Does anyone here think there is any value in playing at play money tables in online poker rooms? I do see value in the fact that a player can get a feel for the way the poker software itself runs but as far as trying to learn, study and train at poker, it seems to me that there is very little value in them. It is just not real poker. There really aren't many situations that a novice can get involved in at these tables. As far as I have seen, the scenario is always the same to be. Either everyone calls everything, or several people are pushing all in every hand. I realize that there are some people who just want to pass the time and have some fun and play some poker. There are those folks at the real money tables as well but at the play money tables, it might as well be Bingo. I have actually heard the term "Bingo Poker" used to describe these tables.

Am I missing something? Is there anything that a novice can learn at the play money tables. The way I see it, a very mediocre player can do well at these tables, but is that a good thing? Would that give him/her/them a false sense of security, reality, confidence, superiority, well-being, etc. In other words, the play at these tables might think that they are better than they actually are and make them think that they are ready to move on to the micro stakes.

I would appreciate any insights that anyone else might have on this.

Search this forum for threads with play and money, (using: play, money), in their titles and you'll find 70+ other threads. Scan-read the most relevant for you and you'll find numerous opinions and comments.

I might do that when I have some time to sit down and take the task on. It will probably take more than a few hours. More like several hours, maybe days. Who knows, maybe even weeks. When it comes to searching a forum for a topic like this, everything containing the words "play" and "money" will show up in the results and both of those words are common poker terms. Before I made this thread, I actually did try performing a search and even put quotes around "play money". A lot of results showed up. Quite a few that didn't really look like what I was looking for. I'll have to take a closer look into it sometime.

Honestly don't know play money has any value really other then learning the site software and getting feel for the deal/shuffle. FWIW I started on play money tables on Pokerstars before I was old enough to legally play/gamble. Now 50 years old so been playing awhile lol.

Just coming back to cash after MTT's for many years and decided to start at 2nl and work my way up. While 2nl can play like play money tables it's a bit better then play money tables and where I'd start. So if you got $50 to deposit just play 2nl. It's not terrible stakes to play(I play on Pokerstars), and unless you're completely terrible you shouldn't lose your shirt lol. I haven't played cash in 15+ years and in just 5700 hands I'm up $4.12 and to be honest I'm pretty terrible and rusty when it comes to cash.

You didn't ask but I'd also recommend this course as it's pretty cheap so you can't go wrong really and it's helped me so far and I'm not even all the way thru yet. https://www.runitonce.com/courses/from-the-ground-up/

EDIT: FWIW I found the hardest part getting started and the first 3000 hands. Once you have that many hands in you start to see and notice the same players and if using a HUD have stats on them.


Cheers!!!

Hey hardongear.

Well, it looks as though I am going to probably start playing at BetOnline in the 10NL tables. Not sure how that will turn out. I would really like to start at Fixed Limit Hold'em $0.02/$0.04 tables but there does not seem to be any more of those around anymore. I wanted to start out there, work my way up and eventually move to No Limit Hold'em and then ultimately to tournaments. I have Sklansky books. I have the first Hold'em book. Advanced Players, which is the first one on steroids. I have small stakes, No Limit and tournament. I wanted to study and apply the concepts. Since most of them are Fixed Limit, I would naturally want to start there. I really shouldn't say that is where I actually started. I actually started playing No Limit tournaments. Friendly home tournaments. I started out as a fish, a donkey. I really didn't care and I kind of thought poker would never really be my thing and if I did play, it was just for fun. Then my dad sat me down and started giving me some pointers and the very next time I played a home tournament; I came in third. In the money, unfortunately it was a break-even place. When it got down to the three of us, I tried like hell to stay in there so could actually profit. I even folded pocket aces. No joke. My dad turned over my cards and gave me hell. I then said "run 'em". We ran 'em and I said, "that's why". I dodged a bullet because they would have been cracked. Of course, I would never do that now and it didn't matter anyway because I came in third regardless. I played in these friendly home tournaments a few more times and something happened to influence my playing style for years. I tight rock style player trapped me with a check raise, I called thinking I had her beat. I had a strong hand, but she had the nuts. She was the type of player who would not bet unless she did have the nuts. Embarrassed the hell out of me. Lost a lot of chips. Did not place very high in that one. I adopted that style of play for several years. But you know what? It worked at these friendly home tournaments. I placed in the money quite a few times. I even won several. This style also worked at Party Poker play money 9 player NL Sit n go's.

Over the years however, I started studying the game and began to realize that tight passive is not the way to play the game. I adopted a more tight aggressive style. I eventually started playing for real money online. I'm not going to say too much about that except that there was still a lot I did not know about the game. I stopped playing for a while, but I feel like I have a better mentality now. The mentality went from win at any cost to just play the game well. If I get beat in hand, I get beat in hand. Play the next hand. If I have a losing session, I have a losing session. Did I play right? Yes? Then maybe next time will be better. No? Then next time play better. If I hit a dry spell, don't let it alter my play, if I am playing well, if not, work on it. I think I am ready to get back in to it.

And just so you know, I did ask. Not in this post but in a previous post I made. In that post I was asking about opinions on poker training options. It is a thread called "Poker Training Software?" It is classified under "Two Plus Two Forums Online Poker Sites & Marketplaces Poker Software General Software Discussion". Check it out.

Hey The Five Card Stud(TFCS),

Hope you're having a good morning man. Never played betonline but can imagine the competition isn't that much different at the micro stakes. Reading over your post/experience and history seems likely we're around the same skill/level as we certainly have come up and been around poker in much the same way. Thru fun home games and as mainly fun and rec players. We've both read mainly all the same books it seems although you didn't mention anything from Dan Harrington, Helmuth, Doyle's or Daniel Negs books.

Everyone's online journey will be different start where ever feel comfortable stakes wise or want whether it's Fixed limit or NLH. When I first started I started at 50nl with only $150 lol. I Know really good bankroll management I know lmao. I was lucky and back then there was so many fish you couldn't count them all. That was in the Moneymaker poker boom or just before it started. So I jumped in at the perfect time. I think you'll be fine no matter where you start whether it be 2nl, 5nl or 10nl or any micro fixed limit you want. Competition while better then when I started still at the very bottom it isn't that tough that you should get run over while you build experience, study, work on your game and build a database on the field of players at your stake. By the time you get 5k hands in if stick with the same stake you'll feel a lot more comfortable and start to have a decent idea who's who at your stakes and be able to make better choices against them on each street specially if use a HUD. Check to make sure betonline allows them though.

On HUD's I've had both the big ones Holdem Manager 3 and newest Poker Tracker 4. Both do much the same thing and are good. My personally found for me I like Poker Tracker 4 a bit more and found it a bit easier to use and get setup originally. Even after reading you experience and history I'd still recommend that course I posted the link to in my first post....it should compliment your history, what you have read and you poker experience so far. I feel it's done me quite well so far as I'm learning from it and I'm still working thru it and plan to go thru it a few times. He's a link to Poker Tracker 4 https://www.pokertracker.com/ .


Good luck at the tables you got questions please feel free ask I don't mind sharing my experience and any decent advice I might have. Not a great greatest player around but not terrible either.



Cheers!!!

Play money has one and only one value for online poker: You can get used to the software and interface before you play for real.

Poker is only real when real money (even microstakes is real money) is at stake.

Would argue that it also has value in understanding the game and betting mechanics of formats you are new to, but yep, as you have nothing to lose (except time) then it can't really be called poker

You do realize the numbers don’t appear to work. You are now 50 and played Pokerstars play poker before you were old enough to gamble. That would be about 29 yr ago or longer (unless there is some jurisdiction with higher age requirement). That puts it in 1993 or earlier. But per wiki, play money started on pokerstars Sep 2001 (tech beta started on 9/11).

Sure any of these dates can off a bit but prolly not 8 yrs or so or maybe you typo’d yout age?

Thanks for catching that mistake gonna need to start re-reading my posts before submitting. Half that 2nd sentence is wrong. Dam wife must have been talking to me at the same time as I was typing that and I mixed the discussions up. It should read "FWIW I started on play money tables on Pokerstars before I started with real money".



Cheers!!!

Good posts .. I use Play Money to help with mainly Board reading in order to recognize spots more quickly. You should put zero thought into results or how other V played their holdings for the most part.

You would be amazed at the number of Players who think PLO is an ante game .. and insist that you are a Donkey if you raise PF and check 'any' Flop. GL

High stakes play money is way tougher than micro stakes real money

lol

have you ever played high stakes poker stars play money?

Played Pokerstars play money way back when the highest stakes were 40k or fold. I've just started playing cash again at 2nl stakes. You're not wrong highest stakes play money is/was certainly tougher then 2nl is today. And it's not even really close. You didn't get 3-5 callers every hand at 40k or fold. You got folders and maybe at most 1-2 callers majority of hands. If you played MTT short stake ranges/strategy you could do pretty good.


Cheers!!!

So hardongear,

You mentioned that you have read books other than the Sklansky books that I mentioned. I guess if I want to get technical, most of the ones I mentioned aren't just Sklansky books. The first hold'em book and the tournament book certainly are seeing as though he is the only author credited for those. The Hold'em for Advanced players book was co-written with Malmuth. While I am speaking about that one, I just found out that one has been revised into a new 2023 edition and has been retitled "Limit Hold'em for Advanced Players". I plan on getting that. Do you have any knowledge or opinion on that one?

Small Stakes was co-written with Malmuth and Miller and no limit theory and practice was also co written with Miller. You mentioned Harrington. I have recently purchased one of his and plan on purchasing others. All of those were co-written with Robertie. Some other authors I am interested in and plan on purchasing are more Sklansky, Shoonmaker, more Miller, Grudzien, Herzog, Newall, Flynn, Moshman, Bakker, Janda and Mehta. I have recently purchased a book by Suzuki. Do you have any knowledge of any of these authors that you or I haven't mentioned previously?

These are all Two Plus Two books as well. Would studying books by these authors ( Sklansky, Malmuth, Miller, Harrington, Robertie, Shoonmaker, Grudzien, Herzog, Newall, Flynn, Mehta, Suzuki, Moshman, Bakker, Janda) be a step in the right direction?

Before choosing which books/authors to study, you have to decide which game you are going to focus on.

Strategy is radically different depending on game structure.

Example: The Harrington on Holdem series is for NLHE MTTs. Moshman's first book is for STT SNGs. MTTs and STTs are strategically completely different and winning strategy for one does not work for the other.

Neither works for cash games.

Some of the older Sklansky/Miller books are written for fixed limit. Winning tactics in fixed limit can get you killed in NL.

Sorry for the late reply this thread completely slipped mind and got lost. Anyways I agree completely with Kurn. First decide what you wanna focus on cash, MTT, STT or SnG's? Once that got that figured out I'd would personally read and absorb anything and everything considered good on that topic. I personally think it helps to know how other good/great players or poker minds think and play. At least as much as they're willing to share. Even if you don't use or ever play that style it gets and keeps you thinking. FWIW I never really was that good a MTT player though. never really hit a decent or real good score.


Cheers!!!

I would like to work on all aspects of my hold'em game including being able to play somewhat well in all the aforementioned environments. If you read my previous posts, you would see that I was first introduced to hold'em through friendly home tournaments. I guess these would be more like a sit n go situation, seeing as though they were single table. Although when I actually got decent, they would occasionally turn into a multi table situation often with at least two tables. However, I just had a recollection about my actual first introduction to hold'em that I forgot about when I made that post.

My actual first introduction to hold'em was Yahoo games if you can believe that. It was a fixed limit situation, and I had no idea what I was doing, and I had never even heard of hold'em. The only thing I was familiar with was five cards draw although I had heard of stud poker. Now, I realize I can't play draw worth a damn. Then I started to notice no limit Texas Hold'em poker tournaments on TV.

I really didn't see what the buzz was about but would eventually be introduced to the aforementioned friendly home tournaments that I eventually would become pretty decent at. Another thing that I hadn't mentioned in the previous post was something that lit a fire under my ass. I mentioned that I played a lot of play money sit n gos at Party Poker. I won quite a few of these and finished in the money more often than not. One night I was playing in one of these and secured a money finish and it was down to the final three.

Then one of the other participants decided to inform me that I "will be easy to knock out" and that I don't have any concept of pot odds and implied odds and maybe a few other things. As right as he may have been, he was a condescending ass. We exchanged a few words, and I pushed all in when I normally wouldn't have and was eliminated. So, it was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, he said I was easy to knock out and I was and not necessarily because I had little understanding of his aforementioned concepts but because I was on tilt. After this happened, I vowed to work on my hold'em game.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had read some poker books but before I did that I had actually bought and watched some DVDs. I no longer have these, and I can't even recall what I did have but I recall Duke, Hellmuth, Leaderer, another pro, and some old western looking dude being the presenters in these DVDs. Most of these DVDs focused on fixed limit hold'em or at least was in a series where the first one did and you really kind of had to watch the first one. These DVDs only scratched the surface and although they might have helped a little, they weren't enough. This is where I began purchasing and reading books.

I started with Sklansky, Mallmuth, and Miller and of course these books mostly dealt with fixed limit hold'em. I didn't consider this an issue, I just decided that I would start out in fixed limit hold'em and work my way in to no limit and ultimately tournaments. I then began to play online in full ring fixed limit hold'em cash games. If you read the previous post, you will see that it all kind of went to hell at this point. I went in all kinds of directions.

Another thing that I didn't mention before is that I purchased licenses to various different types of software to use while playing online. There was a calculator that was not only a calculator but gave the player real time advice. I consider ever even using that to be one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in poker. I curse the day I ever heard of that thing. I am not going to say much more about my previous online real money poker experience but let's just say that I descended into Hell.

I feel like I have been away from it long enough to be more objective about it and I would really just like to become a better player and enjoy the game which is why I have decided to get back into it. However, much of it has changed. Fixed Limit is almost nonexistent now especially at the micro stakes and even when fixed limit is available it is at 6 max tables and that is a whole other strategy to study. Often times, no one is even playing in the games that I would potentially want to play. As I mentioned before, it looks like I am going to have to play micro stakes no limit.

Regardless, I still believe that I want to study and work on all aspects of my hold'em game and be able to play in a variety of game types. It seems like the approach that many of the no limit authors and books take is that the reader has already studied and has been somewhat successful at fixed limit. It is almost impossible to not at least read about fixed limit regardless of whether the player ever even wants to play in those games. Even if I am playing no limit micro stakes cash games online, my live experience has been restricted to one, two, or three table tournaments. Often times these are simply friendly home tournaments at someone's house, but I still want to play competently.

It has been a while since I played in one of these, but I never know when I might be asked to play in one. It seems to me that it is almost impossible to study and work on no limit without at least reading about and becoming familiar with fixed limit and it is almost impossible to study and work on tournaments without at least reading about and becoming familiar with both no limit and fixed limit cash games. Then we have 6 max, heads up, etc. which are different strategies in and of themselves. It seems like it is all a process, and it progresses from fixed limit cash to no limit cash to tournaments. I would like to work on becoming better at all aspects of the game and be able to competently play in fixed limit, no limit, cash games, sit n go, and multi table tournaments.

That is not to say that a player wouldn't want to focus on one first and progress into another one afterward. If I am going to play in micro stakes no limit cash games because that is what is available, then I would want to start with the no limit authors and books, but it is almost impossible not to at least read the fixed limit books seeing as though it is often expected that the reader is at least somewhat familiar with it. But what the heck do I know? To put things in perspective, I'm not playing for real money at the moment.

Well, looks like this conversation has died. I could mention one other thing that I haven't mentioned, at least not in this thread, and that is that at some point in my poker experience, I purchased this poker training software called "Poker Academy". It was physical media and not a download. I cannot remember why but I ended up getting rid of it. The developing team ended up calling it quits and trying to get ahold of it again was difficult.

There might have been a "cracked" version of the French edition somewhere on the Internet but eventually another development team obtained the code and rebranded the software as "Poker Genius". It was a download only. I purchased a license key. This was a couple of computers ago and it seemed as though I was not able to use my license key on my current computer. I tried to purchase another key but that wasn't possible. I tried contacting the Poker Genius team and it took a long while before I got any kind of response.

The person that finally responded claimed that they were putting everything up for sale with a stipulation that whoever purchases it, agrees to keep it going. I was skeptical of this so I decided to see if I could obtain an old copy of the original Poker Academy. I did obtain a copy of the French version, from France. With some hacking and editing, I was able to transform it into a fully functional English version. It is somewhat glitched though. In this process, I was able to figure out something about Poker Genius.

I won't say what that is, but I contacted the person who responded to me, and I have heard nothing in return regarding that contact. At this point, I can probably conclude that what that person said is probably not true. Anyway, I am mentioning Poker Academy/Genius her because it is possible that I can use this software to practice the concepts that are presented in the poker books. With this software, one can practice fixed limit hold'm cash games, no limit hold'em games, and tournaments. I started a thread about this called "Poker Academy/Genius".

It is classified under "Two Plus Two Forums, Online Poker Sites & Marketplaces, Poker Software, General Software Discussion". I will do an update post in that thread here in a few minutes. Of course there might be a better options than Poker Academy/Genius out there.

The only value would be to figure out the game you are playing and the software but otherwise strategy and game play is a negative for value.

I thought this thread died; I hadn't checked it in so long I had no idea another person posted anything here. Anyway, thanks to all who have shared their views on this topic.