The value to play money

loafes

loafes

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Here's a link to my (overly long) intro to the forumhttps://www.cardschat.com/forum/intros-foreign-languages-8/18-year-old-chess-poker-229148/#post2161639

And in that introduction I mention how I started with Zynga poker, now We all know that the play on a place like Zynga poker or the play money option on poker sites is to put it bluntly, crap. But is there any use to these apart from the obvious learning the software/rules approach?
When I started playing on zynga I was brand new to the game of poker, however pretty quickly I came to the conclusion that the players were crap and that I might pick up bad habits if I stayed too long. However I'm now going to make the argument that infact there is some useful skills to learn. Namely ADJUSTMENT learning to adjust to a range of situations from tournament structures and playing conditions, to fish and regs, through to typical play and isolates incidents. I think that learning to adjust is perhaps the most important skill one can learn in order to be a winning poker player. and interestingly play money offers a range of situations that can be utilised as a lesson in adjustment.
For example before I had ever come across the concept, I had formed my own BRM rules even though it was just play chips. I also created what I determined to be good strategies for beating whatever I was playing such as the SNG's which it was pretty clear the way to go was just fold everything except premium hands until you reach the final three for easy money except still being flexible in regards to if there are certain tendencies to pick up on in particular players or the rising blinds create certain dynamics. But even though I had a sure fire money making strategy, I found more lucrative one on the cash tables where I came across a host constantly changing table dynamics and found ways to maximize my already easy winnings to the maximum. I'll just mention one more interesting point in that the site had a shootout tournament structure where because of the structure and payout and player tendencies, it was actually best to go all or call all in with any two cards on the first hand.

Anyway the point of this thread isn't for me to give details of my various play money strategies I developed for a brief time of play money experience, I'm sure none of you are interested in that and it's kinda pathetic anyway. Instead what I'm getting at in this thread is that it seems so often people think playing with play money will only hurt your poker development and that there isn't any use beyond software testing. However I think that it gives a chance to pick up atleast some experience in being a flexible player who can adapt to situations.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not advocating play money as a training ground or that it will offer you anything of major value. All I'm getting at is that I don't necessarily think playing occasionally at a play money table (say if your bored or don't have a roll and don't feel like depositing or freerolling) will seriously harm your poker development, provided you keep in mind that play money is nothing like real money and the only value is experience in adjustment. So what are other peoples thoughts on this subject?
 
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WizardRubic

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The vast majority of cash games on Zynga only have 3 types of players.

The calling station, passive not, and the maniac.

If you need to learn to beat those still, I guess it would help a bit to play with play money.

I also heard the micro stakes were pretty similar to play money poker. Adjusting to the three styles I mentioned earlier should not be too hard.
 
Loonbat

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Since play money never gives a risk of ruin and you really never "hurt", people are not afraid to make bad decisions (generally speaking). This takes away one of the biggest aspects of poker ... the aspect which says if you play like a jackass, you'll lose something.

Now do realize there are bad players at all levels (wsop Main event, $200+ buyins online), but when you get to such a point, there are far fewer of these as a representative percentage of the playing population. This makes the game completely different because there is a fear of loss of something.

You will even notice a difference going from play money to freerolls (where there is something to be won) to micro MTTs, Obviously when you take bigger jumps (up to a $55 or $109), you will notice even greater differences but play money is what it is and I would never advocate for it being anything beyond a basic teaching tool as an introduction to game mechanics, but NOT to game strategy.
 
Arjonius

Arjonius

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I played a small amount of play chip poker when I started out, maybe a dozen tournaments. That was all it took for me to see that there was no point to trying to learn how to beat people whom I knew, even with my minimal knowledge of poker at the time, were awful, didn't care, or both.
 
steveiam

steveiam

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I think play money is ok for learning the basics of the game and leaning how to use the sites software but not much else.
 
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DunningKruger

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Don't misunderstand, I'm not advocating play money as a training ground or that it will offer you anything of major value. All I'm getting at is that I don't necessarily think playing occasionally at a play money table (say if your bored or don't have a roll and don't feel like depositing or freerolling) will seriously harm your poker development, provided you keep in mind that play money is nothing like real money and the only value is experience in adjustment. So what are other peoples thoughts on this subject?

If you can crush play money players rather consistently then there's much better uses of your time than to spend it playing against play money players. If you can't yet do this, then there's certainly value in learning how to beat people who don't know what they're doing. One of the biggest keys to doing well in poker is to be capable of properly exploiting bad players. Anyone who considers themselves more than a mere beginner should be able to kill it on Zynga or the play money games on any given network.

The vast majority of cash games on Zynga only have 3 types of players.

The calling station, passive not, and the maniac.

There's another player type quite prevalent on Zynga; the bot. Learning how to beat them is quite beneficial to novice players imo. They're completely incapable of adjusting to your play, although it's a problem that you can buy in for as little as 10bb on that network.
 
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