If you are a beginner then one of your biggest fears as a novice player is likely to be placed into a game against much more experienced and stronger players, who can quickly take note of your lack of experience and empty your account in double-quick time.
Indeed, there are a high percentage of novice players who sign up to a site, head into a room with a small bankroll, lose it quickly within just a few moments and then leave that room and indeed the site, never to return.
The question, therefore for most novice players is how can they best avoid this kind of scenario? Bet365 Poker certainly pondered that question and to help beginner players they hit upon a seemingly great idea – beginner only cash games for small stakes. Before signing up, however, you will want to acquire a Bet365 Poker signup code here.
Head over to the Cash Tables section on Bet365 Poker and click through the list of games available and you’ll eventually come across the Beginners Tables. Once selected, this brings up a list of all the available tables that beginners can select to play on, offering a number of small stakes games from 0.02/0/04 up to a maximum of $1/$2 on the blinds.
So the question is, do these games offer beginner players the ideal way to learn how to play cash games profitably, without the risk of losing all their bankroll in just a few minutes?
The answer to this is somewhat complex.
Certainly, the idea behind the design of the rooms is simple enough. The notion that new players can get together without a poker shark eyeing their bankrolls covetously and wiping them out as they learn the basics of the game, is certainly a commendable one and Bet365 Poker do attempt to offer this facility.
However, there are several problems that I have encountered when using these rooms.
Firstly, the rooms are simply not popular. I have logged into these rooms at various times of the day and night and rarely find any players actually in the rooms and playing at the tables. This is probably frustrating for genuine beginner players who would like to play against other beginners in here, but cannot seem to do so as the rooms seem perpetually empty.
The second issue is how Bet365 Poker term a ‘beginner’. In Bet365 Poker terms, a beginner is a person who has joined their site within the last 90 days. Now at first, that seems a fair enough delineation to make; after all the line has to be drawn somewhere.
However, the problem with this is (which may well explain why these rooms are not particularly popular with new Bet365 Poker players), is that a beginner to the Bet365 Poker site, may well not be a beginner to the game of poker. For example, an ex-professional poker player who joins the site, is eligible for 90-days to play in these rooms, as is an 18 year old novice looking to play his first competitive hand of poker.
Of course, this creates an uneasy inequality and it is this which I believe, leads these rooms to be one of the less frequently populated areas of the site.
Another factor is simply that poker is a game of bluff and counter-bluff. Few players would like to willingly volunteer that they have little poker skill or knowledge. To experienced players, or sharks, this is simply identifying which players are likely to be ‘easy pickings’ at the table.
So as a novice player, I’d advise you to give the beginner rooms on Bet365 Poker a miss. There are plenty of other rooms which are more popular where you can gain experience and play for relatively small stakes, either in cash games, or SitnGo’s or MTTs and where you won’t advertise your inexperience for others to take advantage of quite so readily.
New to Bet365 Poker? Check out our Guide to Bet365 Poker Etiquette.
