No, once you know the basic rules of the game. Try for real money. Free play on any site is total crap playing with incredible calls that one normall would not make or even be in hand to begin with.
Just limit yourself to the small games. The $0.25-$0.50 tables 'can' get serious enough to learn without breaking the wallet. But the $2 / $4 tables would be a better place to learn if you can afford it.
The poker on tv is very entertaining to me, I think as a noob you can use it to learn the mechanics of the game etc, but not the strategy. Playing online in free games is equally worthless, all you'll learn is to be hyper aggressive or play extremely conservative. Since there's no real money involved people all play like reckless idiots. Even the low amount tables (with real money) suffer from that syndrome.
hellsmuth was critical of the online kiddies in the last WSOP. I watched the final table live via the espn feed.
Overall I think you will learn watching but focus n one player.
Also having sat in poker tables in Billings montana and niagra fall they say the best to watch is Celebrity poker on bravo because of the comentary.
Phil Gordon Rocks.
I stopped playing the free tables because it was too frustrating to have people that would go all in with nothing because there is no real repercussion. The free tournament on party poker are a JOKE have the feild goes all in prior to the flop.
The thinking is that you can end up with half the chips and then dominate the table.
Nothing is fmore frustrating than losing with jK when the guy you went up against had 69 prior to the flop and went all in.
AgaBoogaBoo
Lifer
- Feb 16, 2003
- 26,107
- 4
- 81
Hehe, well, it doesn't hurt to start with fake money and see how it goes. There are freerolls as well to try and help you build a bankroll.
I started off with real money, but giving away money to learn just doesn't make as much sense, IMO anyway. Since then, I've been playing in the free rooms and in freerolls on a daily basis while reading some books, and I feel I can do a bit better now. I'd say that if a beginner has $20 to use, spend it on books instead of putting it into a poker site without much thought as to what they should do.
AgaBoogaBoo
Lifer
- Feb 16, 2003
- 26,107
- 4
- 81
The freerolls are pretty good in that sense, because you'll have 10,000 players, and that gets narrowed down to 5,000 very quickly, and most of the idiots are gone. Occasionally, one of them will make it to the top 2,000 or so, but not much further, and then people are a bit serious. It's just a matter of not doing anything stupid that first 30-60 minute period when the masses are weeded out.
Dead3ye
Platinum Member
- Sep 21, 2000
- 2,917
- 1
- 81
Exactly. When there are no stakes involved, people tend to play hands they would never play or do stupid stuff. They either run up the bets and force you out when you have good cards (because you're trying to play normal) or they stay in no matter what and catch a card on 5th street and win.
Plus, most of the online sites have a time limit on betting to speed up the games on free play.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,101
- 5,640
- 126
Some people on Free Online tables play seriously, some like tards.
Which brings us to your second point, if there were no time limit, you could go All-in that there would be gangs of tards who would sit at a table then leave for school, work, or just sit there waiting for the others to go apeshit. All that said, there's little reason for Online Players to have as much time as they want. Bluffing can't be read and generally speaking all the Online Player needs to worry about are the Chances his/her hand beats the other hands.
Practice makes perfect. Play and play often. Set up home game tournemants with friends, go to the casino, find cash games, read some books. Watching High Stakes on game show network is actually pretty good stuff, even if hands are excluded. Too bad comcast cancelled it in the cable package, those bastards!
Pushing all in with 69 may be bad, but an all-in call with KJ is actually worse. While you ended up ahead this time, its 2 live cards versus 2 live cards, where you are only a slight 60ish / 40ish favourite. In many situations you'd be behind, sometimes way behind. KJ is often seen as a begginer's achilles heel, since it seems good yet is an awful hand.Freerolls and play money tables are awful places to learn the game. You WILL learn more watching WSOP since while it's edited to show action hands, it's still poker being played. The best way to learn though is to simply get your hands in the fire and play for money, albeit small to start.
Hellsmuth can often read a hand pretty well and has the WSOP bracelets to show it, but he has no respect of any other players other then himself. He whines when he gets outplayed and his bluff raise gets reraised by a player reading Hellsmuth, but since there is no WSOP bracelet on his wrist, he's a 'horrible online player'. He's also called Gus Hansen a horrible player many times.
Originally posted by: ThePresence
I am not a card player, I barely know the rules of hold 'em.
I usually switch the channel when I see card games, but for some reason I decided to watch this time.
It's 2 hours later and I'm hooked.
I get some sort of evil satisfaction from watching someone bid a ton of chips on what is actually only the second best hand. "Oh, damns you are f***** now LOL". Then of course, the "You stupid idiot" when one of the players throws away the winning hand (and eventually the hand that would have dominated down the stretch).
Except that people play very very differently in free games.
I highly reccomend the ultra cheap tables at pokerstars if you really want to learn.
For those playing with real money how are you getting money in/out of your account with the new law?
Why are so many of you complaining about terrible play on fake money sites? Those are the easiest tables to amass a huge stack (too bad it's not worth anything) b/c the play is so terrible. If you can't rack up on a play money site and feel it's "b/c people go all-in with anything", then you certainly should not be playing for real money.
As you move up in stakes with real money, play becomes better and it becomes harder and harder to consistently win over the long-run.
As you move up in stakes with real money, play becomes better and it becomes harder and harder to consistently win over the long-run.
sure it's easy - but easier doesn't make you a better player. it's SUPPOSED to be harder to win over the long run when you're playing good players. but you won't make any real money unless you're playing those guys. it's like anything else - you have to be challenged to get better. i've heard pros saying that you shouldn't expect to start winning consistently until you've played like 1500 hours of poker. that's a LOT of hours. i'm just now starting to win on a regular basis and i've been playing almost 2 years. and i play online almost every day and a couple times a month either at the casino or in home games.
That's obvious. But you should start at the play money tables and move up from there. If you can't win at the play money tables, then you certainly won't be able to win at micro-limit tables not to mention anything more competitive. essentially, those who say to skip the play money tables are dispensing poor advice.
well, i just disagree, as do others, obviously. i've watched people start there and all they learn is how to play against idiots, not against good, solid players. i mean, sure - if i want to feel good about learning to play anything, i'll go find the worst players possible to play against. but if i actually want to improve my skills, i'll start finding people better than myself to play against from the start. why waste that time?
There is really nothing to disagree with. Why start out losing real money when you can get a solid understanding of the game by not risking anything? You advocate learning at a table with players better than oneself. That is a bad idea.
I have a hard time understanding why people feel you can't learn anything against bad players. The rules and more importantly the math of Poker still apply. If anything, it helps one to understand that you can open up your game against a very loose table and gain more experience with no risk.
One of the most important things to learn is to vary your play according to your competition. Starting at a 10/20L table and folding 85% of your hands does not necessarily teach you any more than starting at a play money table and playing 40% of your hands. Sure, you are going to see a lot more bad beats on a play money table, but that should not be your concern. It should be how you played the hand. If you consistently play better hands and better post-flop poker than your competition (something easy to do at a play money table), you will win over the long-run regardless of what type of table you play.
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