I think if you are going to start at NL I would try the $50NL game but I wouldn't go to Party. You have the BR for sure.

Party is more about crazy card pushing and stuff like that. It's not really a good environment for developing a game and learning in my opinon.

Pokerstars is more down the middle.

Also, $25NL is probably too little poker for learning. Most people just aren't folding there.

Tim

Bodog can give you a hunk of bonuses. Your roll is big, put a bunch of it in and 10% of whatever you deposit is bonus. Be careful because you can't cash out until you have cleared the WHOLE bonus or you will forfeit it. The bonus clears at about $8 per hour if you 3-table the $50 NL tables, probably a lot slower if you're only playing $25 NL.

Like I tell everybody, play Golden Riviera every weekend for their deposit $50 and get $20 bonus. Clears at $50 NL or higher.

Apart from Party/Empire, those are the only ones I know of that are offered regularly and that clear at a decent rate at $50 NL.

I second kent, as much as I hate to give away my secret Bodog has great bonus's and is a total fish pond.

I love bodog, but it annoys me to no end that they have so many tables open that they constantly break up. There's nothing worse than buying in for a full stack, turning it into 2 or 3 stacks in a relatively short time and then all of a sudden it's 5 handed, and then 3 handed, and I have to move elsewhere and start over. I wish they would just open less tables and create a short waiting list.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I never heard of cash tables being broken up at Bodog. It's just that somehow they always have a ton of tables running but very very short waiting lists. So as soon as a table gets down to 4-5 players, the players left often just jump on new tables. Nobody has any patience to play for a while 4-5 handed waiting for new people to join the table.