Jimellow

My friend and I were talking today..

He and I have played poker with each other and friends for a few months now, and he has been playing online for real money for a month or more. I have only played with "play money" online.

We are members at Party Poker, and today we discussed the possibility of me making an initial deposit ($50), winning it back, and then playing with "free money."

I don't like gambling, but I enjoy poker. Unfortunately, play money results in stupid and unrealistic poker, and I am really tempted by the opportunity to start an account for $50, and then win $50, cash it out, and then from that point on, play with "free" money.

The issue I am concerned about is.. How hard is it to win back your initial deposit?

I would be playing "low wager" games, and I am an average poker player. When playing with friends, I win some, and generally finish middle of the pack. I am not great, but I do like playing the game, and am really excited about playing online against others that aren't going all in pre-flop just because the money is fake.

Has anyone here at TFP won their initial deposit back, cashed out, and then played with "free money"? How did it go? How hard was it to win back your money?

I have no intention of gambling my savings away, or even looking to make a huge profit of playing poker online. But I would like the opportunity to play good games of poker online, and was hoping the users here that play could offer their feedback and experiences.

Thanks!

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maleficent

I've never played any of those games - but logic tells me that if it were easy to do, then those websites wouldn't stay in business long.

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Siege

Well, personally I would never play online poker because you don't get to see your opponents. Judging a person is a huge part of the game.

The other reason is, I don't like the idea of a computer controlling whether I win or lose.

Ok, that's a bad way to put it. But I prefer a dealer.

My friend at his highest point was $700 up. Now he is over $400 down. But at the same time, I know some people who do play poker online as their "job."

If you're only interested in winning your deposit back, I suggest you just play more poker with your friends.

Oh, and low wager can be just as bad as free money poker. If the bets are too small, people will just call everything simply because they practically lose nothing.

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matteo101

The websites which offer online poker really could care less who wins, and who loses. They do not make money if a person loses, they only make money if a person plays. They take a small percentage of each pot known as a rake. They do not take money if you lose, only the player who beats you takes the money.

cj2112

If you don't have the 50 bucks to lose, don't do it. It's not easy, you'll be playing with people who do this for a living.

Sensei

I don't think it's that difficult to make the deposit back but my hourly rate is far less than minimum wage. Just play tight, that's my strategy.

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Vincentt

You really need to think of it as ' can I toss 50bucks out the window?' if you can then go for it.

I am not saying you are going to loose 50bucks, but it could happen.

At a computer you should have the option of using programs or math to test all the probabilitys. I would assume someone has a poker bot that is fairly skilled.

And if you and your friends wanna be dirty, I would think 'cheating' would be easy too. Talking about what cards you have etc, trying to make the pot higher and splitting what you win/steal.

I guess to me, online poker seems like it could be 'cheated' well.

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Cynthetiq

personal story about Mickey Rooney:

He went to the race track. Bet $1 on a horse, lost that $1, he spent a lifetime and millions of dollars trying to get that $1 back.

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Borgs

This works for fake money because they don't care, but when it comes to real money they look for this. Not a good idea.

As far as the 50 bucks, it really depends on how good you are / how lucky you get. You can be good and not get as lucky or you can be lucky and not be as good.

Jimellow

Well, I tried this out last night and it didn't go well..

To make a long story short.. I lost the initial bonus ($10, even though the code claimed $25), and I wanted to get out.. But I was at $49.90.

You need $50 to cash out.. So basically, I spent over $14 to get back $.10.

It's a beautiful situation for the online gambling sites.. Once under $50, the only way to get your money back is to get back to $50, so you are forced to either gamble more or stop playing (and never be able to get back to $50 and cash out).

I managed to get back to $50 and cash out, but I will never be doing any online gambling again, ever.

For some it works out (my friends included), but not me. This actually turned out to be a rewarding life lesson for me, and I'm glad I did it. I will never gamble online again, and to me, that is a good decision.

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snowy

That is precisely why I don't gamble.

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Borgs

Well, be glad that you were able to learn a lesson without having to lose your money

TM875

It really depends on your skill level and attitude and foresight. I deposited $50, and was able to make nearly $200 off of it. At a table, I always bought in for $5. When I doubled-up (so at any win that gave me $10 or more), I left the table, went to a new one, and bought in again for $5. That way, you don't end up losing what you won previously at a table.

Now, don't do this in order to make money. Use it as fun, and maybe a way to gain some extra bucks. I've only met one person who makes a living from playing online (and real) poker...but he's an exception, able to make an average of $21 an hour playing poker. Nonetheless, don't do this unless you're willing to lose it.

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"I've made only one mistake in my life. But I made it over and over and over. That was saying 'yes' when I meant 'no'. Forgive me."

FngKestrel

I think your initial assumption about the way things work when you play poker was mistaken. Poker is not about getting to a cashing out point. What were you planning to do once you got to $50? Take what was left over and play? In my experience, a person usually needs 30 times the big bet in order to ride out the ups and down of a poker session. Depending on the limits you play, that could be as little as 60 cents or as much as several hundred dollars. So even if you had gotten back up to 50 dollars, your limits might have necessitated you keeping that money in.

Like what TM875, it's about skill level, attitude and foresight. Poker is not a results-oriented game. Just because you get lucky with a 72 offsuit does not mean you should do it everytime. Poker is also a long term game. As long as you make the right move in a given situation, statistics will dictate that you will win in the long run. Yeah, you'll have your bad beat stories, but that's just part of playing poker. I've seen aces get destroyed by K8o and 72o flop a boat. It happens.

The main mistake I find a lot of people making is that they treat money as money while it's at the poker table. It's not. It's ammo. You need to be willing to commit the money as necessary to do what is mathematically correct. If you don't detach yourself from the money, you'll find yourself on tilt, and making bad moves.

The other question is, could you afford to lose that 50 dollars? If you couldn't, it shouldn't have been at the table in the first place.

Sorry to hear you're swearing off of online gambling.

You learned your lessons, this one was cheap. Because in the end, everyone pays for lessons, one way or another.

Vincentt

Well using friends would be easy to spot.

But nothing they can do will spot you using a program to tell you all the right moves.

There are tons of stats for any given poker hand, at a real table you have to know those stats by heart... but sitting at a computer you can find them easy enough.

You might beable to make some cash, but that isn't a good reason to play.

Did you think about looking for a poker game with a lower deposit?

I think pokerstars.com has 25$ start up, but you have to use their silly service to pay for it. (it will charge you a dollar or so, still... 25 dollars is better start up then 50.)

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iccky

The other advantage to poker stars (I play there) is that they have very low stakes game (.01/.02 and .02/.05) where the pot isn't raked. In most casino/online poker games you're always fighting an uphill battle because the house takes a small portion of every pot, but these games let you play with even chances of making and losing money.

That said, when I joined I saw my initial buy-in as the fee I paid to play in slightly more serious poker games. I never really expected to get that money back again and never saw it as a way to make money. There are professional poker players (my uncle is one), but for them to make it as pros there have to be far more chumps out there who lose their shirts. It's hard to tell which one you'll turn out to be, and often even harder to stop once you turn out to be a chump.

Right now I've got about $40 left from an initial buy-in of $50.

mikec

a couple things...

as someone already said to maleficent, the poker sites have no vested interest in how well you do, they're taking money off the top of all players. so if you're a winner or a loser, they still get their small %, the majority of the $$ you win is from other players.

how hard is it to win your money back? well, how good of a card player are you? heheh. if you're used to play money, forget everything you know immediately. if you don't, you'll lose your real money very quickly. here are my suggestions, because at first, I was tentative about playing real money too:

play tourney's - and play low money ones - i.e. $1 dollar plus 10 cent 10 person sit 'n go tourney's. like play money, you'll see a lot of knuckleheads in those games, because a dollar is peanuts, but at least there's real stakes involved. play tight, but aggressive. once you're comfortable, step it up to $3 dollar and $5 dollar tourney's. as your play improves, you'll see that you finish in the money more often and will start profiting.

btw, I started out with $25 on allstar.com, play there a couple times a week, and am up to about $300 in my account. typically I play either $10+$1 or $20+$2 sit and go tourney's.

I'd say good luck, but poker is a skill game. You need to get lucky to win, but you have to play smart first and foremost.

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Siege

I would beg to differ when it comes to online poker. I'd say that skill IS involved, since you need to have a rough idea of should you stay in a hand or not. But the real skill, analysing the other players, is not present because you do not get to see them.

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"Your name's Geek? Do you know the origin of the term? A geek is someone who bites the heads off chickens at a circus. I would never let you suck my dick with a name like Geek"

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FngKestrel

I would argue that analyzing is not the "real skill". It's a mix of skills that ensures the successful player. It also depends on which game you're playing and what limits you're playing at that determines which skill will be the most useful to you. Granted, there is an immense amount of information that you get from playing face to face with other players, but tells and 'poker faces' are vastly overrated. For a game like low limit Hold 'Em, hand selection is your primary skill. But for something like 7 card stud, knowing your live cards is more important.

matteo101

Tells are extremely present during online play. The number one tell, be it live or online is betting style. Analyzing betting history is very important, and a very usefull tell online.

clavus

I know two people who play regularly.

guy #1 - He's up a few hundred bucks for the year.
guy #2 - he's up over $15,000 this year. He isn't planning on reporting this to the IRS. I'm curious to see if he gets caught.

I don't generally gamble. People like me end up funding people like guy #1 & guy #2.

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FngKestrel

I don't really consider betting history a tell. It's one more piece of very important information, but I don't think it falls under the same category as a tell. But I suppose that's semantics.

My friend has a quote about games, "We make the top half possible."

brinkn1

I tried Party Poker... started out with $50.00. Within an hour I was up to $200.00. Dropped down to $100.00 and cashed out. I thought it was pretty easy.

I just went to a $5/10 table, and played. I think I lucked out because there was a guy there with a lot of $$$, I beat him one hand, and he couldn't seem to let it go, so he kept betting against me when he didn't have the goods.

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Vincentt

Just remember every guy who is up, there are several people down.

I had thought about playing pokerstars for real money several times. But I've always been too busy to really get into it.

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KingOtter67

Heh, this thread is rather amusing to me... since I play online poker about 3-4 hours a day... at least.

My initial deposit of $50 has grown to well over $1500. I've taken about $1000 of that out... to buy more poker books, that kind thing (and to refinish the basement), but I haven't spent any 'real' money on poker since that initial investment.

Poker is a skill. Tournament play can rest almost entirely on luck, but mostly it is still skill. I suck at tournament play. But I can make money in what's called 'ring games' .. limit poker.

I make money at poker. Real, spendable money.

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KingOtter
You can't push on a rope.

phoenix1002

My cousin got $200 in debt to some guy in Columbia on one of those websites. He was winning... then he lost. And lost some more. And then he started getting emails from this Columbian guy and the website, because they wanted him to pay up.

Or alternatively you could be like KingOtter, and make $1500.

I just have one question for you... do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?

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Siege

Wouldn't they just charge your credit card?

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"Your name's Geek? Do you know the origin of the term? A geek is someone who bites the heads off chickens at a circus. I would never let you suck my dick with a name like Geek"

--Kevin Smith

This part just makes my posts easier to find

micah67

I'll give you candid numbers. I started playing poker in 2003. I lost $880 that year. 2004 showed a net gain of $1635. I'm ahead about $7,500 this year. It's important to keep good records so you can see how you're playing. I now use "pokertracker" to record my hand histories for further evaluation and excel to document my wins, $/hr, $/session. Poker is math.

I play at several sites (partypoker, ultimatebet, pokerstars, fulltilt) and, unlike KingOtter67, I do better at tournament games with several multi-table wins under my belt. Luck is a factor but having solid play will get you farther. I've had no problem cashing money out of any of the sites mentioned.

I started playing at casinos AFTER playing online for over a year. Having figured out how/what to play online made playing in person much easier with the added factor of reading the opponent.

I'm going to Scandinavia this summer paid for, in part, by my winnings. And I *do* plan on reporting my winnings (especially after mentioning it, here).

All-in-all, though, I'm small potatoes. I don't have the bankroll or the nerve for high limit. You'll find me in Hold 'em games: Sit'n'Go's $10 or less, multi-tables $40 or less, $100NL, or 2/4, 3/6 limit.

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~micah

THGL

Another site to try is Pokerroom.com. It only requires a $10 deposit to get started in the real money games. Even in the .10/.25 games there's a big difference in how people play compared to play money games.

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