Finding Your Perfect Poker Game, a Beginner's Guide

As a beginner who's just starting out in the world of the beautiful and complicated game that is poker, you have a lot to learn and digest. This process can be both exciting, exhilarating and... intimidating. For every new thing, you learn there are hundreds of others waiting to be explored. With so many unknowns it's hard to pick a perfect poker game that will suit your skills, personality, and lifestyle. If you're struggling with this very choice here's some info that can aid you in making the right decision.

Know Thyself

Every choice you make in life should be tailored to your specific needs and abilities. Therefore, it's absolutely imperative to train self-awareness and constantly try to figure out all of the relevant information before making a decision. Your choice of a poker game will depend on many different factors. How much time can you invest in playing and learning poker? Is poker just a hobby or are you interested in making it your additional source of income somewhere down the line? What do you enjoy the most about poker? Is it money, competition or simply the process of honing your skills? Coming up with the answers to those questions should be the first step on your way to picking a perfect poker game.

Now that you know more about what you're looking for let me present you with some options.

Multi Table Tournaments

If you got into poker by watching a big televised tournament like EPT, WPT orWSOP you know exactly what this format is about. It's the most "sports-like" poker variation available. It can also be very profitable and is arguably one of the softest forms of poker. Unfortunately, multi-table tournaments also have some major cons. The variance (or 'luck factor') in this poker format can be absolutely insane and unless you're only interested in playing the occasional casual tourney you'll need a hefty bankroll of few hundred buy-ins or so to seriously compete in MTT's. Poker tournaments also require a lot of free time (the biggest ones can take 10+ hours to conclude with average being closer to 4-6 hours) so if you're on a tight schedule or you have a lot of life commitments MTT's might not be the best choice for you.

Regular No Limit Hold'em Cash Games

Hold'em cash games are extremely popular and while they are a bit tougher than tournaments the variance is also a lot lower. Cash games are also a lot more convenient than tournaments - you can instantly join the table provided it has some open seats and you can quit at any point. What about the cons? We mentioned the fact that it's a bit tougher to become a winner in this format and the fact that you can reload your buy-in at any moment can put your mindset to the test. If you don't have the discipline to stop when you feel the tilt coming you can lose a large chunk of your bankroll (which is a lot harder to do when playing tournaments since in any given event you risk losing only the amount you bought in for).

Fast Poker Variants

If you want the maximum convenience or you're forced to play poker in short bursts due to life or work commitments, fast cash games might be the answer for you. You can find those types of games on most of the popular poker sites and even though they have different names (FastForward, Zoom, Speed, Snap, Blaze etc.) they, also have virtually the same structure. When playing a fast poker cash game instead of joining a single table you're joining one big player pool and you're assigned a new table every hand which allows you to go back to the action as soon as you press the fold button. Other than that fast poker plays like a regular cash game with all of the pros and cons associated with that. The main difference between regular and fast games is that you sacrifice some information (and therefore some amount of the possible edge over your opponents) in order to play more hands per hour by choosing the latter.

Pot Limit Omaha

If you're looking for something a bit more original and exciting there's always Pot Limit Omaha. PLO has a very similar structure to no limit hold'em except for the fact that you receive four cards instead of two, you're forced to use two and only two of your hole cards and three of the community cards to make your hand (for example if you're holding AsAcKcKd on a 2s4s7s9sJc board you only have a pair of aces and not a spade flush) and your maximum betsizing is limited by the current size of the pot.

PLO is also a very high variance game that calls for a more conservative bankroll management strategy than hold'em. Lastly, PLO is still much less popular and therefore not as well developed as hold'em which makes it a perfect choice for creative players.