While most people know that you can play online poker for real money online, they often overlook the fact that play money online poker is also available at every major poker site. This is one huge advantage online poker has over playing in a brick-and-mortar casino; in a land-based poker room, you’ll need to bring money to play, but online, you can practice for free for as long as you like until you’re ready to make the plunge into real money play.
Over time, there’s a sort of standard that has appeared when it comes to the play money options on online sites. You can go to the normal website for a poker room and download the real money client; these clients have play money options built right in. However, even if you’re in a location where a real money poker site’s client isn’t available to you (for example, one of the sites that’s unavailable to American players), you can usually go to the same address, only changing the .com (or .eu) at the end of the URL to .net instead. This will usual direct you to a version of that poker room that only gives you access to the play money tables.
Play money poker works in almost exactly the same way that real money poker operates. You’ll often have the same game options that real money players do, and can play at many different “stakes.” If you run out of play money, it’s no big deal; in most rooms, you can reload your account frequently, giving yourself new play money to work with at the tables.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Play Money Poker
Play money poker is great for new players who are trying to learn a new form of poker, or test the software at a new poker site. The rules, structure and flow of a play money poker game will be exactly the same as a real money game. Similarly, you’ll be playing with the same software that real money players use, allowing you to get a sense of whether or not you enjoy playing using that software client. Since you can do all of this without spending a single penny, you can save yourself a lot of expensive lessons by trying new games and sites in play money mode first.
The biggest disadvantage to play money poker is that it doesn’t really prepare you for real money poker in a strategic sense. Many of your opponents won’t be taking the game seriously since there’s nothing on the line, so they won’t exactly be difficult opponents to beat, and you’ll see some crazy play at the tables.
One way to begin playing for real money without risking any of your own cash is to try playing in freeroll tournaments. These tournaments are absolutely free, just like play money tournaments. However, they offer real cash prizes to the top finishers – usually small prizes, for sure, but enough to give you a chance to play some very low limit games on the site. Freerolls may seem frustrating at times – you can play for hours just to win a dollar or two – but more than a few professional poker players have started their careers by winning a freeroll or two and never looking back!