when is it time to move up?

[GTOnizuka 0]

Hello all forum readers and writers,I have a question. I have been playing poker for four months now and have read books also on the subject; Super System, Holdem for advance players, Play like the pros, Killer holdem handbook. And im working on caros book of tells and harrington on holdem. I have also supersystem 2 but it will have to wait till I finish the other two. I have been playing online at pstars with play money and sign up for the play money tournaments. I do okay and inthe cash games with play money i also do okay. I also play with friends and do pretty well consistently. Now what should i do next? Ive mainly played NLholdem but also dabbled in NLOmaha. I like to start playing more seriously and once i joined this forum i noticed many others playing than just with their friends. Where do I go from here. If you guy and gals could point me in the right direction it would be great. I want to continue playing and becoming better. Thank you for all your help.

[GTOnizuka 0]

Can anyone help? Your opinions are truly meaningful. Just needed to be pointed in the right direction. Thanks

[the_stein 0]

sso you have been playing for play money so far and now you want to play for real money? is that what you mean?

[Absolution 0]

Play the micro limits. You'll learn 100x more about the game at even the lowest real money limits. Play money is good for teaching you mechanics, but you won't be applying (successfully anyway) much of what you learned in those books (beyond basics like odds and position) at those tables. If you're not of age though, then don't play with real money except for maybe with your friends.

[trentose 0]

I used to play the play money games too until 3 days ago, i moved to the .05/.10 fixed limit games at Pstars, and I will never go back to play money again... so maybe you should try that.

[MrConceit 0]

First are you wishing wanting to try more online or more B&M live or both?I'm much more knowledgable on the limit cash games online, but I've done some tourneys and NL/PL ring also. Though I've made a couple other final tables my only "big cash" was in a 20+2 buyin multi where I won 2.4k. I've only played live like 5-6 times total ever, so others will have to give you more exacts on that. First, the most important thing, is to make sure you are playing within your bankroll. If you have a good job and are doing this more for fun it isn't as important because you can just take another 100 out of your next paycheck, but it still applies to some degree regardless. I'm sure you've read in your books, but you want approx 200-250 (or 300) BB (big bets) in any given limit to play in it. But if you're willing to move down you can get by with a lot less, like maybe 150BB where if you go below 100 you move down a limit.You're more interested in NL so hopefully someone else will chime in how much you should want to do an X buyin NL cash game. I would guess you want something along the lines of 10-15X buyins? So for NL25 I'd say 250-375 bucks. Again that's a guess and someone who does NL ring seriously hopefully will chime in.The bottom end NL/PL games... I mostly play on Party (and skins), and NL/PL25 is a goldmine because of the overall horrid play. BUT one thing you have to remember. Because of all this horrible play, on a bad day you will be getting a number of horrible beats. But the thing with bad beats is it means you were favored to win. So if you take it in stride you can crush those games. As an example, I wanted to try out Omaha, so I've been playing PL25 Omaha (high) on party. And it's so easy to destroy. The people are so bad, calling with not even anything resembling odds most of the time. But on a bad day you can lose a few buyins because the fish sometimes bite hard and hit all their draws.So my summed advice is to deposit 250-500 bucks on whatever site you choose and try out the NL25 for a while. Get some experience and build that up so you can move up to a higher level.If you want SnG/STT (that's Sit 'n Gos or Single Table Tourneys, same thing) tourneys, I'd say 20 buyins for those is enough to be relatively safe. Multis are lots of fun, but it's hard to consistently make long-term cash in them online. I know of a few exceptions to this, but for most people that's the case. Not that that stops zillions of people from playing them constantly as often as they can though. And they still should be +EV, it's just the time between serious cashes can be so long.My final thing is: Almost nobody (of the vast unwashed masses) plays with anything resembling a proper bankroll, and they can't sustain their first or second bad downswing. Don't be one of those guys.

[Bertoli 0]

I would reccomend buying in for 150 - 200 bucks to a website and trying the games at the 50 cent 1 dollar level or 1 2 level as the play is much more realistic and taken more seriously by the rest of the table. I have found that the 10 c 20 c tables play just like the play money. As for the n/limit games just play the max 5 dollar buy-ins and play tight. Online the majority of the players dont bother observing if you play a lotof hands or not so just wait for the top ten hands and jam the pot.

[justblaze 0]

www.partypoker.comwww.pokerstars.comwww.fulltilt.comwww.paradisepoker.comclick "open real money account"

[Wilderness 0]

www.partypoker.comwww.pokerstars.comwww.fulltilt.comwww.paradisepoker.comclick "open real money account"

Gotta add Pokermountain.com since Daniel does endorse that and all

[Wingmaster05 0]

primapoker.com

[GTOnizuka 0]

Thanks these are all great replies. Now I like playing online but I like playing live games more. Its hard finding games in chicago. I havent tried any of the casinos yet but i hear there arent many that have poker available. This is from a friend i heard from so i dont know if its true or not. I have an account w/pstars. Not real money yet, but will soon. So there are tourneys for cheap in pstars? And in the cash games PL is like limit holdem i presume? Sorry for acting ignorant but I am thinking that PL placed limit is limit holdem. Again, thank you all for replying. Its good to know that there are people out there willing to take time to help newbies like me out. :-)

[MrConceit 0]

Thanks these are all great replies. Now I like playing online but I like playing live games more. Its hard finding games in chicago. I havent tried any of the casinos yet but i hear there arent many that have poker available. This is from a friend i heard from so i dont know if its true or not. I have an account w/pstars. Not real money yet, but will soon. So there are tourneys for cheap in pstars? And in the cash games PL is like limit holdem i presume? Sorry for acting ignorant but I am thinking that PL placed limit is limit holdem. Again, thank you all for replying. Its good to know that there are people out there willing to take time to help newbies like me out. :-)

Oh you're in Chicago? So am I. I haven't checked them all out yet, but Aurora and Joliet have poker rooms in casinos. I _have_ checked out Trump Casino in Gary Indiana, which isn't a far drive depending on where you're at. It has a great poker room. I've played in the 3/6 there, because most of my money is online haha, plus the friend I was with only wanted to play that. I played there twice, once losing solidly (first time I'd ever played a low limit live for a length of time, before that I played like 6/12 as my lowest in vegas, and not much of that), and the second time winning 300 bucks. But regardless, it's a nice medium sized poker room. It has 3/6 as low end and 20/40 (I think) as high end. They have NL ring for sure too. I think perhaps NL200? They also have like Stud1-5 and some Omaha H/L I think, but I doubt that's what you're looking for. I'm actually a lot nearer the Joliet one, but I haven't checked it out yet. I'm more of an online player just dabbling in live, for fun and to get some experience.If you want to try out some limit stuff (and don't have somebody to go with) I could probably go with you. If you're not scary in real life anyway, haha.