Okay I joined pokerstars, have read Dave's book, and have a couple more books on the way. I deposited $50 into my account at Pokerstar's. What limit of hold em table should I start at?
Jay, I think it's great that you're taking the time to ask where you should start before you dive in. I'm assuming $50 is your entire poker bankroll... if so, you should generally play at a limit game where you have 300 times the big bet. That would put you at .05/.10. I think that's a fine place to start... there are a lot of factors at work though. Personally, I never started at .05/.10, I started at .50/$1. Do I wish I'd started lower? Yes. While I was learning I had to make a lot of small deposits because I kept losing, and if I'd been playing lower, I'd have made less deposits, or maybe even have won a bit.
You should also check out the tournaments if that sort of thing interests you... really, that's what the site does best. They have $3 NL multis there, and $1 ones too I think, that you may want to check out. I believe the smallest sit-and-go's they have are $5, which--at 10% of your bankroll--may be a bit steep for you right now.
Hope that helped, let me know if you have any questions. Also, Scotty has a knack for starting people off on the right foot with this stuff, so if he disagrees with me, then believe him, not me. I started too big, so I may not be the best one to give advice about this particular subject.
It's really going to depend a lot on what exactly that $50 deposit means to you. Is this your entire poker bankroll? That is, is this all the money you are winning to put towards playing poker, say, within the next few years?
Is this just a single deposit, and you are willing to make more deposits later? If so, you need to think about what a rough estimate of your bankroll is. This means, roughly how much money are you willing to put into poker in total in the next few years?
In either case, the 300 Big Bets guideline that all_aces is referring too is a pretty good one.
Somethings you most likely should *not* do having only $50 in you account in any case:
1. Play limit poker over $0.50/$1.00. Your $50 isn't really even a sufficiernt buy-in (let alone bankroll) for these limits. (This does *not* necessarily mean that you should play $0.50/$1.00.)
2. Play tournaments $11 or higher. $50 is a pretty short "amount in account" for even as low as $5.50 buy-in tourneys.
Comments
Jay, I think it's great that you're taking the time to ask where you should start before you dive in. I'm assuming $50 is your entire poker bankroll... if so, you should generally play at a limit game where you have 300 times the big bet. That would put you at .05/.10. I think that's a fine place to start... there are a lot of factors at work though. Personally, I never started at .05/.10, I started at .50/$1. Do I wish I'd started lower? Yes. While I was learning I had to make a lot of small deposits because I kept losing, and if I'd been playing lower, I'd have made less deposits, or maybe even have won a bit.
You should also check out the tournaments if that sort of thing interests you... really, that's what the site does best. They have $3 NL multis there, and $1 ones too I think, that you may want to check out. I believe the smallest sit-and-go's they have are $5, which--at 10% of your bankroll--may be a bit steep for you right now.
Hope that helped, let me know if you have any questions. Also, Scotty has a knack for starting people off on the right foot with this stuff, so if he disagrees with me, then believe him, not me. I started too big, so I may not be the best one to give advice about this particular subject.
But there it is, nonetheless.
Cheers,
all_aces
Is this just a single deposit, and you are willing to make more deposits later? If so, you need to think about what a rough estimate of your bankroll is. This means, roughly how much money are you willing to put into poker in total in the next few years?
In either case, the 300 Big Bets guideline that all_aces is referring too is a pretty good one.
Somethings you most likely should *not* do having only $50 in you account in any case:
1. Play limit poker over $0.50/$1.00. Your $50 isn't really even a sufficiernt buy-in (let alone bankroll) for these limits. (This does *not* necessarily mean that you should play $0.50/$1.00.)
2. Play tournaments $11 or higher. $50 is a pretty short "amount in account" for even as low as $5.50 buy-in tourneys.
ScottyZ