Learn Texas Holdem

Question: Ive been playing texas holdem with my friends for the past couple of weeks. Ive only played demo money on the internet before, but it seems to have helped me play with real money. Weve only played with 3 or 5 dollar buyins, but ive won every tournament weve played. So far after winning nine tournaments I'm up 80 dollars. Even though my friends are playing extremely poorly, should I try to play in other tournaments with buy ins of 10 dollars. The players will obviously be better in these games and i dont know if I can play my best game.

Answer: If your goal is ever to move up to where you are playing for real money (something significant), then you'll have to take the plunge sometime. I would look around though, there may be other tournaments that are cheaper. If my bankroll was $80 total, I would either play very small tournaments ($5 each), or look to cash games only online where you can play tiny micro stakes like .05/.10 even.

I would recommend getting into cash games instead of tournaments if you want to make money at poker. Also, I think there is a limit to what you can learn by playing free tables online. They are helpful for people who don't know the rules of the game, but for strategy they don't help much at all. You'll need to play with at least a little money to get the feel for how games actually are.