Getting to play poker online for free is the holy grail for a lot of poker players. You get to play your favourite poker games and it doesn’t cost you anything. What could be better!

There are three distinct ways that you can play poker free online; play money poker, poker freerolls and bonuses. Here are a few pointers on each of the ways to play free.

Play Money Poker
Playing poker for play money is a great way to learn the game and get yourself familiarized with the poker table. Every online poker site has a section where you can play for play money before you risk any of your real cash. If you are a beginner this is a fantastic way to cut your teeth and find out the ins and outs of actual table play. You might have seen it on the TV before, but this is a giant step, playing your own hands, making your own decisions and all against other real players.
One word of caution about the play money tables however, the standard of play there is very poor. You might even win on your first attempt so don’t get carried away and think you can transfer this success to the real money tables immediately, you have another steep learning curve to overcome there too!

Freerolls
These are tournaments where the hosting site puts up a prize fund and lets any signed up members enter for free. That means you can play free online poker and have a chance of picking up a cash prize. Most of the big sites do some sort of freeroll or another, but there is an inherent danger with them, the time vortex.
This is where all of your time slips into a black hole as you sit there for hour after hour playing the freerolls for the chance of winning a prize that is, frankly, not really worth the effort unless you are badly in need of the cash and are a very good player.
The best thing about freerolls is that you get the chance to play large multi table poker tournaments and get to sample the pressure and relentlessness of that type of play.
They will give you a good grounding for when you make the WSOP!

Bonuses
The third way that you can use to play free online poker is by signing up and getting bonuses on your real money deposits. This is fairly self explanatory of course, you just play with the bonus money and keep your own. Hopefully you will manage to increase your bonus amount through winning, if not you can simply move on to the next site.
There are poker sites offering anything from 20% to 100% for new signups and existing players on the site. Shop around and get yourself the best deal.

There you have it then, three simple ways you can play free online poker!


By Ian McIntosh
Article by Ian McIntosh of www.Love-Texas-Holdem.com. Check out the site for all the latest information on Texas Holdem tournaments and poker freerolls.
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