OT: Full Tilt Poker versus Poker Stars

[Serge28]

I know there are quite a few number of posters on here who play poker online (I believe Ayt even does it for a living), so I was wondering if I could get some advice about playing poker online for money.

I consider myself a pretty good player and have won a couple of UW tournaments in the last year, albeit not for money. So, I thought I'd test my mettle at a casino. The problem is that there isn't one in Madison (at least not one where you could play Texas Hold'em). As such, when I was spending a part of my Spring Break in Milwaukee last week, I went to Potawatomi and played the lowest stakes possible, just in case. I bought in with $100 at a $2/$4 table and after 4 hours of play left with $305. Now, that's not too bad considering the stakes and the ridiculous rakes.

Now, I want to see if I can duplicate that kind of success online and perhaps shave some money off of my student loans in the process.

I know that the two best websites for my purposes are Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker, but I'm not sure which one I should choose. The only discernible difference I've been able to ascertain so far is that Poker Stars offer an up to $50 bonus for first time deposit, while FTP offers an up to $600 bonus for first time deposit. Any additional info and advice would be greatly appreciated!

[smalls]

ok right off never play that small of limit cuz the rakes and play will f u 99% of the time. that said 3 6 or 48 if u just trying to get ur drink on is all good. U can get f-ed up and win a hundo or lose one and it aint no thing.

otherwise i would recommend full tilt but play tourneys at the 26 or so amount, and play tight and see how it go. i would recommend smaller sites as well if u just getting used to the intranet poka cuz it can make u crazy with the way things go,,, so smaller sites can be nice cuz money to do tourneys is smaller(and entrant wise) and u can get a feel for the play and the(raping) that is the intranet. the trick on the net is that scared money don't make none and u have to be willing to get sucked out on if u push or ur head will go nuts. but again full tilt is prolly my fav seems most real but ult bet is good too.

If u in madison go up to the chunky ho and play there the actual game play is very good where as at the watomi things can get crazy outta no where, plus i always enjoy takin fibs money, it just feels right.

as for the bonus money at sites it is a trick all the sites use to make u have to gamble some ungodly amount in order to be able to cash out the money u might have won(due to their bonus gift) so be very careful of those situations so again if i were u i would put smaller money on a couple of sites and just see where ur feel for the game is best suited and go from there

[blkout]

I think Party Poker is better than both, will be interesting to see how you go either way.

[75totheMACCfund]

You have to jump through banking loops these days because of the federal statutes against online gambling...it sucks to get an epassporte account, etc and to get on...but once you do...online poker is a lot of fun, albeit really addicting. Just make sure you don't lose all your money that you've earned sober when you're drunk.

[MickeyDavis]

I used to use Party Poker but I dumped them about a year ago, now I use Poker Stars, far better IMO.

[Isocleas2]

If you like tournaments go with Pokerstars. I don't have anything positive to say about Full Tilt other than the higher end cash games are better, but I don't think that's what you're after. It used to be alot better when we had access to multiple sites and high rakeback %'s.

A couple tips though which may save you some grief.

Pick up some software called "pokertracker". It keeps track of every hand you play and the hands of those at your tables. Some people use it to collect data on others so they can identify who the fish are and follow them. Others use it to keep track of how they've been playing and what improvements they can make.

Manage your bankroll. Most online players bust out not because they don't have skill, but because they play games that they can't afford. Every poker player goes through swings, but if you don't have the money to be able to absorb a bad swing you'll soon be broke. The 10-1 ratio is what i used. As in I tried to never have more than 10% of my money in play at once.

There are big differences in the way people play tournaments and cash games, and at what stakes. When i first started I got real good at $50 cash games, but every time I tried to move up in stakes I'd get burned. Same with when I moved from full tables (10 ppl) to shorthanded tables (6 ppl). So when you're just beginning I'd highly recommend picking one style of game and sticking with it for a long time. Its the players that bounce between sit and gos, to multi-table tournaments, to cash games of all types that never really make any money imo.

[Superfito]

FYI, USA customers can't use Party Poker anymore, which sucks cause Party Poker is famous for it's incredibly weak sng players.

Overall, it sort of depends what stakes and types of games you're going to play. I like Stars software better because it's much faster and hardware consuming, but if you don't plan on multi-tabling it's not a huge deal. Poker Stars has, by far, the highest volume of micro-tourneys, as well as the most high stakes mtt's, including the Sunday Million.

If you're playing cash games, Poker Stars seems to have the highest number of sharks, but there's still a lot of fish. Poker Stars also has the highest overall volume of players, but FTP has more than enough.

Poker Star's service easily leads the industry.

I'd probably go with Poker Stars, but like I said, it sort of depends on what games you're going to play.

Other tips:

Like Isocleas said, Poker Tracker is a great tool. However, depending on what your skill level/focus is at it might be better to just focus on playing solid right now.

Also, the basic rule of thumb for proper bankroll management is 5%...if you're playing sng's you'll want 20-30 buy-ins...for mtt's I'd probably go with 50-60...even if you play close to optimal, huge downswings will happen to you eventually...

[GrandAdmiralDan]

I haven't been doing online poker for a couple years (I took a break when that stupid new law took effect because sites were suspending their operations while they figured out how to deal with it) but I used to play for an hour or two every day and PokerStars was by far the best online Poker site back then.

I'm assuming it still is, but perhaps things have changed.

I liked their frequent player points system too.
I never played for high stakes, and I preferred tournaments, so what I would do would be to play two 27 seat (or maybe it was 36 or 45 seat, now I don't remember) SNG tourneys at once for $5+$0.50 each

Between the two tourneys I would at least break even and usually come out ahead at least $11 and sometimes more.
I remember calculating it once that I was making $8/hr at poker. I was never consistently good enough to be able to make more than that (would have required playing at higher stakes, but then you play against better players).
Being paid $8/hr for something that you are doing as a fun hobby is not bad though. I usually played 1 or 2 hours a day back then.

I would always save up my FPPs and cash them in to get into various massive WSOP super-satellites.

I finished 4th once in one of those that had over 5,000 people in it. It took so long I had to skip a Brewer game I was supposed to go to. Very frustrating though because the top 3 all got paid entries to the WSOP main event as well as free flight and hotel stay if you agreed to wear their PokerStars clothes during the tourney.
For spending like 6 hours or however many absurd hours that was getting that far and finishing 4th, I got jack squat.

[Thunder Muscle]

I liked Party Poker the best. I used that one for awhile. After that online gambling bill went into effect, it sucked. You can only use play money and those games are just ridiculous b/c other players just drive up the pots. Its just a free for all.

I tried Full Tilt, didn't really like it. I actually just deleted it off my computer.

I never tried Poker Stars.

[Fandom]

I did the online poker thing for awhile (used Party Poker), but, it just isn't the same for me and I could never really get into it; I don't know, just never had as much fun playing online like I do when I'm playing at a table.

[ACGB]

Did anyone else use Jet set poker before it shut down?
I never put a dime into it, but I won money from freerolls, and built it up into about 1000 dollars. I never saw that money again.

[Nowak008]

For those of you interested in getting better some books I recommend:

All the books by Dan Harrington for tournament play. If you want some thing for cash games, try David Skalansky's No Limit Holdem 2006. I only recommend the Skalansky book if you are already knowledgable about the game because it is only for advanced players.

[DH34Phan]

I finished 4th once in one of those that had over 5,000 people in it. It took so long I had to skip a Brewer game I was supposed to go to. Very frustrating though because the top 3 all got paid entries to the WSOP main event as well as free flight and hotel stay if you agreed to wear their PokerStars clothes during the tourney.
For spending like 6 hours or however many absurd hours that was getting that far and finishing 4th, I got jack squat.

Wow, GAD, I would have taken that horribly.

Goodbye monitor, TV, mouse, keyboard.

Bubbling is the worst.

[El Duderino]

FYI, USA customers can't use Party Poker anymore, which sucks cause Party Poker is famous for it's incredibly weak sng players.

I haven't played in awhile and the above is a big reason why. Im not going to puff my chest out and try to imply that i was some incredible poker player. I do think though that i was better than average.

When that big poker boon was going on, all kinds of people were signing up to play online that weren't really as good at poker as they wanted to think they were by watching it on tv. Well, Party Poker was the site who advertised the most and thus was the site so many first time players signed up to try playing on. Since many of those new players were new, many wanted to play the lower money tables. So i generally played at the 50 or 100 dollar cash tables which was where the highest percentage of poor players were at.

Sure it's harder to win a lot of cash at those stakes, but i noticed when i stepped up to tables higher than that, the skill level of the players got much better. So i stuck at those lower tables where i knew i had an advantage and won enough to buy a nice TV, upgraded my stereo, bought a new bed,a really nice new computer desk, paid for all my Christmas gifts one year, and had about 1500 dollars left over. Not bad for a 50 dollar starting investment.

Now that the poker boon has died down and it's harder for American players to sign up, i know there are much less newbie fish to steal money from and after not playing for awhile, i could become the fish. I do really miss though those great days on Party Poker where so many bad players were signing up and giving away their money.

[MickeyDavis]

The Poker Boom was a gold mine. Rubes would watch a few cherry picked hands on the World Poker Tour and think they know how to play poker.

Unfortunately a majority of them have busted out already. For every dollar won there is a dollar lost, plus juice.

[Serge28]

ok right off never play that small of limit cuz the rakes and play will f u 99% of the time. that said 3 6 or 48 if u just trying to get ur drink on is all good. U can get f-ed up and win a hundo or lose one and it aint no thing.

otherwise i would recommend full tilt but play tourneys at the 26 or so amount, and play tight and see how it go. i would recommend smaller sites as well if u just getting used to the intranet poka cuz it can make u crazy with the way things go,,, so smaller sites can be nice cuz money to do tourneys is smaller(and entrant wise) and u can get a feel for the play and the(raping) that is the intranet. the trick on the net is that scared money don't make none and u have to be willing to get sucked out on if u push or ur head will go nuts. but again full tilt is prolly my fav seems most real but ult bet is good too.

If u in madison go up to the chunky ho and play there the actual game play is very good where as at the watomi things can get crazy outta no where, plus i always enjoy takin fibs money, it just feels right.

as for the bonus money at sites it is a trick all the sites use to make u have to gamble some ungodly amount in order to be able to cash out the money u might have won(due to their bonus gift) so be very careful of those situations so again if i were u i would put smaller money on a couple of sites and just see where ur feel for the game is best suited and go from there

I'm really not trying to offend you by saying this, but I have absolutely no idea what you said in the majority of your post. There's a lot of poker lingo in there and just jargon period, and I'm just not up on it. Could you clarify a little bit?

[Serge28]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I guess it looks like I'm going to go with Poker Stars.

P.S. We should have a RealGM small stakes poker night some time.

[blkout]

That'd be awesome.. as long as it's online, flying over to play small stakes poker seems like bad money management.

[DH34Phan]

-= original quote snipped =-



I'm really not trying to offend you by saying this, but I have absolutely no idea what you said in the majority of your post. There's a lot of poker lingo in there and just jargon period, and I'm just not up on it. Could you clarify a little bit?

1) He is saying to play big limits. This isn't good advice if you don't have a big bankroll. He says 3-6 or 4-8 limit are good to "just get your drink on". I think those limits are high enough to pay attention, and can get big pots in the $50 range.

2) He is saying play $26 dollar Sit-N-Go''s on FTP. I would recommend these if you have a bankroll of at least $500. Anything less, and you can easily lose all of your money pretty quickly.

3) He says that at Potowatomi the competition sucks, which means you can either win a lot, or lose a lot. The FIBs part means he likes taking peoples money from Illinois.

4) He says the Bonus' are kind of whack, which is true. If you play enough, though, you will get all of your bonus money. It just takes awhile.

[Serge28]

Thanks for deciphering that!