I play at the casinos at times in $1/3. Probably break even.
I mostly play with friends in $.25/.50, up $2K.

Question though, Should I even play online poker? Heard there's alot of collusion and players using real time assistance to give them the best optimal play. I'm a human and obviously we can't beat computers right? So should I even play online or is it simply an excuse? Please don't bullshit me. Just tell me an honest answer. If you use an RTA, I don't want you to tell me that it's perfectly okay to play online so you can milk people like me.

Thank you

Cheaters don't exist in live poker??

Not as often.

when that happens, games don't run

You should play online if you are a winning online player & enjoy it. Prior to RTA online players were an order of magnitude better than live players, so the competition is always going to be tougher. A few nights ago I 3bet a live player preflop with QQ and he calls. Flop comes AQ5r. He x/r jams for nearly 200BB's effective and shows 99. You will probably never see this in online play even at NL2. Thats why I play live.

Depends what you're playing for. If you find poker fun regardless of stakes, play some micros so you can play sometimes without going to the casino. If you are a breakeven live 1/3 player, you are not going to win online long term and it's not going to take RTA to beat you. Also should consider if you don't accurately track your results, the vast majority of 1/3 players claim to be small winners or breakeven, and 90% of the population is losing.

Certainly no reason why not just pick a stake/level you can afford. 2nl is easily beatable even with a caveman's knowledge as I've just come back to cash after 15+ years playing MTT's or not playing at all and I'm up just over $13....with just over 7300 hands played and all while studying and revamping my cash game.

Maybe start at 5nl or 10nl kinda wish I had started there. Micro stakes is plenty beatable quite easily. It's probably becomes more of a challenge at 25nl and 50nl. You didn't ask but if you're interested and willing to pay for a poker course I'd recommend "From the Ground" by Peter Clarke here's a link https://www.runitonce.com/courses/from-the-ground-up/ for the price you really can't go wrong and it's a good starting point. If you wanna get an idea of how Peter Clarke coaches here 's a link to his youtube channel which has plenty of free content https://www.youtube.com/@CarrotCornerPoker/featured .

Good luck at the tables man.



Cheers!!!

Given you mostly play with friends it is unlikely you should play online as you use poker as a social activity and most online poker is about taking the money from the suckers with the house being the biggest shark. Very different dynamics. Given you win vs friends and breakeven in casinos you will likely lose online as your strength is reading people you know which in most online games has little to no value.

Global Poker(if you are in the US or Canada) has a strict policy against players using RTA,HUDs, data mining hand histories ect.. They will ban players using those tools. They have had suspected players film their play to prove they are not using some sort of tool.

I wish more sites had a policy like this.

The only downside is its extremely tough to look through your personal hand history.

I find the fact Global Poker has and uses the ability to take your money with no need to show you evidence that you did wrong a downside.

All of your fears and suspicions are true. There are cheaters who communicate and work together, and cheaters who use solvers. Then there are the cheaters who multi account and ghost.

While cheating isn't as rampant online as you might think, it certainly is more probable. If your concern is cheating, stick to live casino or poker room games. The cheating that happens live is harder to do and get away with, and the risk:reward is usually far higher.

For any of the naysayers who think I'm being dramatic and exaggerating the problem, remember that cheating in online video games where only ego is at stake is a million dollar industry. You think cheating when there's literal money in the tens , if not hundreds, of thousands is on the line won't be as common, if not more common?

A simple cursory google search will reveal all manner of online cheat software. Programmable bots, bots that reference solver output, or just solvers themselves with instructions on how to integrate them transparently with your play. If you attempt to go down this rabbit hole you'll probably get caught & banned quickly due to online countermeasures that work well against amateur cheaters. But the fact the info is out there in droves proves that the industry exists, it's merely a matter of your experience configuring and hiding it. With absolutely no evidence to suggest the following; I doubt anyone at NL200 or below is cheating, or at least cheating regularly enough that they arent being banned and thus wont hurt your bottom line.

Further personal anecdotes suggest the following; while cheating might be more prevalent at higher stakes, so is the value of bumhunting. What im suggesting is that you will of course be incentivized to move up limits, and if you are to climb the ranks as a natural player, you will most definitely run into a higher probability of cheating, but you will also capitalize on the fish who won a big tourney and is splashing around at 25/50, or the tilted rec who want to move up to where they respect his raises.

In my experience live vs online is a love/hate thing. Neither subscriber can tolerate the other. I love live play and not just because im a winner. For me it adds an element of life balance. I get to socialize with others, it's where I made my friends, and appear to have a career in terms of romantic relationships (people need to have lives of their own and spend some time apart). It's also the only way I can focus on a hand despite how slow the action is. I cant decipher HUD output very well, and the allure of multi-tabling is too great which is a problem for me since I dont multitask well. One-tabling 6max feels even slower than 1-tabling live play because you're literally just watching everyone timebank every hand while they multi-table. Im not sure what winrate I'd need to have online to consider changing games.

Only a tiny portion of the players have this issue and most importantly Global will give a player their money back(Silver coins SC as they call it) when they contact admin and make their case.

They players that dont get their money have evidence of violating their rules, ie evidence of using RTA, collusion, multi accounting, using a VPN, ect..

My experience is soft tables at low stakes, good tournaments with guarantees, daily bonus(tiny but adds up if you are playing the micros @ $3 a week) as well as periodic bonuses, often deposit bonuses(also small) and prompt payouts.

My main gripe is their inactivity period is only 6 months, never been an issue but something new players need to be aware of. Something else that others have complained about is you have to "play through" your initial deposit before you can withdraw, that is wager at least as much as deposited i.e. if you deposit $100 win a 10+1 SC tournament(in other words bink your first game) for 1000 SC, you can not withdraw until you wager another 89 SC...(100-11=89)

If you want to check it out, they have guys steaming every night starting around 830pm(eastern time) on Twitch under GlobalPokerLive

You are correct they can give you your money back and are either ignorant or mistaken to claim that those they don't refund have done something wrong as opposed to Global claims they did something wrong and do not feel a need to show the evidence; if any, as to why they have taken your money. Don't support thieves.