Free online poker practice sites?

r3nu4l

Hi guys, completely clueless about poker but just wondering if there are any online sites where you can play live against other people but just for practice rather than hard cash...in other words a 'play' site rather than something 'serious'.

I'm reading here but not really getting a chance to put anything into practice.

Any ideas?

CoolBoardr

All the sites have 'play money' as well as real money.

eg.
www.fulltiltpoker.com
www.pokerstars.com
www.paddypowerpoker.com

r3nu4l

Cheers Cool. Do these sites keep hassling you to sign up and pay with real cash? Not really looking for that, just something that will give me a good idea of the game workings without being hassled to 'pay-up'

I'd like to learn a bit first and if I want to continue playing online, perhaps then I'll sign up with these sites and go from there

CoolBoardr

You'll get the odd email from them, but you don't have to give contact details until you start to play real money - and when you do, i'd recommend starting a new username and looking into getting rakeback.

Good luck!

r3nu4l

Cheers man, I think I'll just set up a generic yahoo/gmail/hotmail address and generic username for the time being and then change both if I decide to go any further.

AdMMM

If you want to play through your browser - http://www.gpokr.com

IHAVEACAT

sounds pretty obvious but if you do move from play money to cash the games are going to be like chalk and cheese because people have nothing to lose in play money so play like maniacs

Tar.Aldarion

Thanks for that, time to mess around in college.

Tar.Aldarion

A boardsie on my table already, jeez.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Tar.Aldarion

He scared me off sharpish.

breadmonkey

IHAVEACAT wrote:

sounds pretty obvious but if you do move from play money to cash the games are going to be like chalk and cheese because people have nothing to lose in play money so play like maniacs

Well as far as I'm concerned, if you can actually "beat" the play money tables (i.e. accrue like "$2,000,000" or something), you will be in great shape to beat the likes of $10NL which basically play the same.

IHAVEACAT

breadmonkey wrote:

Well as far as I'm concerned, if you can actually "beat" the play money tables (i.e. accrue like "$2,000,000" or something), you will be in great shape to beat the likes of $10NL which basically play the same.

possibly, i still think real money at any stakes is completely differnt to play money. i doubt most poker concepts apply in play money. and i doubt if any1 is going to try and beat the levels at play money. most people will just get 1000 play money chips and sit down with all of them

Tar.Aldarion

Dealing pocket cards: [Td, Tc]
Tickles calls
TarAldarion raises $4350
cityfox folds
Niinsche folds
BANKERS folds
cocoanut folds
freddy01 folds
hescharged folds
patje calls
Tickles folds
Dealing flop: [Qh, Th, 5h]
Dealing turn: [Ks]
Dealing river: [9c]
patje shows [7h, Ah] for a flush Ace high
TarAldarion shows [Td, Tc] for three tens
patje wins main pot 8775
TarAldarion leaves the table

luckylucky

IHAVEACAT wrote:

possibly, i still think real money at any stakes is completely differnt to play money. i doubt most poker concepts apply in play money. and i doubt if any1 is going to try and beat the levels at play money. most people will just get 1000 play money chips and sit down with all of them

I agree with ihaveacat, the only thing that you are going to learn from play money games is the game rules and a feel for how online poker works. But I guess that's a sensible enough starting point

Some sites have freerolls too where you don't have to pay anything, and they have small cash prizes, try them out, at least you will be playing for something tangible and it'll more resemble proper poker, poker without something genuine at stake is virtually defunct really.

trap4

Can I take this slightly off topic by asking another newbie question - do any of the poker sites offer untimed games? I've only play two sites and each of them give you what seems like a very short time to make up your mind on the play money games. Are the real money games the same?

Mr E

I can't see that working on an internet game, trap4. I'd imagine that would be incredibly frustrating. Player X gets up to answer the phone and forgets to set the "sitting out" flag on their account. The other players would leave the table out of boredom waiting for him to return.

Tar.Aldarion

Edit:They are the same. I'm slow!

trap4

Thanks TmB point taken. So I take then that all online games are timed. But do they all have the same timing? A good site for a newbie would be one with the most time to think IMHO. Which might that be?

phantom_lord

stars probably; they have a timebank if you require more time to make a decision.