It’s difficult to know what limits you should start at, when you first start playing Internet poker. Picking the correct limit is important, though, especially when first starting out.

The first consideration should be your bankroll, which is the total money you have in your account. You need to select the appropriate table for your bankroll, so that you not only have enough to sit down with, but have enough money to compensate for the normal swings, up and down, that happen to your stack of chips when you play poker.

If you sat at a 5/10 limit Hold’em table with just $50, you’ll probably go broke quickly, as you simply don’t have enough money to play more than a few hands. If you took that same $50 to a .50/$1 limit Hold’em table, though, you’d have plenty of money to play with.

In general, try to buy-in for at least 50 BBs when you sit down at a table. So if you’re playing 5/10, buy in for at least $500, or $100 if you’re playing 1/2, and so forth.

Another important thing to keep in mind about Internet poker is that you’ll play many more hands in an hour as opposed to playing live poker or learn all the poker rules. Since you don’t have to wait for the dealer to shuffle or to split pots, you play many more hands each and every hour.

This means that you’ll encounter more swings in your bankroll, and that what might be enough to play a certain limit live isn’t enough to play the same limit online. It’s not a huge difference, just be aware that online games are faster paced than the live games that you might be used to.