What is “free poker”? Yahoo has free poker games, which is the first place I recall trying poker online, though only limit Holdem if I recall correctly. Yahoo UK started real money poker in late April of 2007, and it seems like it’s still going. I wasn’t able to register to try it out though, and I can’t find much information about it other than that it is part of Boss Media’s network which ranks 7th in poker site traffic currently.

Facebook also has poker, which I’ve berated in earlier posts. The University of Alberta has its own poker site (limit only, I think) where you can play against both humans and their own AI poker players. The interface is very bare bones, but it’s not there to generate lots of site traffic, it’s there for people to play against U of A’s poker bots.

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Apparently some of the poker sites believe that because they don’t charge you to download the software that they require for their own site, this constitutes “free poker software”. All sites that I know do offer play money tables where beginners can learn or where players who are new to the site can try it out, so even though they talk about free poker or free poker software, they do in fact have what are called “play money” tables to play on for free. I suspect that the way that they are wording things has more to do with trying to match search terms from internet search engines, rather than trying to promote the fact that downloading their own software doesn’t cost you anything.

So if you’re really looking for free poker to play and to learn, all the major poker sites have play money games to practice and learn on. From personal experience I recommend PokerStars because they have tiered play money SnGs so you can work your way up. Beyond the donkey 2,000 buyin levels the players are somewhat serious about their play money bankroll and know how to play a bit, so it’s good practice. I’ve also heard that PokerStars play money can be sold for real money, but you have to have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,000,000 play money dollars to do so.

If you’re going to play for real money but want a signup bonus in addition to your first deposit, you can find this at every poker site, including PokerStars and Full Tilt, the two biggest sites. Just check the restrictions (usually time limits and bonus maximums) to find the best choice for you. Before you deposit, take some advice and considerations into review. Once you sign up as a real money player, there are additional chances for freebies. Some sites offer “new player” freerolls where you can play poker tournaments for free during the first few months after signing up. Pretty much every site offers some sort of player points that you accumulate by playing. The more you play, and the higher the stakes that you play, the faster you accumulate these points. These points can be exchanged for swag, freerolls, or sometimes are convertable into cash.

If you want to start a real money bankroll for free, then what you’re looking for is either 1) a small site that offers $5 or $10 for free just for signing up (there are some, but these offers, and the sites too, come and go so I don’t know who currently offers them), or, 2) you can start playing freerolls which almost every poker site has. See my posts with tips for playing freerolls. In both cases there are often restrictions determining withdrawing the funds if you have never made a deposit. Sometimes you have to play a certain number of hands before being allowed to withdraw, or in some cases you simply have to make some sort of deposit before they will release any funds to you. I had $40 on one site after playing for a while with $5 free, but the site was sold to another site, and though my player identity was transferred, I lost the money that I had accumulated.

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So, “free poker” is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. Sure in many cases you can play for free, but what you win isn’t worth anything either. Or, you can play for free, but only after you’ve made a deposit of real money. Or, you can play for free, but the odds of you winning real money are slim and you may have to invest many hours of trying to signup just to be able to play. Or, you can play poker free with real money, but before you can withdraw it, you may have to make a deposit of real money. Free always has a few strings or restrictions attached.

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