Play money and Freerolls. Is it really poker we are playing?

I don't think so,
For anyone to actually think that these things could be considered POKER in any sense of the word, is foolish. Can you actually learn football, basketball, baseball, or hockey on a playstation? NOPE! I go under the idea that poker requires one major component lacking in these "wack-a-mole" want too be poker games. SOMETHING OF VALUE FROM EVERY PLAYER THAT THEY COULD LOOSE! Even a nickle-dime saturday crap game with the family is better than the crap that's being played enmass 24-365 all around the world. If a person wants too learn a trade they pay too go to school or put there time in as an apprentice acctually performing work. Nothing in life is free including poker skills, you are all wasting your time. Anny up and get a cash account, quit freeloading, and if you acctually have a chance at being a winning poker player, you'll find out. At the very least you'll contribute to someone elses dreams of success.
I am looking forward too the replies from the liberal poker members. Let me know what you think. I might be new too this forum, but I believe I have been playing actual poker for some time.

I learnt American Football by playing Madden

unfortunately Madden retired not sure how his games will be affected.


there is a SEGA video game that shows how horse racing works. and dont forget about the Sims series

I started poker in the freerolls and learned quite a bit before I started playing for money.I have done reasonably well and would recommend it.

If you don't like the play in those games (play money and freerolls) then all you need to do is simply not play in them. Problem solved.

Hey all, first post although I have been lurking in the forum the last few days. This looks like an ideal place to ask my question. I am a poker novice and am in the process of reading a few books and learning stratergy. I have started off for play money which have help me slightly. I took my BR up by about $6000 playing 5/10 limit. However I was at the point where i was pondering when i should invest my cash for low limit (while still playing). Ever since then I seem to be losing. I have had a few bad beats, but mainly have had unplayable hands preflop and majoirty of the tim ei was dealt good pocket cards I was out of position. I think i mis called some hands (which is a for another post!). Am I just having a bad run of cards or is my playing off (after continuing study I have not changed my stratergy). Please help I have nowhere else to turn for advice.
Thank you and have a good game.

If you are reading some poker books, you're off to a good start, but the play that you encounter at the play money tables isn't the type of poker environment or situations that you will be able to try out much that you learn from the books. When people aren't actually risking any money with their play, they will bet and/or stay in with cards that most poker players in a real money game wouldn't think a second about before throwing them away. You need to be very clear on that when you are playing at the play money tables and realize that as you start to play for real money and at higher and higher stakes, the more people are likely to actually be playing poker with some skill, knowledge of the game, and using tactics like bluffing, check-raising, value-betting, etc. that are pretty much non-existent in a play money game (although there will be at least some idiots at every level of play!).

Freerolls are pretty much the same way, with a few differences that might help you to learn and also help you build a little bankroll that you can use to try your skills in some cash games or real-money tourneys. People will tell you that freerolls are useless for learning, but I disagree--freerolls can be useful tools in learning depending on how YOU play them and not necessarily how the donks play in them. Here's why I think so:

1) Freerolls can help teach you patience and knowing when to fold pre-flop. The beginnings of freerolls are often all-in shovefests, and the best thing that you can do if you are trying to learn the game is to sit back and let the donkeys battle it out with garbage hands until the smoke clears and players actually start to play with a little skill and strategy. For the first 20 to 30 minutes of a freeroll, you should fold anything but super-premium hole cards pre-flop while the donks are shoving, and if you don't know what super-premium cards are this is when you need to learn that. The #1 problem that new players have is playing too many hands and not folding the crap ones, so these are crucial skills to learn as a poker noob!

2) The play in freerolls gets better if you can survive the initial all-out shove-fest. As freerolls progress and the all-in shovers are either eliminated or build chip stacks that they decide to actually try to play, they tend to play more like a low-level multi-table tournament, and the players will actually play poker (imagine that!) instead of just recklessly going all-in with any two cards, so you can actually get the feel of playing in a real-money game. (Not that the donks are totally gone, b/c they NEVER are, but the play will better and you can learn something.)

If I were in your situation, I would enter some freerolls, only play super-premium starting hands for the first 30-45 minutes of the tourney, and then once the game has settled down then you can try to actually put some of the things that you are reading about in your books into practice. Or you can go ahead, make a deposit, and get in at some low-level games and do the same thing, but IMO why waste your money in low-level games that aren't much better than a post-first break freeroll until you have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the game under your belt? Try to learn for free, win a little money, and then see how you do with other people's money first before you risk your own!


Good luck to you, and you've made a good decision in coming to CC to help you along as you learn. You will get a lot of different opinions from different types of players, and you can try them all out and see what works best for you. GL!

Freerolls have taught me several things. Firstly they have taught me discipline. When I first played on line I was playing way too many hands mainly because it was only $1 or $2 to call (I was playing mainly micro stakes) and I was getting smashed as as I was calling way too much on draws hoping to get lucky.

They have also taught me better betting patterns. Again playing micro stakes I would bet at most pots post-flop I was in just hoping that everyone else had missed (maybe I was just a donk) now if I miss I check and if I hit I bet. Simple I know but it works way better and now my game as a whole has improved.

The other thing is if you want to learn from something you will, if you dont you wont.

The Muppetteer

i consider freerolls poker... freerolls are filled with junk players... or good players that play bad cause theres no money at risk... if you cant beat up on junk players how can you ever consider yourself good..... theres pleanty of ways to beat up on junk players... mostly 3 types the all in ever flop player... wont fold to n e bet player... and the over bet every pot player...before you move up on the poker world u have to be able to beat up on these guys consistantly (not every time) and theres pleanty of ways and strategies to do so

PS n e one can beat up on the weak players that fold every time they get reraised or dont have the nuts

I fail to see how playing bad players suddenly makes the game "not poker".

I wouldn't recommend putting money onto a poker site until you are playing well enough to win some tournaments. Freerolls are a great way to learn the basics of poker.That is exactly what you would be doing if you started depositing before you could play properly - throwing your money away. If you want to just play poker for fun and don't mind losing the money, go right ahead and deposit, otherwise I would recommend starting off with freerolls. Also we find that a lot of people coming here who think that live poker is "real poker" aren't actually as good at playing poker as they think they are. Online poker can be a lot harder to crack than live poker.

Thanks for the advice. I was considering freerolls, the site I use at the moment doesnt allow you to play a freeroll unless you have made a deposit. Is this the same at all sites?
If so I figure that I will deposit a bankroll to cover 300big blinds of the micro stakes Im playing, and also hit the freerolls pretty hand. And see where my card career takes me.

Erdnase

Plenty of sites allow you to play freerolls without depositing, although most would expect you to deposit before you withdraw.

NWF,

Do you recommend any specific sites / events for freerolls? Are there any sites that offer better chances enrolling into free-rolls?

Thanks.

Like NWF said, most sites will let you play in the freerolls but not let you withdraw money until you have deposited-I think it's easy to see from their POV why they would have such rules in place, because they don't want you to take their money and run and not play there anymore!

Any of the major sites (bodog, Stars, Full Tilt, etc.) will allow you to play in their freerolls w/o depositing. Bodog only had 2 per day, but they are easy to get into without having to beat the mad rush of entrants. Also, at Bodog you can accumulate Poker Points by playing in freerolls or any of their tables (including play money) that you can use to play in a daily freeroll with a $500 purse but a lot smaller field than the regular ones.

Of course, if you stick around Cards Chat and keep participating in discussions while you learn, soon you will be able to play in the CC freerolls also, where you can test yourself against better competition than the average open freerolls the sites offer. And if you get knocked around in those, you can come to the site and ask "what am I doing wrong?" and get answers and help from the actual players that are beating you--What a concept!!

(There's nothing wrong with starting out with a small bankroll, just don't get frustrated if it disappears quickly if you don't really know what you're doing yet! Have some fun-that's the most important thing!)

As puppyfeet mentioned, the two daily Bodog freerolls are excellent if you happen to be around at those times of day - they are probably my favourite freerolls atm.

Freerolls are great if you are doing well in them some sites have no deposit bonuses that can help you start your bankroll too you need to be able to beat micro stakes before you move up otherwise you will just keep depositing money.

I'm one of a lot of players who started out trying to learn the basics by playing play money.

But I found, and I think those who have done much playing play money, that the sit and goes play much more realistic than the ring games. Once you get past the lowest few levels the players have played a bit themselves and will play better. On Stars the 10,000 or 25,000 play money sit and goes are not much different than the $1 real money sit and goes. The play is probably slightly looser but I also suspect the knowledge level is slightly higher.

Nothing wrong with freerolls either. Just keep in mind that with any move up, the game gets fewer bad players so that going from freerolls to $1 tournaments to $3 tournaments you have to keep shedding bad habits that might have won at the lower level.

Plus, what c9 says.

I think it's better to play 1 hours at real money tables than 3 days on freerolls or play money.

In Freerolls or Play Money you just play the good hands and don't train your reading abilities because the play of the players who plays there have no sense . To progress , play real money.

I started my bankroll by playing in freerolls, so it's definitely not a complete waste of time. When you're unemployed and broke, there's no better way to get money to play online poker. The best advice I ever got on freerolls was exactly the same as what puppyfeet wrote above -- until the blinds hit 75-150 or the first break comes, just play premium hands. Let the donks kill each other. Most of them that get big stacks that way in the beginning end up losing it later to better players anyway....just my opinion.

By the way, I just found this site last week. I wish I had found it years ago!!!

i started playing poker online about 5 months ago on carbon poker....first i played play money (so i can play steps for 1 $) and freerolls.......i won my first poker money no deposit them...so i think play money games and freerolls are not that useless
what ever tournament i play i play to win .....and as some off u said : if u cant beat up on junk players how can you ever consider yourself good

I saw an article by Chris Ferguson on Full Tilt about building a bankroll from scratch, you should look it up. He turned $0 into $1000 (? not sure about the exact figure here) in a matter of months by playing freerolls to begin with. Like others have already said, when the field has been cut down to about 1/3 of the starting, its usually good (or lucky) players that are left and the play is more skillful and rewarding. And as was also mentioned, if you can't beat bad players then why play poker? Bad players are the bread and butter of any pro poker player, you should be glad to have them at your table. It's good to learn how to play against these kinds of players.

I noticed in some of my home games which usually I play with a bunch of guys who play poker a lot and are quite good, when I play with a group of complete amateurs it actually can be quite difficult to adjust your play. In one hand (with the noobs) I had A9 suited and hit my ace on the flop so I raised, then another guy went all in. I folded thinking he had 2 pair or a stronger ace, but he turns over A4!! And he did it with such pride as if he was certain he had me beat! I didn't even have the heart to say what cards I had. Needless to say I eventually won the game, and then my girlfriend took down the second but we both had to rebuy once or twice because these guys were so hard to figure out. Playing against people who don't really grasp pot odds and outs and such and will call huge raises with marginal draws or even 2nd pair is a stressful game, but worth learning if you want to take their money

no its not real poker. but playmoney and freerolls will help you get used to playing online. it can also help with your flop reading skills especially if playing omaha. as you move up in playmoney you may get some ok players and even better than some of the micro real money players. but if you want to play skilled poker you need some real money. greg raymer had 1million play chips. IDK which site but probably pokerstars. also i was 10k chris ferguson made it to from nothing. he also made 20k before w/$1(well $2 he busted his first try). thats what i'm trying to do but only got $27.36 so far long way to go. but think it can be done especially with all the great info here.