I have been playing fake money online poker for a while, and I know that whatever fake profit i make in it, it wouldn't show my skill at all in real money online poker because people play differently when its real. Can any of you who have transitioned from fake money online poker to real money online poker tell me how the players played different, and how it affected your income from the fake money poker? Thanks.

It would depend largely on the bets being played.

I would imagine low stakes games like .05/.10 or something would have lots of begginers trying their luck at a low stakes game. So these games probably wouldn't be too much different that play games.

However, I would imagine money games aren't all that different than play games. Most people take play games pretty seriously and treat it like it's real money. Because that's that only way to practice if you want to get into real money games.

You will never truly know until YOU try it.

Yeah, just try it.

I've played plenty of fake money games. Noone cares. Noone even wants to take the effort to think about their hands. Its just for fun, who cares? I've played for money a few times too...50 bucks here and there. It never lasted more then an hour or so. The skill level isn't even remotely similar. People that play online for money take it pretty seriously. There are people that actually make a living off of it.

My cousin played since before they made some of it illegal. He made an assload of money, i think more than 90 grand, and ended up getting investigated by the IRS.

It depends how good of a poker player you are. Do you have any experience playing poker for real money?(With friends,etc)

Ive been playing poker at friends houses for more then a year now( $10 to $20 buy-ins). I tried online poker ( Pokerstars) a while ago. I started with $5 and got all the way to around $60, in 1-2 days, however I lost it all. The same thing happened around 3-4 times. I realized with online poker you play alot more then you would play live games, I'd always want to play one last game. If you're not good enough at managing your money/playing poker you will probably lose everything you win. However,as a poker player, the experienced that I gained from playing online poker was verry well worth it.

so.... if you're really into poker id say try it, if you're just looking for a way to make money..you will lose.Oh and fake money and real money are completely two differant things.

In general the standard of players online is low, up to a point. The real problem of course is that generally, in order to make any real money playing the game you have to put in a lot of time. You can, after reading a few books and such like, easily beat low limit games. However, it's very difficult to make a sustainable living at these stakes, because, though they are easy to beat, there is not a dreat deal of money to be won at them.

Of course the problem reduces on the grounds that if you play enough at low stakes to make money to move up using effective bank roll management, you will generally become a good enough player to make money at higher stakes.

Basically, when you start out don't expect to win immediately, and if you do win a lot immediately, then don't assume that you will continue to do so. Study the game, invest in legal software which will aid you - pokertracker, PokerAceHUD etc., and you'll get there eventually.

Low limit poker forget everything you know about cards.

People might be drunk, stupid or just have no respect for pennies.

Betting the pot in a game where you have 1c 2c blinds just dont mean anything - play can be fast, unpredictable and unforgiving.

Players are jumping in and out, so the tables speed is constantly changing. Its like trying to surf with waves going in every direction.

Being an Australian and hardcore ive actually surfed real waves both out into the sea, into the shore and across the beach - and thus to my metaphor i managed to make a decent bankroll out of my $10USD buy in on pokestars.

I got it up to ~$400 but only ended up having $100 to show for my time, such is the nature of the beast.

Gambling aint a career path son, the best way to leave a casino with money everytime is to get a job there.
A real job.

Look for the way around the side, sell poker lessons - if you know anything about promotions or can be arsed to study the formula you can put on poker nights at a local bar for cash (at least you can in Aus).
Always money to be made in entertainment.

So, I kind of found out what i was asking yesterday, so in case anyone is looking at this thread, for an answer, here it is. The difference in play between free games and real games isn't just money, but it's folds. For a .05/.10 NL hold'em game with free money, the pots average out at about $25 for some games. But for a .05/.10 NL hold'em with real money, the pots average out at about $2 or $3. So there is a lot less money going around each hand.

Also, you'll notice that in the very beginning of a free game, before the flop is dealt, most of the players are still in. This is not so in a real game. Most of the players fold out as their first turn and you end up with one player getting the blinds or a couple players still left.

I imagine that bluffing is a big part of the sport in real games, much more so than in fake games, because sometimes a bet will cause all of the other players to fold out (most all of the turns are checks in a real game) or it will be challenged for a few turns until someone folds out. I just found this out from looking at one .5/1 NL hold'em real game for half an hour, but i suspect that this doesn't vary much between NL games. But if i'm wrong about something here, someone please correct me. But, if you are looking to make money in online poker, you will need a lot more time than you thought and a lot more patience.

You could also play Sit & Gos and tourneys. You dont have to play only cash games. For example, Sit & Gos with a 6$ buy in, 6 players, the winner would get around 26$ or something like that. You could also start with low cash games. 1c/2c blinds to 10c/25c blinds. The good thing about cash games is that you could make alot of money in one single hand, the bad thing is that you could lose it all in another. When i play cash games, i start with 2$ or 5$, play till i double or triple the money, then leave that table join another one, start again with 2 or 5$ , and so on.

Knowing how to play position, your odds & outs and how to bluff are keys to real money poker games. Also, playing very low stake poker games are useless, because no ones gives a shit about 10cents and alot of people go all in every hand just to fuck around. Even a good poker player couldnt win those, its like playing the lottery. You should play games where the stakes are at least 5$+, where the players actually care a bit about how they play and dont do stupid moves. You DONT want to play against noobs in poker.