Welcome To RIO Justin

Thank you, I have a question for everyone tho, that I figured might be better off posting in here rather than starting a new thread. I was recently playing 16nl 6 max cash. But on a bad downswing and back down to playing in 5nl. To be honest im 24 years old And have only stepped into a casino once and that was on Monday just to check it out. I feel intimidated playing Live cash game, idk why but I do feel like everyone playing would be a top pro haha. Anyway my local casino does a $60 mtt every weekday in the evening and offers few cash tables as well. There lowest limit cash game however is $1/2. Now I don't think just bringing 200 bucks or 100 bucks and sitting down is a good idea, correct me if im wrong but don't I want to be rolled for such a thing? My plan was to hopefully build and work my way up online to get a good enough roll to play live at those stakes.

My Main question I guess would be, Are there any Online sites better suited for cash games then others? I Have only tried Poker stars and Full tilt.

Welcome, Justin!

Getting $200 to the casino, sitting down at NL1/2 and quitting when money is gone is close to sitting down at the roulette table, imho.

Your options are just too limited and you can easily sit down one evening at the live table (where you probably are getting dealt like 300 hands over the entire evening), get carddead and leave the casino with just enough bucks to enter the last bus for the night. ;)

Regarding your question about pokerrooms, I´d say that the competition on the lowest stakes is pretty comparably on most sites, so I´d concentrate more on a good rakeback deal. iPoker might be a good option for you.

hello welcome :)

"Or he could sit down with his last 200 bucks, get lucky and turn them
into 600, then win a sat to the WSOP and get super lucky and win the
whole thing"

THAT again sounds like a solid plan. :)

Moneymaker ffs

lolx :)

Welcome to the site!

Thank you for all the kind words everyone. I went to Ipokers website. I could be just blind as a bat or not paying attention. But I cant find an actual IPOKER software to download. All I can see I see to download is in there card rooms with the 30 different websites. Am I missing something or are all these sites owned by Ipoker? Is one site better than others? Looking for some insight. Thank you.

Yeah, iPoker is a network, that is licensed by several skins. So you can choose between the skins (i.e. WilliamHill, Titan, etc.) and there you can download the software.

Hey Justin, Welcome!

I would like to say I was in your exact same position not long ago roll wise and I would say I have a very different opinion to these "anti live" comments. I have played a ton online and slowly grinded from 5nl-200nl and back down and up a few times. In 2006 I won a tourny for 25k in Party so that kinda rolled me for bigger games but I was in Uni and money was needed for booze and food!

I personally found that for me the best bankroll builder was not online but live 1-2 at the casino. I am from Canada as well and our Casinos have pretty good rake structures. You will feel extremely intimidated at first, that is just unavoidable! Don't feel bad about that, your hands will shake, you will pick up cards awkwardly and you will make a few dumb mistakes with betting incorrectly/acting out of turn. It happens! 

It would be good to hear what your bankroll situation is? Do you have a set aside portion of money? or do you work and can realistically make a bigger investment?

Live 1/2 is filled with the biggest mix of casino degens (you see the same dudes every day in the pit and poker table). New aspiring players like yourself, random out of towners dropping in, old retired nits, and the 30s guys who think they are poker pros and often spout off about every move and decision they made.  You will be able to identify each type of player almost instantaneously and play accordingly. 1/2 albeit the smallest game in the room is a very good moneymaker and if you play solid you are virtually guaranteed to make money. It sucks the first time your $200 get stacked but you will be stacking others much more frequently.

Sit down at 1/2 with $100 and play really tight only playing premiums to get a good feel for how the game is, just focus on only playing premium hands and really trying to identify each player at the table and what their hand range is in spots. You are essentially just paying $3 every orbit to learn and then playing your top % of hands. You will likely even make money this was as players get bored and call your 2 raises an hour calling 3 streets with their K9o on AK27A board. 

Once you feel comfortable and you notice your hands aren't shaking, you are feeling good about the flow of the game and how things are going you can look at opening up your hand range and buying in for $200-300.  

**This make take a while so be patient and don't get down on yourself if you have a bad day, if losing $100 is gonna really bother you, leave and come back another day**

I am not saying this is 100% the best way of building a roll for everyone, I found it the best way for me. Online especially nowadays its A LOT harder to move up really fast. Going from 5nl-100nl will likely take an extremely long time with hundreds of hours of play and study. Live you will be an earner in the game almost instantly make 10x the hourly you would at the microstakes. Online doesn't really totally prepare you for live either, so if your ultimate goal is to compete live at 1/2-2/5 and make some decent cash on the side I would commit more to live than online. Online is going to help you with aggression and hand ranges but does little in the way of helping maneuver live fish you are going to meet. If you go into the casino raising every limper and opening for 3x you will quickly find yourself getting into 5 way pots and looking at the T7K boarding with your AK when the field has 2 pairs and fd's sd's etc. You need to adapt your thinking and open bigger (usually 5x+) and iso a lot bigger. 1/2 the average opening $$ is 10-15 which you would be insane to do online.

Theres my rant! It would be good to hear your income/bankroll situation as I feel that really dictates what you should be doing. If you are working and can realistically take 2 weeks off poker and nab another $100 then your choices are different if you just have $300 and thats it.

Ya its probably best to do a bit of both if you can. I m originally from Edmonton and ya the live games are reasonable but you can t beat online for getting a lot of volume and experience. Even without mass tabling you just play way way more hands/hr which does matter. 

What I would suggest is get the basics down by grinding some micros. Get a tracker (hold em manager or poker tracker) but I wouldn t even fuss around with the HUD at first. What this will allow you to do is review your play. 

Once you have a decent idea of what to do and arent spewing off stacks and likely beating the micro games go to the casino and have your hand at some live play. Its fun, getting to play with real cards and chips is cool and the players are the worst. Only thing that makes it inferior is only 1 table and takes a while to deal the cards. 

Hello everyone. Thank you lew man for that long reply. My roll about few weeks ago was $80. I have been 4 tabling 2nl and 5nl. Built the roll up fairly quick to $200. I just started at 10nl yesterday and only playing one table right now. The new job I just started at ( working as a licensed technician for Mercedes) the boss and some guys at the shop host a fun home cash game. Its basically a 10nl cash game. Ended last week with me and the boss and I made about $70 bucks. We do this every Saturday night, so I will be getting some more hands n experience that way with my game and some live play. I perfer not to kerp depositing money into my poker funds. Just started keeping money on the side for poker only. I appreciate the kind words everyone. You shall see more updates along with hand analysis posted by me. Looking to improve my game as much as possible.