I played a few more hands of online poker at Yahoo! today during lunch. While I was scarfing down my South Beach-friendly omelet, I realized that the dynamics of the game are completely thrown off by the fact that folks are playing with fake money.
Texas Hold 'Em is supposed to be a game of knowing your risk. If you are dealt crappy cards, you fold. Because if you don't, chances are you're going to run out of hard-earned cash PDQ. You bet only on hands you're reasonably sure you can win.
Unfortunately, when people play with fake money, there's no incentive to play strategically. If you run out of money, Daddy Yahoo just gives you more. So people bet the max before they even get to see the flop. So you can't tell how sure anybody is of their hand because everybody's betting the max.
So all those hands that you would gracefully fold in a real poker game become the shitty hands you let giant wads of money ride on in a fake poker game. Every hand, one person wins big and nine other people lose the same amount of money. After playing several hands, you realize that unless someone is particularly lucky, folks are simply trading money back and forth. No one wins big and no one loses big. If you happen to lose big, Daddy Yahoo fills up your account again, so no worries.
Bluffing is no fun, either. It doesn't matter if you bluff because there are probably five or six other player bluffing alongside you. Why not bluff? It's not real money. Usually, there's one guy with a good hand who wins and nine other folks who are bluffing. So you're not fooling anyone with a good bluff because everyone else is bluffing, too.
Once you realize this, you start to think that maybe you'll accumulate wealth faster than other players by playing only your really good hands and folding on the rest. Then you see the schmucks who win big hands by betting the max on an unsuited 2-6 and somehow getting lucky. And it becomes tough to fold on those crappy hands because it takes 20 minutes to play a hand - people playing with fake money sure do a lot of raising! But people don't automatically raise. Nosiree. They have to make it at least look like they're using some sort of strategy, so a couple people will call, someone will raise, the next guy will call, the next two will raise and so on and so forth until the betting has gone around in a circle so many times it makes your head spin. Then you get to see the flop. Then the betting commences before the turn. If you fold before the flop, you can probably go make yourself a cup of soup in the microwave before the next round starts.
So that's how online poker with fake money works. It's not really poker. Yet, people flock to places like Yahoo! Games by the krillions, eager to sit around playing an emasculated, crappy version of a great game with fake money, with no one really winning and no one really losing and no one really being rewarded for playing strategically because there are no consequences for losing.
Only in America.
Posted by THespos at December 20, 2004 08:38 PM | TrackBackSo true. I play with fake and real money online (unfortunatelyv very few card clubs here). Play money tables should be some sort of practice ground. Forget about it. Just now I had two idiots trying to teach how to play poker. Apparent I am "way too conservative". It must be because I don't call all-in raises with K-rag or JT offsuit; or don't bet 10 or 15 times the size BB...or bet $250 to win a $150 pot.
And the sad thing is that those two duffuses were genuinely trying to convince to play like that...while I was calling them jackasses at every turn (literaly)
Always be careful who offers advice online. Some guys out there are just total cretins.
It can be real frustrating. however if you play for fake money at a decent website (downloading program free at pokerstars.com) you can find some fun. the way you to this is by winning enough at the small table $10-$15 NL and then start playing at the $100 NL fake money tables. People generally take things a little more seriously with the bigger fake tables because it took them longer to get there. Also playing in tournements can usually fix the problem of people playing like retards and going all in before the flop with a 2 and a 7. Cheers with beers down with fear, Mike
Posted by: Mike Jones at March 23, 2006 10:12 PMYou can also go to sites like pokerroom.com, where the fake money can only be refilled twice every 24 hours. People can't keep going all-in, or they'll have to stop playing.
Posted by: alex at April 25, 2006 10:14 PMpokerroom.com has a problem where you can only sign on at 2am to play playmoney and even then, you still got no shortage of morons going in on every hand
Posted by: Joe at October 8, 2006 08:56 AM
All comments are property of the individual poster who left them. Everything else, copyright 2005, Tom Hespos