New Player Questions

Hey there everyone, I've been lurking LiquidPoker for a little while and I've decided to register as I need some help.

I've been playing play money on Full Tilt Poker for quite a while now and I'm looking into starting to play with real money. I'm wondering what the best way for me to start doing this is.

Should I start playing on Titan Poker using LiquidPoker's Free Money offer? As far as I know I can't use the offer on FTP because I already have an account?

Should I pick another poker room and use LiquidPoker's rakeback offers?

I'm just not too sure on what the best option is for a player who has never played online with real money. Any comments is much appreciated thanks.

Definitely set up a rakeback/bonus account. Take advantage of those for sure. It'll help you if you aren't immediately a winning player and if you are, hell, free money.

Its correct that you can't take advantage of rakeback at FTP since you already have an account there. You will still get the 1st time deposit bonus, though.

First of all, welcome to Liquidpoker!

Take on the Titan poker promo and start playing the lowest stakes buying in for 2$ (100big blinds) first, then, follow a 20buyin rule in moving up.

Also, read the beginner articles here:http://www.liquidpoker.net/pokerarticles/

I've never investigated these free money offers, but I think they tend to void any opportunities at rakeback if you sign up for them. You absolutely must take every rakeback deal you can get for whatever sites you sign up for. The money returned to you is enormous and simply silly not to take. It's lifetime and you will make back several hundred times your bonus or free money offer.

As for how you should start playing for real money, ideally you want to get the max bonus offered to you at the time. Now I know you probably arent looking to deposit $600 your first time, but make it at least $200 or so, and commit yourself to only playing with $25 of it as you learn the ropes. You are going to be very excited and nervous at the thrill of playing with real money after all this time, even at penny stakes. If you can just be patient and play around with a small portion of your investment, maybe just maybe you will manage to learn enough to actually take advantage of your remaining bankroll and earn your bonus. If you bust, well the bonus is still good for some time, so just reload again for like $25 and keep grinding the penny tables until your comfort level rises enough that you can deposit a realistic bankroll and comfortably play against players online.

Thanks for the responses.

So it seems I would benefit a lot more from signing up with a rakeback bonus rather than a free money offer? What would be a good site to start with rakeback other than FTP?

Also, is anyone able to explain exactly what rakeback is? I'm still a little confused on what it is exactly.

-Thanks

Poker sites make money by taking a percentage of every single pot over a certain value won. Some partners establish a relationship with a poker site to help get them more players if in return the partner gets a cut of the rake. To entice you to actually join with that partner, they pass along a percentage of their cut. So the money is exchanging several hands before you get it. I'm probably way off in exactly how the funds are negotiated around the whole system, but the point is you get something for nothing. There is no reason not to sign up for rakeback, because if you dont you will never see a dime of it back. So just look at it as free money. Most sites only pay you rake in installments, so it wont become meaningful until you start playing .25/.50 where all those little percentages add up. But even at the smallest stakes possible over the course of your entire lifespan at that limit you would still have gotten something back.

Also please someone come in and comment on how he should load his first bankroll. I'm just shootin blind here as I did what most fish do and deposit the max and play for my entire bankroll at one table. I ran hot and got lucky and cleared most of my bonus before going busto and by then had learned enough to clear the remainder with a more reasonable reload.

make sure what ever site u play on, you get rakeback.. once you get used to a site its easy to become stubborn and not want to switch (like me..)

umm u should start off playing 1c/2c with 2$ at each table, start with like 100$ br and only 2 tables, after a few weeks add more tables, after u have enough money to move up stakes (20-50 buyins) then move up, or at 1c/2c start sitting with 5$.

not all sites have 1c/2c so check that out before you deposit.. i think FTPs lowest limit is 5c/10c and that means u should have at least a 200$ br, kinda just depens on how much money u have laying around to start.

ftp sucks for micros due to 10% rake

You can get first time deposit + rakeback wherever you go. It just takes your rakeback (or a portion of it) until your deposit is cleared, its not an issue. Just make sure wherever you go has rakeback instead of just a deposit bonus.

while what hawking said is true, its still a good idea to sign up for the various first-time offers on various trash sites to start off with and void any chance of getting future rb there because its only really the major sites anyone would really want to stay on longterm anyway, so those are the ones you want to make sure you get a rakeback account on (i.e. on full tilt) when you do decide to make your account there.

actually titan poker is also on the ipoker network so it doesnt matter if you dont make a rb account there because ipoker network has tons of sites so you can just make a new acc on a new ipoker site that has rb at some point later if you want to continue playing the ipoker network. id go with taking the free money promo for now, its free money - thats immediate value for a starting player and youre really not forfeiting anything in terms of potential future rewards. focus on working hard to learn the game and try to get to a 1k bankroll before moving your money to a new rakeback-enabled full tilt account, then continue playing while you grind the 600$ first deposit bonus there.

Also when you chose some bonus offer make sure you read the actual details of the deal and that its realistic for you to clear. I remember when I started out I took some bonus on ongame and the last couple days I had still so much to clear so I mass grinded for 2 days and ended up losing more than the bonus was worth

On November 22 2008 04:14 Ket wrote: while what hawking said is true, its still a good idea to sign up for the various first-time offers on various trash sites to start off with and void any chance of getting future rb there because its only really the major sites anyone would really want to stay on longterm anyway, so those are the ones you want to make sure you get a rakeback account on (i.e. on full tilt) when you do decide to make your account there. actually titan poker is also on the ipoker network so it doesnt matter if you dont make a rb account there because ipoker network has tons of sites so you can just make a new acc on a new ipoker site that has rb at some point later if you want to continue playing the ipoker network. id go with taking the free money promo for now, its free money - thats immediate value for a starting player and youre really not forfeiting anything in terms of potential future rewards. focus on working hard to learn the game and try to get to a 1k bankroll before moving your money to a new rakeback-enabled full tilt account, then continue playing while you grind the 600$ first deposit bonus there.

This is very true. If you are too attached to the software of Titanpoker (I doubt you will be...), you can still deposit your money on noiqpoker that is identical and offers a decent bonus and rakeback.

hey i started playing poker by playing with play money. In pokerstars you get 1000 play money in the start. I played for 2 weeks to turn this into 2.5 million and sold it for $25... I'd originally only planned to get $10, but once you get to 500k play money you just need to win 1 game to make 1 million.

Then I played $1.20 sngs until I was rolled for $3.40's, then $5.50's... and now trying to play cash games (NL2) with a roll of $200... You don't need to put any money in yourself.

Good luck

On November 22 2008 11:44 genjix wrote: hey i started playing poker by playing with play money. In pokerstars you get 1000 play money in the start. I played for 2 weeks to turn this into 2.5 million and sold it for $25... I'd originally only planned to get $10, but once you get to 500k play money you just need to win 1 game to make 1 million. Then I played $1.20 sngs until I was rolled for $3.40's, then $5.50's... and now trying to play cash games (NL2) with a roll of $200... You don't need to put any money in yourself. Good luck

how did u sell the play money?

Thanks for the answers guys, it helps. =)