Young and from U.K any tips?

[Aidan]

Hi,
I am young but I am in love with poker but I don’t know where to play against other people because I am under 18( which is the legal age to gambal) and I don’t really know how to improve well I’m getting better just by playing on zynga poker which isn’t real money so I am able to play but I don’t know how to take it that next level. Any help on these topics would be amazing.
Thank you
Aidan

[Tommy D]

Hi Aidan,

I am also from the UK. I started playing properly when I was 17, 15 years ago. I started on party poker using play money and continued playing on there till I was old enough to play for real cash. I remember that I used to play the sit and go tournaments over and over again until I was winning the majority of them. Obviously playing with play money is different because you get the crazy players that you wouldn’t get otherwise when playing for money (okay you still get those now and again). But, playing them sit and goes got me used to playing in a tournament format and increased my desire to win. Also once you get good at these, playing these games will help with your heads up play which you generally won’t do much of playing full ring cash games. I’m guessing they have the same games on Pokerstars or wherever else you want to play. I’d probably stay away from Zynga as at least with the other sites you will be playing against players that are taking it a little more serious trying to improve their game. It’s a shame there aren’t as many freerolls as there were back then for start up rec players. There used to be an $1000 daily on party with a max of 1000 players which filled up in seconds. iPoker had some great ones also. Now they at like $10 with 10,000 people or something ridiculous.

I had stopped playing properly for a good few years, but now I am back playing properly again and the passion is back. Just joined this forum so hoping to learn a few things myself. Been a while since I have been part of a poker forum.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Tommy D.

[Aidan]

Thank you for the response I will sure take on your tips but how did you improve your game did you just get better with experience and time or did you also study hands and all that?

[Ian McClellan]

Learning in-game is important – seeing the hands play out and learning peoples’ tendencies over time will translate well later when you can play for money. That being said – people play a much looser/more aggressive style in free chips games, because it doesn’t have ramifications if they lose. People play all their draws, regardless of pot odds, and that simply doesn’t happen in cash games with any significant money on the table. What I would tell you do do now in your early stage is to learn the math of the game, your probabilities of draws hitting on different streets, etc… and that will help you down the line.

Another obvious thing you can do is start to build a bankroll. When you do start playing for money, you will need to have funds to accommodate the variance that is part of poker, especially in the early going. I don’t know how far you are away from legal gambling age, but getting yourself a fund set aside now will put you that much further ahead when you are able to play.

Love to see a younger generation getting involved! Cheers Aidan.

Ian, Ohio, USA

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