Play Poker Online For Fun

Online poker has experienced a huge upsurge in popularity within the last few years. No longer is this the game that used to be played in home living rooms/basements or back room private tournaments. Thanks, to the most part, to television, poker has emerged as a huge popular past time of our cultural landscape and there are now numerous opportunities to play poker on the Internet. Outside of major professional sporting events, music and acting industries, poker can also elevate a truly skilled individual to superstar status within mainstream media.

You can now find an online poker game any time of day or night. You can also play for free or for real money against players from all over the world. There are literally thousands of games at practically any level as well as thousands of tournaments ranging in size from 6 participants up to thousands with buy-in amounts that range from zero investment to thousands of dollars.

So, where to start? What would be the first step to take after deciding on online poker? Let us look at the fun and hopefully the profitable opportunities of online poker; beginning with some general information.

Search Poker Rooms Online

Right now there are hundreds of poker rooms available on the Internet. The largest poker room can have hundreds of thousands of people playing at the same time during peak playing hours. Just do go through our recommended list of online poker rooms, and you will quickly find many places to play and thousands upon thousands of pages of information.

The following games, among others, can be found readily available online:

The Benefits of Playing Poker Online

Playing poker on your computer is a fantastic way to gain experience and is also much less expensive than traveling to a brick-and-mortar card room. Most players tip the dealer when they win a hand when playing in a land based card room and also the servers when they bring a drink or food. When playing online, tipping is not necessary, as you only really need to buy-in to a game, and the only other possible expense would be to re-buy or add-on while playing in a tournament.

Time is another factor that will be in your favor when playing online poker because you will be able to play a lot more hands per hour; basically, the dealer will not have to shuffle cards online, since there is no real "live" dealer - and of course, there is also a time limitation per players' action, so player will have to play much faster too.

If you are a player who is just learning to play poker, poker offers a wonderful outlet to increase your skills, knowledge, and quite possibly build a bankroll at the same time. More often than not, most sites will also offer the opportunity to play poker online for fun - for free, using play money. Quite a few sites even have "free rolls", which are tournaments that you can enter for free that pay out real money to the winners. In addition, numerous sites offer real money limits as low as $.01/$.02.

For those players new to the game, and looking for some stepping stones, and some freebies, then it is recommended to play the freerolls to get a feel for the game, the gaming software and/or the opponents out there waiting for him/her.

Poker Bonus Offers

The poker industry, and more so the online poker industry is extremely competitive. In other words, poker rooms make most of their profit from players in the form of rake (the amount of money a poker site will collect as a fee from each pot and hand) and buy-ins. So, the more players a site has, obviously the more money and profit they will make. As you will most likely notice, it will seem as though every site has a bonus offer to attract a new player.

The initial bonus you will most likely encounter is the deposit bonus, which can range from 10% (deposit $100 and receive a $10 bonus) up to 100% (deposit $100 and get a $100 bonus) - if not more. These bonuses are usually associated with a requirement to play a specific number of raked hands before you can withdraw any money. Make sure to read the terms and conditions to become familiar with what you must do to receive your bonus.

There is also another trend to offer reload bonuses (which is in essence another deposit under the same terms and conditions as a 1st time bonus), or tiered reload bonuses (which is based on a series of deposits that qualify for an additional bonus for the duration of the tiered reload bonus promotion). These bonuses are all designed to entice players to keep playing on the site. There is a market for everything, and that brings us to players that will move from room to room collecting bonuses (normally called bonus hunting). This can be a good way to increase your profit initially, especially if you are just starting. If you are able to break-even with help of the poker bonuses, then they can actually make you a profit as you improve your game.

There is also no need to perfect your poker face when playing online, so think it over, and play poker online for fun today!