Quote:
Originally Posted by kahntrutahn
My point was more along the lines of that a lot of US players, especially beginners, overlook options like those (Global, NLOP, Pureplay, PlayWPT) because they have a stigma of being "play money sites". For players who like to play tournaments, they're actually a decent source of free money that can be used to seed a roll on the real money sites. They have lots of freerolls, and typically your competition is going to be of a lower calibre than what you'd find on sites like Ignition, PokerStars et al. One $50 bink and you have 25 BI for 2NL. If one is patient enough, one can build a roll without ever risking a penny of one's own money.
In the case of Global Poker in particular, if they can succeed where LiveAce failed and actually generate enough revenue to cover their operating costs (and they have a higher chance of doing so given that they take rake out of all pots and give away far less money for free than LiveAce did), it will eventually be the logical equivalent of a real-money site but against play-money competition.
Lastly, something that in my opinion a lot beginners overlook is this: IF YOU CAN'T BEAT BAD PLAYERS, YOU CAN'T BEAT GOOD PLAYERS. I hear so many people say things like "Move up to where they respect your raises" or "what's the point of learning how to play in games where they call a raise with 95o? I'll never see that even at 2NL". Those thoughts are WRONG. If you can't beat players who are willing to put a lot of money in the pot without the best hand, you can't beat TAGs or NITs or other decent/good players either.
Off my soapbox - just wanted to throw my two cents into the hat in the ring!