I'm trying out some new strategies and thought I'd use the play money rooms at Pokerstars until I'd got used to using them. It's not working out too well. Almost every opponent limps in and call any preflop raises you make. It's not uncommon to see 6+ players in a hand on full ring. Most of the player's VPIP are 50%+ with very small PFRs.
Does anyone know a good place to try out new strategies that are more like real cash games?
@dgriii There is no way to try or improve without actually practicing, no matter how many videos / books or strategies you look at.
Even if you try a new strategy you wont actually see the real results few hands later but it will takes much more longer to see if you actually improve or not.
Unless you start to really play regulary there is not much you can do. If you on the Pstars.com it's a good way to practice because you will face plenty kind of different opponents of different nationalities so if you manage to make it work there then you will probably manage to make it work on any other poker room.
Best of Skills & Luck @ Tables,
OldSchoolPapa.
Everything is pretty much said here already and I don't have much to add..
You tried to practice at the play money tables but it didn't work out because those games didn't simulate real world, real money, microstakes cash games. The only way to practice those games is to play those games.
Thanks for the advice. I wrongly assumed that the play money rooms would be like sparring for a boxer, a way to practise until it becomes second nature so that in a real cash game you use the skill(s) appropriately.
One question though. What does 'Tray nl2' mean?
Originally posted by dgriii
What does 'Tray nl2' mean?
Pretty sure it was just a typo. He most likely meant "try NL2" (as well as "dry land").
Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that 
Because there is no money at risk, everyone can do anything they want. They want to see many hands so they just limp with 72o and see if it hits because they don't lose anything. If they feel like bluffing they just ship it because why not. That would be good practice if everyone really tries to hold on to their play money chips and tries to win more, but most of the play money guys just don't care.
In addition to la55i explaination with play money NL or FLHE there is no rake (atleast not in my memory) so even a dummy that barely understand Cards Ranking can still win chips ... So Play money won't train you to anything except maybe multiway pots and maybe improve a bit postflop reads and that's really optimistic ...
Also it won't prepare you to handle real money upswings/downswings even if you think you care about the game it's really different when you make 40 to 60 BI in $ of profits and then watch them melting like ice under sun when on a downswing.
Best of Skills & Luck @ Tables,
OldSchoolPapa.
this one is really good, you can get prizes, meet coaches and learn a lot new things of poker, free money and bonuses are available so I would recommend this site, other sites aren't that good
I think nowadays some people (specially US players) are actually quite serious when it comes to play money at stars. I don't think it's good way to learn poker tho, because money is only way to measure whether your actually winning or loosing.
I actually think someone who is just starting out should invest around same amount which they willing to use for 1 saturday night out (approx. 20€ - 300€ for most people). You should try different games and try to found if there's game you want to seriously commit to be good at. Idea is to invest amount enough to be serious about winning or loosing, but not so much that it will pull you back financially. I think after that if you working on regular job, you should start to make monthly deposits with fixed amount €/month and try to turn that on profits.
If you actually serious about winning you might consider to hire a coach or join for staking stable for some time. After you start winning you should build your bankroll by playing game which you plan to play as your main game.... If you operating with low bank (less than 5k€) you will benefit a lot from taking advantage of all promotions where pokersites basically give away free money... For example partypoker use to have this promotion where they basically give you free tournament ticket between 1 - 215$ every day (if remember correct). So you want to keep your eyes open for those. Lot of promotions are as well non poker related, but easy way to build bank. You can find sportsbetting bonuses, freebets which are fairly easy to rollover with very low risk involved if you use matched betting / arbitrage betting approach where you basically cover all possible outcomes of the bet by betting on several bookies.
I would personally recommend anyone who is beginner to start in some form of tournaments... I've seen lot of people starting out during last 1 - 2 years and made lot of success in short time focusing in this formats. Whether it's MTT, SNG or Spin & go it's very likely that these formats will remain softest games and relatively soft to beat in future as well, while cash games start to be tougher and tougher to beat because of the continually rising high rake and fairly knowledgeable playerpool.
What will most effect whether you win money or not is 1) games you will play 2) how you execute the process. To learn and win poker you need to be actually spending lot of time to PLAY poker, while in the beginning you might want to have 80% study / 20% play rate, it should turn around to 80% play / 20% study when you improve a bit. If you are crushing like 10bb/100 at any level you should really not spend that much time for studying anymore until your winrate starts to decrease or you move up for higher level.
Studying is good when it's practical. When you study you want to do it effectively, don't waste too much times on things that will not have so much effect for your winrate / ROI. If you spend too much time in things which don't really matter or play format which is basically a rake trap for beginners you can just forget moving up in stakes. Playing some of the games such as NL2 zoom or working balanced river c/r range with GTO solver while playing these games are good examples for this. If you are paying more rake than your winning from the games, getting close to 0% rakeback --> you're probably playing the wrong game no matter how good you are.
If you working on a leak that by plugging will not make big difference --> There's probably bigger leak exist which should be your main attention. Biggest leaks are often small ones which will come up frequently. Always keep 1 - 3 main points for studying... Example could be "check/raising flops". Let's say you study and notice that you should be c/r more. You might write yourself note which could be simple note such as -> "c/r more" or more complicated --> "c/r more BDFDs, gutshots on dry boards when face cbet against LP raiser on the BB". When you learn new things, keep note of them and practice bit by bit it comes automatic and you can move to next key point in your game.
Good luck.
