My advice on becoming a better poker player
I started playing online poker a few weeks back and would like to share my thoughts about getting started. My first 3 nights I lost all my Play Money 2 or 3 times then i came across Mike Greenbergs Texas Holdem strategy page. Beyonds as how websites with useful information and without pop-ups, pop-ins, pop-unders and pop-somewhere-elses are rare when it comes to Poker, I thought I would share the link. It offers lots of information to all you budding Joe Hachems and Greg Rayners out there. The most important thing for beginners is what hole cards to play and which ones to throw. Mike offers advice on this which is worth its weight in gold especially when initially finding your way around the virtual poker world.
As to Online Poker rooms, I use 2...Pokerstars.com and PartyPoker.net. Pokerstars was my first choice after watching Stefan Raab, a german presenter having a Poker evening sponsored by them. The software is great, you can play for real money if you feel the urge, and (in my opinion) the players are better. The downside is finding your way around initially, especially if you don't want to play for real money. PartyPoker.net's software isn't quite so good, as the resolution of the window is only a maximum of 800 x 600..darn small for those of us running a 1280 resolution. I do however prefer the look and feel. The advantage here is Play Money tournaments every hour. These are great for trying out different tourney strategies.