You have nothing at risk not even free chips. I have noticed several players here that only play Freeroll. Oh, they may occasionally risk 1000 chips on Bankroll Builder ( knowing they get 2500 free chips each day) out of their millions of chips but primarily they play Freeroll. These players are not gamblers and that is what poker is really about-- players that gamble. I’m not even sure they are very good poker players even though they have built a stack of millions playing freeroll and getting their 2500 free chips each day. What is your opinion?
Different players each have their own objectives. Some come for the excitement of gambling. Others come for the camaraderie of socializing with those they see daily. If we all wanted the same thing, we’d all still be playing quadrille or whist or brag or old maid, as none of the current games would’ve been invented. Some players thrive on risk, others avoid it like disease. Some look at it as a boxing match, others as a chess game. One of the great things about poker is that it CAN be many things to many people. That means you–and I–can find games that suit us and our talents. Good luck and enjoy.
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If they built a stack of millions just playing freerolls, they must be great players! Winning freerolls is not easy at all, and the payout is not great. Otherwise they would have had to accumulate 2500 daily bonuses for years to get millions.
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So, how many play-chips does one have to risk before it becomes poker? Is it really poker with no money involved? If money is required, how much does it have to be?
IMO, no matter where its played of for what stakes, the game remains the game. The goal is to get the chips from the other players at your table. It may be valid to question the caliber of the game from place to place and from stakes to stakes but the game itself is still poker.
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Yeah, I would say freeroll games are poker. Some players there are good and some less so and many have different objectives. My bankroll is in the millions but, as building a mountain of chips is not my objective here I rarely play anything other than very low stakes. Hands like this happen in freeroll…
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/409807418
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Well of course people play for many different reasons. I don’t disagree with a thing you said –
That is not the topic. The topic is : Is freeroll really playing poker? You see, most people think of poker as a game involving gambling/ risk of loss. There is a different feel to playing when I put up a stack of 250,000 chips in a Ring game or a MTT, I play Freeroll a lot too but it is not all I play. I’m will to gamble that my stack will go up or down.
I suspect people that avoid risk like a disease do not play poker for real money.
Sure the rules to play are the same; stakes or no stakes. 1 chip is what it requires since then you have a risk of loss. Without that gambling it is just another card game like Spades or Hearts or Old Maid
4 Freerolls a day x 7 days adds up over the years, Yes, winning Freeroll is difficult but finishing in the top 27/30 is not so hard 2500 chips x 1000 days is 2,500,000 chips
So I’m not so sure they are very good poker players. But they do have the right to enjoy this site anyway they so choose.
Define “good” player. Since you can buy chips it obviously can’t be the players with the most chips. So what is a “good” player on a free site?
Playing with my brother I’m a “great” poker player. Playing with Daniel Negreanu I’m a drooling fool. So, it depends.
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TY, Exactly my point, it depends. One person’s “good” player is another’s “bad”.
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now on I am just gonna play freerolls. set me up with hands that make it impossible to fold all time and I end up passing chips on someone else. just not fun anymore to play.
Is commenting about wanting to change something, or just whining? If you are having a lousy time at a party do you go up to the host and in a loud voice say, “This party sucks and I am out of here!” Why take the time to complain unless you want to make the party about your departure? If you are going to leave, leave.
Buy definition, a “free” site will NEVER be a “real” poker site. Don’t like free, go spend some money to get exactly what you want. Throw your own party. I comment, and nearly all of my comments detail what I consider to be something that MIGHT be addressed, and MIGHT be acted upon. I wait to see what happens and adjust my game as best I can to the circumstances. That is what a “good” poker player does, not whine incessantly when they are losing. Poker has Helmuth for that. Are you a “free” site Helmuth who will never be happy until you win every hand you think you should?
Yes, gambling is poker. But it inevitably attracts the ‘fillers’ who wait to cash on the failed gamble. If its ‘winning poker’, winning that matters more, every strategy that helps winning becomes legit. Poker can’t be always played in its pure spirit, like spades or bridge, because its variants are more, and money.
Poker is played by a set of rules with a 52 card deck…that is it.
How or why people play is another matter entirely…something a lot of people do not seem to understand…
So is solitaire. What’s your point?
Stakes don’t matter on a virtual chip site. From freerolls to elite stakes, much of what you see would never happen for money, even at the lowest stakes (where I play). Just peek into any game at any given time and you will see absurdity. Here are 2 hands from ring games from tables I looked in on briefly to see what was going on:
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/410569390
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/410566797
There are some good players here but please lets not pretend that much of what happens here is the same game as you’d play for cash. I’m pretty new to the game and if I can see this, anyone with eyes can. This is a recreational site, period. Nothing wrong with that but a conversation about which games here are “real poker” is just plain silly.
Are you saying that going all in preflop with A4 and J5 is not good poker? 
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If you keep discussing loose plays, there won’t be any end to it. If you leave the loose plays, you will see serious/good plays (Some ruthless games may not be seen, as people mostly know each other and friendly). Among these plays, which is the good one, which is the real one. That’s the argument.
no , and also no if you even playing at any online real money poker games or tournaments , and i will explain why , the difference between digital gaming and real live gaming is in digital gaming there is an algorithm program designed to mimic real live game based on mathematical data collected for that purpose as random generated distributions. where in real live poker games ? ( including tournaments ) you have a dealer that mixes and then shuffle the deck by random mixing card of the deck , the human error separate this action as real game ( by human error I mean dealer random minute errors ) in mixing cards .
another thing is online programs have cycles of winning hands randomly just like slot machine RNG ( random number Generator ) . where sometimes you win 3 hands in a row , this also happen to slot machines and that action is called back to back Jackpots ,where in real live dealer ? can skip a card or two by random error when shuffling the deck which lands you at that moment as a winner hand for the outcome CC flops . make sense ?