Why playing poker with real money will help you improve your skills

By Andrew Hayne


Anyone who is seeking to start making money using poker should first get some poker practice to enhance their skills and strategies. Poker rooms offer free game play at play money tables, but is it the easiest way to get poker practice? Probably not. Play money tables are full of fishy players who have no real poker practice and who have nothing to lose. Since there is none of their own money involved, they're curious to see all hands. That means they'll play any cards, anything they are dealt. That type of poker practice will not help you win at money tables because you can't really learn the correct strategies or predict what the opponent is going to do.

Sitting down at a real money table provides you with the poker practice you can utilize in the future to hopefully win some money. Here everyone has to bet actual money, which means they are not playing every lousy hand anymore. Starting with limits like 0.01/0.02 is safe for novices. There isn't much to lose but a lot to gain - some authentic poker practice and perhaps a few bucks to take to higher stakes tables later.

People at these tables are still pretty loose, but you may find some tables where bets are not placed thoughtlessly.

So if you are after some real poker practice, sit down at tighter tables, but if you are looking for a quick buck or two, try the loosest tables you can find. It is easy to find these tables, just check how many players see the flop on average and select the ones where that percentage is either the greatest (for winning) or the lowest (for some quality poker practice).

Starting your poker practice with play money is good if you want to see how the software looks and works, but if you want to turn into better poker player and get real poker practice, take a seat at real cash tables with low stakes.




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