The main advantage of real life poker is you lose money slower?

No - sometimes it involves clothes instead (as in wearing them).

you also get more secondhand cigar smoke to inhale, in my games everyone has to smoke a cigar even if they are non-smokers, one of the rules of the house

You're trying to be helpful, but the post is full of tedious poker jargon and phraseology , the op is a poker virgin and doesn't know a pre-flop raise from a kick in the butt.

" two over cards " what are they ?

Like if you're dealt a pocket pair, say 44, and are facing AK off suit. AK are overcards.
If you are 1v1 (heads up) pocket 4's are a slight favourite, but multiplayer acting early you should fold. Painful.

There are amateur tournaments like at the Mind Sports Olympiad. They're not allowed to give cash prizes because in law poker is still classed as gambling and they don't have a license so they award medals instead and a trophy to the winners and maybe a book or champagne.

It's also very relaxed and fun, highly recommended for beginners.

Me and my mates never use real money.
We play for chips.
We nip down to the local chippy at 7pm with a bucket or two.
By 10pm it's furious:
"I'll raise you a saveloy!"
"I'll see your sausage and raise it with a battered Jumbo!"

I was replying to someone else, I quoted their post in my reply. That person does play, as evidenced by said quoted post.


For example if you have pocket fives and you get it in against King/Queen, your opponent has two over cards.

Potentially, ie the pace may be slower and it's not so easy to keep clicking. Which is part of the psychology. So there's a level of abstraction by playing with chips rather than notes, and more when that's just pixels. So you might be tempted to keep going when you really should have stopped. And it's much easier for online players to cheat, ie use odds checkers/tools to help.

For me, it's much more fun to play against real people than avatars or bots though. A lot depends on what the strategy is, ie make money or have fun. If it's to make money, it's a different strategy. Can't remember the name of the book, but the author decided he wanted to get to the poker world championships. He managed that, but lost his stake because he was playing against the world's best. If the objective was to make money, then playing less skilled players on tournament's side tables is less risky. Then again, he made money out of the book, so probably worked out well for him in the end.

No eating the bank. I guess high stakes would be playing for aquitaine or kobe though?

When I play with friends we either use chips or the contents of the penny jar that me and my two housemates have (1p, 2p and 5p) Most of my friends are on low incomes and can't afford to waste money gambling.

No money exchanges hands at the end of the game but while we play you would think that pile of coppers on the table were worth thousands. We just enjoy the game and because we're all very competitive it doesn't matter if at the end you don't walk away with £5 in shrapnel.

well not always there are many sites where you can play just for pleasure

Are you wanting to play with your present friends or are you wanting to make new ones?

If you want to socialise with present friends, it would seem to be sensible to find out whether any of them play poker or bridge (or want to learn) before you learn the games yourself!!!

I have an account with PKR , I practise with play money for an hour or so to warm up then go to the real money tables , I like PKR as you are playing with live Avatars

Actually you don't have to play for money.

you can play dominoes or crib for fun. you can certainly play backgammon for fun. you can play poker for fun, or to try and sharpen your game.

I imagine there are tournaments for all of the above, as well as poker, that you can play fro money as well, if you want.

you can watch a footie game without having a bet on the outcome.

playing poker for small stakes isn't too different to playing for fun. As you play you realise you can spend a lot of time on it. You can play 10p poker sit n goes play all day for about £1 loss. After a while it can seem a waste of time.




A couple of players (Chris Ferguson eg) however, have demonstrated you can make a bankroll starting with nothing. Poker sites offer freerolls, small prizes for no entry fee. That's a good way to try playing for real money. He made £1000 from nothing to demonstrate it could be done. It's a skill game, not a luck game though.

[edit. Chris made $10,000, not 1,000]
http://www.pokerplayer365.com/poker-...n-0-into-10000


A lady player called Annette Obrestad won a biggish tournament without ever looking at her cards. (Well, she cheated - she looked once)

http://www.pokerlistings.com/annette...ment-win-89615

A $1 sit n go can take an hour to play.. You might win $5 or lose your $1. It's just cheap entertainment. High stakes is different. But then high stakes to me will be different than to other people.

eg A £10 rebuy tournament is high stakes as far as I am concerned.

deposit a tenner. The poker sites will give you a load of coupons for free tournaments. play a few £1 sit n goes. You might win, and you will definitely get £10 worth of entertainment. Certainly as good as 2 pints of beer,


sorry. Jargon. Sit n Go. A single table tournament, maybe 6 , 9, 10 players, that starts as soon as the required number enter. Set fee for playing,. All players fees repaid as prizes except for probably 10% taken by the poker site.

So a 9-player sit n go. 9 players pay £1 each. £9 in fees. 90p taken by poker site. £8.10 distributed as prizes.

probably 4.30 to the winner
2.30 to the second
1.50 to third.

that sort of thing.

That's where people need to decide their strategy, how much they can afford to lose and how not to become addicted.

So like you say, 0-$5hr is cheap entertainment, or a lousy hourly rate if you want to make a living. As long as stake money's kept seperate and people can afford to lose it, it's quite fun.. Although I still prefer face-face games.