simply unparalelled in the depth and breadth of poker knowledge and even at low stakes there are people who spend serious time improving their game. If you read posts there and really thought about your game while playing at tiny real money stakes you will find yourself improving. Once you have a few hundred buy ins for the next level you move up.
No matter what you do you should start with very small stakes until you are completely confident you are a winning player at that level before moving up. In the short term you may be lucky or unlucky, long term you will find out whether you are winning and how to get better.