The great thing about playing poker online is that inexperienced players can get started at the micro stakes, which is $0.01/$$.0.02 (2NL) through to $0.25/$$.0.50 (50NL). This is good for players who are new to a game, allowing them to get familiar with a poker room’s software and game play, without risking a huge chunk of change.
Lose a buy-in or two ar 2NL and you’ll have dropped a few dollars, a fairly insignificant amount that won’t be detrimental to your chances of building a bankroll at the micro stakes. As you gain confidence in your game and progress through the limits, you will learn more by playing against better players, allowing you to beat the current limit you’re playing, whilst earning more as you’ll be gradually playing for bigger stakes.
I think any new poker player should learn by playing micro stakes cash games. As a new player, large multi-table tournaments can be disheartening to play, as you can go for long stretches without making it into the money.
On the flip side, playing cash games is all about booking small wins and gradually boosting your bankroll so you can play in bigger games. You don’t need that big MTT score to replenish your bankroll, the small wins you have on a regular basis playing cash games will keep your head above water and in the game.
You might be thinking, “but I am a completely novice in the game, how can I jump straight into playing” but experience is the best way of learning about online poker and remembering your mistakes. And when gaining this valuable experience, it is a lot more helpful to be playing real money games as opposed to free to play games like freeroll tournaments or playing at the play money tables, because the standard of player is completely different in these free games, since there is nothing to lose.
Although playing poker online has the advantage of being able to play multiple tables at the same time, it would be recommended that you stick to playing as few tables as possible if the goal is improving your game at the fastest possible rate.
Not only do you want to prove to yourself that you’re a winning player playing a single table before you start multi-tabling, the more tables you play, the less focus you will have at each table, which is detrimental to improving as a player, since you won’t have as much time to make those tough decisions, instead going on auto pilot mode, which is necessary as you have to play quicker when playing more tables.
In addition to playing, you should be studying and looking to improve your game away from the virtual felt. This will make you aware about big leaks in your game, which you would never have known about, had you not studied your game away from the tables. It will also get you thinking about poker on a deeper level, introducing you to important concepts like bet sizing, semi bluffing, pot commitment, hand combinations and hand reading skills.
One of the first things online poker players can do to improve their games is to post hands for analysis. Getting feedback on hands you have played online by fellow peers in the online poker community is invaluable, especially early on when you don’t know a great deal about poker. To do this, make sure the settings at the online poker site you’re playing at is such that you are downloading hand histories. Using a hand history converter, you’ll then be able to convert this raw hand history into a format that can be easily read, allowing people to offer insight into how they think the hand should have been played.
As a novice poker players It’s incredibly important not to be results orientated in your thinking about hands, as it can make you only focus on hands you didn’t win. This is fundamentally wrong, because the outcome of the hand doesn’t suggest whether or not you played a hand poorly or in an optimal manner. More than anything else, the decision making process, irrespective of how a poker hand plays itself out, is what matters the most, and it’s what you should be focusing on.
It would be a good idea to get feedback on the key decisions that you had trouble with during a particular session. When other winning players at similar stakes post analysis about a hand, it can offer a completely different perspective into how the hand could have been played. Instead of assuming you should have played a hand in a certain manner, it can really open up your mind and make you think about poker and understand it on a much deeper level, which is only going to do you the world of good as you progress through the limits online.