Dont play LH! it's too complicated. Start with NL first.

Nice level.

I wouldn't recommend it. The games are beatable for someone who is very experienced and hard working, but probably not on a casual level anymore. In the lower stakes and micros you'll see it flooded with break even or losing guys who play all day to get rakeback. Above that the games revolve around a few players and regs scrambling to get the best seat. The overall skill level has improved and the number of fish has drastically decreased. The number of good players hasn't changed that much, but the number of okayish guys willing to grind out 12 hour days has exploded at the same time. I don't see that improving much over the long term either.

This is just advice I'd give to someone who's new and wants to learn. I would recommend a different game probably at this point like PLO. The learning curve is pretty steep right now to get good enough to win pre-rakeback. You could probably get good enough in short order to grind out long hours if you so choose. I'm not sure you'd enjoy that though.

I think you really overestimate how many decent players there are at microstakes. I just don't think things are as bad as you say. I sit at a .02/.04 table or .05/.10 table and see tons of 50/5 players, or things like that. You can't tell me those players are break-even. I think things are not near as bad at the micros as what people are making it out to be. Keep in mind, this is on US sites which is just way harder to get money on, so even less fish than say Party or Pokerstars.

Schupick, try finding tables at stakes higher than the nanos. Abso is right.

I can tell you that Merge .5/1 and 1/2 has been a fish tank of late. There are not a lot of tables, but each one has a couple of fish usually. The other day I was in a game where the 5 other players were all colored green for me. It was amazing.

With that said, the rake is so bad that it's almost not even worth playing on there.

No wonder there are less fish with you guys scaring all the new ones. The guy's interested in LEARNING; he hasn't yet learned, and you're telling him that the game's not worth playing.

Op, limit hold'em is, in my opinion, the best game out there. Wide range problems; easy pot counting; thin value betting; low reverse implied odds; fast gameplay; some of the best posters on 2+2 are here in the micros to help you on your way; kittens.

lol...agree with this entirely.

EXCELLENT reply, Bob.

A. See Ants. post, you can't tell me Stars has no fish on it, and the rake structure is 10000000000x better than Merge.

B. He is learning, not playing high stakes right now, so he will be int eh nanos for like, I dunno, 6+ months.

C. I will lay some money on whether pre-rakeback the game are beatable right now over a decent sample if you are willing to. (Post-rakeback I would also be really willing to as well. We can work something out, imo.)

Where did I say stars has no fish? Of course there are some. But at 1/2+ there are way more tag types who play decently and are never going to be big sources of profit. Finding a good seat can take a lot of effort nowadays. We don't have to go as far as challenges, just logon and look at the tables.

I like LHE more than NLHE.
I make more money in LHE than in NLHE.
I still win at 2/4 and 3/6 at Stars

Ijust looked at the top winners for Stars this year, and everyone in the top 50 for 1/2 has a BB/100 of over 1, with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 i missed while quickly looking. So i don't know, I think it's a little extreme to say they aren't profitable, or aren't worth your time. it's harder than in 2006, but it's not like a rock garden, at least from what I am looking at.

Thanks everyone for chiming in. I guess I should also specify that I'm playing on Carbon w/ Rakebrain rakeback.

These are all interesting point to consider, but after some thought, I think I'm gonna start playing the NLHE micros and eventually get to multi-tabling those for a couple of months, (it's not like I need to make rent or anything)

Again, thanks for answering my super newb questions and breaking my cherry on these forums.

I knew you would follow my advice!
Just imagine...you waiting for big hand...and finally stupid fish gives you his stack with the top pair! yammy
in boring LH you with big-big hand win almost the same pot like m0ron on your left with pocket 88 on A-K-x-x-x board a couple of hands ago! who can stand it?
wow...i just imagined and start vibrating with tilt
ps... it concerns micro level of course...