Barry W. answered 04/02/21
Online Tournament Poker Professional
Online Poker is currently the only way to play Tournament Poker right now due to Covid and it is the 100% recommended way for beginning players. In the amount of time it takes you to go to the casino, play a tournament and get home, you can easily play 4-5 online tournaments and as much as 20 or more if you multi-table. In addition, you do not need to commit an entire day to playing online tournaments which have faster structures and can easily play several tournaments at night. An online player can get more experience in his/her first year of playing than an exclusive live tournament player can get over 25 years. Note, every single current top live tournament pro has either played a considerable amount online and still does so as well.
A second advantage of learning online is that you can break your teeth learning the game at the micro-stakes level ($1 to $5 tournament buy-in) or even on play money sites (Pokerstars play money tournaments are actually taken fairly seriously by your opponents).
Third, on most online poker sites your hands can be tracked through software like PokerTracker and Hold'em Manager which can be extremely useful in analyzing your game. In addition, while in violation of the terms of service of most websites, I believe a significant portion of players do consult hand range charts and push/fold charts while playing. While you will not be able to use these charts while playing live, it is an excellent way to learn and perfect your ranges (i.e. you are on the button with AQs or JJ facing a middle position raise, you can consult a chart which will tell you whether calling or raising is the most profitable play given the size of your stacks).
Online Poker in the U.S. took a punch to the gut on April 15, 2011 ("Black Friday") when the Department of Justice shutdown Pokerstars and Full-Tilt poker and effectively ended online poker in the United States until several years ago. Online poker can be played legitimately on multiple sites in New Jersey and Las Vegas and on one poker site in Pennsylvania. You need to be physically present in one of those states to play. There is another site that started recently called Global Poker which works through a sweepstakes system and is marketed as a completely legitimate site. You can deposit onto this site through your bank account or credit card. I am not endorsing this site in any respect nor am I opining as to whether it is a legitimate poker site in the U.S.
However there are a handful of other poker sites that are "illegally" operating in the United States many of which are trusted by even poker professionals that do it for a living. I do not recommend or condone this, and if you do choose this route, if you do have a decent win, you may want to consider pulling a lot of it out of your account immediately. Note, in order to play on these sites the deposits and withdrawals are almost exclusively done via crypto-currency. Below I list some of these sites:
1) Americas Cardroom - By far the largest poker site that operates in the United States and it comes close to competing with the monster international sites like Pokerstars and PartyPoker. ACR has the largest guarantees, largest fields, largest amount of tournaments offered across all buy-in ranges including sit n' go's, but I believe it is the toughest site operating in the Unites States.
2) Ignition Poker - Very soft. You can not play on this site if you live in NJ, but I understand you can play in any other state other than I think Vegas.
3) Bet Online - Soft. Also, you can not play on this site in NJ, but I understand can play in any other state other than I think Vegas.
4) Global Poker - I have played on this site a little and the games are extremely soft, but the software is terrible and I find it too difficult to play on this site when I am multi-tabling on other sites. I have yet to attempt a withdrawal.
5) Other Sites - There are a lot of other very small sites out there, but, if you were going to take a chance, I would suggest you take a chance on one of the above as they have been around for a little while and so far have a good track record of paying out. Again, I am not stating that you should do so, nor am I opining as to the legality of playing on these sites under Federal or State Law.
And that is all I have to say about that....