Beginner-Friendly Poker Sites Online

Not every site is a good fit for a poker beginner. A beginner wants to get his feet wet, learn the games, rules and what games fit him best. The next step is to try to learn how to breakeven. Only sites with certain qualities are able to provide an atmosphere where that’s possible. You’ll find those below.

What Makes Up the Best Beginner Poker Sites?

Small Stakes Games

Small stakes games are key. Most players don’t get into online poker with a huge budget. Some with $10 or $20. So it’s important that the site you sign up to runs .01/.02 cash games or .05 to .50 tournaments and sit and go’s. Since most sites will have games at low enough stakes, you’ll want to make sure games are actually running, too.

Steps and Satellite Tournaments

Step and satellite tournaments give players the opportunity to get into games where the buy-in may be out of reach. This isn’t always a $50, $100 or $215 tournament, either. With a bankroll of $20 or $50, a $5 buy-in is too big. But playing a satellite for a quarter will give you the opportunity to get into that tournament cheap. Then you can set yourself up for a nice payday.

I also mention step and satellite tournaments because they’re usually soft, at least at the lower levels. If you wanted, you could play these, win the prize money and on many sites, keep the prize money as a credit (or tournament dollars) to use to buy-in to tournaments.

Ultimately, the reason why you want to play step and satellite tournaments is so that you can get in cheap, but stand to win a big prize that can give your bankroll a substantial boost.

Beginners Tables

One of the best features I’ve seen for beginners are beginners only tables. These tables are reserved for players who just signed up to the site, and are usually available for a limited amount of time. Something like 30, 60 or 90 days. The only downside are the stakes – the operators assume that most beginners have small bankrolls, so all the games have low buy-ins. On the plus side you can play both cash games and sit and go’s.

Large Field Tournaments and Sit n Go’s

You wouldn’t think that a big tournament would be a good idea for beginner. To win them, you need to be decent, very lucky and often times both.

I mention this, though, because large field tournaments are usually filled with a blend of both good and bad players. And in the lower stakes you will see less sophisticated “good” players. So even as a beginner you stand a chance to make a deep run so long as you play ABC poker.

Just by staying tight and playing your good hands hard and fast, you should make a deep run more often than not. And just making it into the money should double or triple your bankroll. This isn’t to say that you should just try to cash, but at the same time, that’s such a bad thing since you’re getting experience and a boost to your bankroll at the same time.

Instant Bonuses

Unless you have a bankroll of $100-$150+, I think a site with an instant bankroll offer is going to be the best way to go.

One reason why is the clearing requirements. With a smaller bankroll I don’t imagine you’ll be playing that high of stakes, and if you’re a beginner, I would expect that you lose more often than you win. So unless you reload often (making a deposit bonus pointless), you’ll hardly clear any of it. Most deposit bonuses require you to generate $20-$30 for every $5 of your bonus.

Instant bonuses, on the other hand, will give you an automatic $5-$20. You’ll still have to clear the bonus before you can cash out (assume you can cash out the instant money anyway), but you’ll have all the money upfront, in addition to your bankroll, to try to do so. The clearing requirements are usually more relaxed too.

Play Money Games

Play money games are key for beginners. It gives you the opportunity to learn the software, rules of the game(s) and find the games you prefer to play. You can play these until you’re comfortable enough to play for real money. You can even practice playing multiple tables, although some sites do limit how many tables you can play at once.

You shouldn’t have a problem finding a site with play money games. I haven’t come across a site worth playing at that doesn’t have them.

Built-in Tools and Training

As a beginner you’re going to need to learn the fundamentals. Things like counting outs, card odds, pot odds and more. That can be easy to do away from the tables, but much harder to actually apply when you have 60 seconds to make a decision.

However, there are sites out there that offer built in tools like calculators, HUDs, outs/odds and more. If you’re a beginner these are good sites to sign up to since they’ll help you quickly figure out the basics. If they don’t have them readily available for beginners, you might want to check the VIP program, as many of them will be made available to you the more real money games you play.