Just Starting Out

Hello, everyone!

After having played thousands of hands with play money, I am ready to start with real money. But I have two questions:

1) I am pretty confident that I can succeed at low levels, but if I am utterly mistaken, what is a good sign that I can't play poker worth a damn?

2) When I told my brother (who used to play poker in college many years ago) about my poker ambitions, he said that the online games were full of "pokerbots" (poker playing computers).

Is this true?

Are they a hazard for a newbie?

Originally Posted by SlowCurve

Hello, everyone!

After having played thousands of hands with play money, I am ready to start with real money. But I have two questions:

1) I am pretty confident that I can succeed at low levels, but if I am utterly mistaken, what is a good sign that I can't play poker worth a damn?

lol, you lose all your money!

2) When I told my brother (who used to play poker in college many years ago) about my poker ambitions, he said that the online games were full of "pokerbots" (poker playing computers).

Is this true?

No, I've never seen anything like this. I'm not denying their existance, but I'm sure they are very rare

Are they a hazard for a newbie?

1) I am pretty confident that I can succeed at low levels, but if I am utterly mistaken, what is a good sign that I can't play poker worth a damn?

You never know until you try. Just make sure you are properly bankrolled to handle a possible downswing early on.

Also take into account that changing from play money to real money require some adjustments, and it may take you a few losing sessions to adjust

2) When I told my brother (who used to play poker in college many years ago) about my poker ambitions, he said that the online games were full of "pokerbots" (poker playing computers).

Is this true?

Dont know and dont really care as long as I make money

Pokerbots do exist, but I wouldn't say that the internet is "full" of them. There's all sorts of illegal activity that happens through online poker rooms, but the poker rooms can and do investigate dodgy behaviour - it's in their interest to do so.

Even if there are bots, it would be most likely they are playing limit holdem, and the margins they make are very small.

The poker room I work for has busted at least one bot in the past. Apparently it was a little laughable - 15 bots making very little profit. I wouldn't worry about them.

Thanks for all the replies. I am going to deposit $200+Bonus at Party Poker to play the .50/1.00 tables. I'd consider another $200 deposit if Idon't crash and burn too quickly.

I am glad to hear that pokerbots are not a problem.

Thanks again! This is a great site and I'm glad I found it!

I would consider starting much lower that .50/1.00 with only $200 behind you. That is not to be offensive, it's just, unless I am being dumb, this gives you 2 buy-ins.

I would start somewhere like Stars or another site where they have micro limits (somewhere where they have .05/0.10 tables) and really learn to play there.

Playing 100NL w/ only $200 is just asking for trouble, particularly if your experience to date is on play money tables.

Originally Posted by Staresy

I would consider starting much lower that .50/1.00 with only $200 behind you. That is not to be offensive, it's just, unless I am being dumb, this gives you 2 buy-ins.

I would start somewhere like Stars or another site where they have micro limits (somewhere where they have .05/0.10 tables) and really learn to play there.

Playing 100NL w/ only $200 is just asking for trouble, particularly if your experience to date is on play money tables.

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