Practicing poker for free

Playing with play money chips is a great way to practice your poker skills for free. This is because instead of playing for cash, you are playing for virtual chips which have no monetary value. You can start playing free online poker, and practicing in a poker club, as soon as you have set up your PokerStars account. The play money tables are located under the 'Play Money' tab in the PokerStars lobby. You then have the following options:

• All
• Fixed-Limit
• No-Limit
• Pot-Limit

The list of available tables will update when you click on one of the different options, and the poker tables can be opened by clicking on their names. If there is a seat available, you take it by clicking 'Seat Open'. Play money tables work exactly the same as real money tables, except that you are playing poker for free.

If you lose all your play money chips, you can reload 1,000 more chips up to 3 times every hour.

One important thing to remember about play money tables is that because there is no money at stake, some players tend to play very recklessly, which can affect the learning curve of anyone trying to take the game seriously and improve their poker skills. For example, many play money players bet and call with any two cards, which makes it hard to bluff them. So it's worth making sure you have a good hand at showdown.

Because of these issues, many of the strategy considerations that we teach at PokerSchoolOnline may not be as effective at a play money table. Therefore, if you have been reading our articles and already have a fairly good grasp of how to play, you will probably benefit more from playing at PokerStars micro-stakes tables, as opposed to play money. Play money tables are however ideal for the absolute beginner to develop their poker skills.