Introduction

Here's my first play money post. If you're interested in playing poker without risking your real money, this blog might give you some useful advice.


All the poker sites I've seen on the internet give you the option to play at play money tables. The play money tables are a good place to start out if you haven't played much poker before. You usually get about $1 000 in play money when you start an account. Unless you know that you can beat real money games, it's a good idea to see if you can beat the play money games first.

Once you're able to beat the play money games, you can start thinking about depositing real money. The players at the smallest stakes of real money should play a little better than most play money players. I'll give you a little advice about bankroll management later. If you don't manage the money you've deposited properly, you might end up losing all of it.

The poker sites want you to play with real money. I think that one of their main reasons for hosting play money games is to recruit players to play for real money. Some sites will try to convince you that you should deposit real money at once. If you don't want to play with real money just yet, you can usually ignore this.

One time I got an account at a site, and a support guy started telling about all the offers they had if I deposited real cash there. I just told him that I was there for the play money, and he quickly lost the interest and left me alone. If you decide that you want to deposit money later, the support team will probably be eager to assist you anyway.

In the next couple of articles I will give you some strategy that should make you a winning player in most play money games.