Free online poker Around 2003-2004, online poker went through a huge explosion in popularity. Ever since, more and more people have been captured by the excitement and the possibility to win money, offered by the tens or possible hundreds of online poker rooms that have sprung up demanding a share of the ever growing poker industry. The competition for the hearts of online poker players has become more and more intense, with new and ever more generous bonuses, rakeback deals, promotions and sign-up rewards being offered. Free poker games are offered by every poker room these days, as what might’ve been regarded foolishness just a few years ago has become common practice. Every respectable poker room offers freerolls these days. These tournaments are free to enter, (some of them require a real money account and deposit to enter though, others are accessible for all comers) and usually attract huge crowds depending on the apparent profitability of their setup, determined by the number of participating players and the prize-pool made available by the poker room. There are poker rooms out there which specialize in freerolls. Almost all the tourneys they offer are freerolls and the prize pools are provided by advertising revenues. These same sites host real tournaments too though, although fewer of them, where a buy-in ins required. Most freerolls take place in a MTT format, to accommodate all comers or as many of them as possible. Do these freerolls represent reasonable ways of starting up a real money bankroll? I’d hardly say so. Prize pools are usually very shallow (after all, the prize-pool falls entirely upon the poker room, which is not going to gain anything in tournament fees) and there are huge crowds battling it out for a money position. Even though some of these tourneys can feature as much as $500 in prizes, the 3,500 players, all looking to chip off a small share of it, drive the value right out of them. If making money is your goal at the poker table, no, freerolls are not the way to go about it. If you only play for the sake of playing – again – you can forget about massive freerolls. You should know though, that there are freerolls out there that offer value. These are usually private tourneys and they are password protected, but playing in these tourneys will not only offer you a great game-experience, it will also provide you reasonable chances to make some money.

Most online poker rooms feature play-money tables as well. Play money tables represent the peak of bad poker play, hardly usable for anything besides learning the basic rules and getting comfortable with the interface. Sometimes good games ensue at play money tables, but it’s usually only a matter minutes till a bored 10 year old drops by and starts throwing chips left and right as if to illustrate how disgusted he really is with the game. If you’re looking for free poker that is as fun, exciting as captivating as the real deal, you need to find some sort of way into real money games. Don’t be surprised, it’s old news that many poker rooms offer their players free poker bankrolls. That’s right, you get a sum of real money from the room to get started and with it the real opportunity to create a poker bankroll. These free bankrolls can be as big as $150, or as small as $10, but you get them upfront when signing up and no deposit is required. What’s the catch? – you may ask. There isn’t really any. Certainly, you cannot cash your free bankroll out, but that is common sense so I wouldn’t qualify that as a “catch”. Once you’ve fulfilled the requirements to unlock your bonus though, you can withdraw all of it and the money you’ve won with it and be on your way. What exactly does the poker room have to gain from such offers? Well, given the fact that you’ll only be able to walk away with their money after you’ve generated more than enough rake to compensate for it, they will certainly not lose a thing. The action that you create will contribute to their critical player liquidity, so they won’t have to pay prop players either.