Recently both my girlfriend and my brother started playing poker online. I've been helping them a few steps of the way, but I noticed how de-centralized newbie advice on forums was. So in an effort to help I'm creating this discussion to see if I can give them a place to go when they are looking to improve their game. Here is a few tips I've written for the newbie, I would love it if people added to them!


It was not long ago that I was just starting out, playing online poker in my spare time. I had been playing cards since I was four: my grandmother taught me poker at a young age so I would learn to count. Soon I was in the principal’s office for running a poker game while I was supposed to be playing go fish with the other kids. Not my fault they were too stupid to bet their lunch money.

Anyways, in the past three years I have joined the online poker community and succeeded in establishing a moderately successful level of play. Right now I want to give newbies some tips on how to approach the game, as well as places to get advice.

1) I want to point out that no matter how much you succeed early in your online poker career, it does not mean you are good. I started with $50 on Party poker, and turned it into $500 in the course of 10 days. I thought I was the best on the site, and just pulled my money out and spent it. Later what I learned is that I had just gotten lucky, after reading lots of books, I realized that I was chasing cards I shouldn’t have been, and hitting them at an amazing rate. I wasn’t playing well, in fact I was awful but had gotten lucky. Winning isn’t always a factor in analyzing your play, only consistent winning is.

2) When you win, do not expect to keep winning. After my $50$500 week I began to run low on cash. I bought in for another $50 on Party poker, and expected to have the same results. I made money ($25). Lesson here is never depend on poker money. Put an amount aside, (I recommend starting with $200) and play with it for as long as you can. If you do things right, you’ll never need to add anymore money from your savings.

3) Why will you never need to add any money? Because you will have bonuses. The idea of a bonus, as I see it, is to learn to play the game with a safety net. If you lose a lot of your money at the table, the bonus will either make up for losses or still give you a slight profit. There are already too many places on pokerforums.org to talk about bonuses (including its own section). A great place to get bonus advice is www.bonuswhores.com . They also have a place to show you the order in which you should play certain sites, based on their bonus and your bankroll.

4) You will need books and tools to play the game. The first is read David Sklansky’s “Small Stakes Hold’em”. In addition, you should get a program called poker tracker. What this program does is save the hands you have played and creates data out of them. This shows you trends in your play, and trends in others play that you can use to your advantage. It also keeps track of your bankroll. A good way to get these books and programs is through www.boogster.com. If you sign up through them, they give you points on top of the sites bonus. These points can be turned into online poker gift certificates (act just like cash after a few hands), or the points can be rewarded for books, computer programs, and electronics.

5) The last thing I have to say is about bankroll. The number #1 lesson is to not play past your ability. You should have [300 x (the big blind)] in order to play at that level. So if you are playing .25/.50 you should have $150. There are tons of good posts about bankroll on this forum, please search and read them. Also, there are tons of misconceptions about poker playing ability. Please do not think because you are getting beaten by people with 2/7 and 2/9 at .25/.50, you should move up to $1/$2 because the players will be better and not play hands like that. You need to learn to win at the lower levels, because it’s the people at the higher levels who should be still playing .10/.20 that you will take the most money off of.


So it’s just a little advice. I hope it helps a bit. Create a discussion!

If you're talking about limit, from what i've seen the play doesn't get that much better until you get to 5/10, even then on some sites the play is weak. Depends on the site.

In fact i seem to be really bad at really small stakes limit, such as .05/.10-.25..5, and lose money, but when i play 1/2 i'm quite successful. Perhaps because i can't be bothered to win/lose a 2 dollar pot or perhaps it's just a bit fishier.

However, What you have done is a good idea.

I lost a small fortune when i first started as i didn't know about the game beforehand.

Oh, and my top tip for poker and any form of gambling, is never bet more than you can afford to lose. I always live by that, no matter what happens.