Poker Basics: Play Money Games

by Dougie Goguen | Jan 24 2012

Find out what you should and shouldn't look to free online poker games for.

If you've ever logged into an online poker site like Bodog, you've likely seen just how packed the free games are. One estimate says that there are ten times as many players who stick just to "play money" games than there are real-money games and it's easy to see why: they're free entertainment. Now, if you've decided to become more serious about the game and want to learn something beyond the rules, you might think these are a great training ground: they're not.

Start by playing online poker free at Bodog and then work your way up to real money games.

Don't get me wrong: play-money online poker games can be very entertaining, but they're very limited in how well they can help you improve your skills. In fact, I will out and out say they're only good to help a beginner understand the very basic rules of the game or learn more about the software for the poker room they've chosen to play on. If you want to refine your poker skills, they're next to useless. A wise man once said that learning to play free poker only makes you good at playing free poker and it's hard to disagree with that.

Why are play money poker games only good as light entertainment? Because play-money players will generally play almost any hand dealt to them. After all there's no consequence if they lose a big pot full of "play money" and a player with the most basic understanding of the rules can actually win without much hassle.  Playing just a little tight can keep your chips in front of you, especially if you get much tighter after the flop.

In a real-money poker game, you're not going to see someone calling with 3d2c on a board that reads AsKs9s, but that very thing happened to me while I was playing a few hands while preparing to write this article. In fact, I actually laughed aloud at how happily someone shoved their chips in my direction, especially as I'd just played in a local tournament where I had to beg one other player to please contribute to the pot at the final table.

This difference between the two types of poker greatly affects the strategy of the games. Successful play-money strategy incorporates loose preflop play because one can expect a huge payoff if one flops a strong hand. Since people will not simply throw their money at you in real-money games, players need to play tighter preflop and only see the flop with certain hands.

Want to get started in online poker tournaments? Bodog offers up to $100,000 guaranteed every week.

However, freeroll poker tournaments actually resemble a lot of large, real-money poker tournaments in an interesting way: the first few levels are very action packed as players try to accrue as many chips as quickly as possible and get in the lead. While it's not quite a perfect fit, it's much easier to recommend freeroll tournaments as a training ground for tournaments that free poker games to actually winning at tables where money is on the line.    

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