Play money
From PokerWiki
[edit] Reasons play money play is [almost] worthless
[edit] Reasons play money play is not [quite] worthless
- Learning to beat loose games where people play all kinds of silly hands for multiple bets is a useful skill for real money games. In fact, judging by the Netcasts from the Bicycle, some games as high as $30/60 limit hold 'em play very loose. Loose (and particularly loose-aggressive) games are beaten through the discipline not to play any two as your opponents are doing, despite the bad beats; play money games take these factors to the extreme, and thus have some value in training one to be disciplined.
- Play money can be a good way to learn the rules of a new poker variant without risk.
- Play money can introduce you to a new site's software without risk.
- Developers of poker software can use play money games to gather data without risk; for example, an author of a hand converter might use play money games to collect hand histories.
