Good Morning

I am thinking of learning to play the card game Poker, in order just to socialise with friends etc. However, I seem to get the impression that when placing bets, money is always involved. Can't any games/matches be played without involving money? if not, is playing Bridge a good alternative?

Thanks

Nope, quite often your dignity is on the line.

Seriously though, of course you can play it without money. There's a site I use call PKR.com, it's a downloadable client but it looks like the SIMS, you get your own avatar and you can practice with play money.

Also, if you just buy a poker set, it'll come with chips, just use the chips and don't put any monetary value towards them.

Thanks for your quick reply.

I may intend to play in a league for competitions in the near future if I enjoy playing the game, then I presume money would definitely be involved and no other alternative?

Thanks

Before DS, I found Yahoo Games Canasta.

It was very sociable in the 4 player version and regular tournament games run.
You can chat, Publicly, while playing.

However, some cheats do find their way in, but you can spot them with experience.
(They are slow, because they are Privately Messaging what cards each other has, and then play unexpected or wondrous cards)

But nonetheless, Canasta is great. A variant of Rummy that is half luck and half skill and not as difficult as Bridge. You can learn the basics in a couple of Practice hands.

There is no real right or wrong either. Bridge Partners will have endless arguments about why you played a particular card.

I've been playing it in Real Life too since I was 14 with family friends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canasta

In Uni when we had no money we played for chocolate bars.

Once again, thanks for your replies.

I may intend to play in a league for competitions in the near future if I enjoy playing the game, then I presume money would definitely be involved and no other alternative?

Thanks

Also, lots of Scrabble sites around, if you fancy that too.

Most online sites have play money tables.

In the real world you don't have to play for money. If you don't want to play for money just buy yourself some chips and play using those. I would say though when people don't play for money they play very differently to when they do. There being no risk/reward changes the whole game.

Maybe look at playing a tournament format with small buy in. Poker doesn't have to be high stakes.

The majority of poker competitions have a buy in. You'll be given chips with a monetary value at the start of it and it's a knock out process, you just have to win every chip off everyone else. Buy-in's can range from £5 - £500,000+. Also, depending on how many people are in the tournament, that will decide what the payouts are, either a top 3 payout for a small tournament or for tournaments with 100/200+ people the top 25 or maybe even more will be paid.

If it is competition you'll be playing, it'd be pretty pointless if it was for nothing since it totally changes the way the game is played, not physically but mentally.

I play Zynga Poker.

There are buy-in tournaments for as little as 10 cents.

OP - There is little point in playing the 'play' money tables as has been said. People just shove all their chips in every hand.

If you decide to start playing for money I would advise avoiding sites which have a lot of Russians and Ukranians as they are usually good players.

Find sites with a lot of British players or Australians/Canadians.

Unfortunately there are now no American players at the tables as they were really terrible fish.

Yes, playing for fun using just betting chips is great.....but it can be very difficult to discipline yourself to play properly when there isn't any money/prizes on the line.

I play my best when I actually have something to lose.

Just find some apps to play on to teach you the game before getting involved in any cash games.

Low stakes games with friends when you're familiar with it can be very fun.

does the OP mean playing poker online or for real with real people ?

Online is fun and play money is fun too, but real poker is played at a table with people and with real money, tiny stakes or big stakes it doesn't matter, but you will learn quickly that unlike the nutters on online poker, it's a bad idea to go all-in with a pair of twos.

The amount of times I've folded a low pocket because of a high raise pre-flop, then turns out I'd have won it anyway, but always better to be safe than sorry.

Indeed, and, i'm convinced that online dealers do it deliberately because it happens quite a lot, more than random in my opinion, they give you a pair of kings, but give pocket aces to the chip leader

Well it will happen fairly often. Odds of flopping a set is roughly 8/1. Odds of making a set by the river is around 4/1. Then your hand could stand up without flopping a set, or you could make a winning hand another way, small flush, straight etc.

If there's lots of raising pre-flop though you are right to fold small pocket pairs, unless you are against maniac players that are doing it with any two cards and you want to push your small edge against two over cards.

Different in a tournament if you're short stacked of course (around 10 big blinds or less), where you will want to be getting it all in the middle with any pocket pair and a lot of other hands besides most of the time. Being the first to shove is best though, gives you two ways to win then.

Like others have said, get a set of chips and play with those. With social games, there can still be an element of buy-in, everyone brings a bottle, chocolate or something as the buy-in and winner takes the pot.

Competitions are often for money and then you may want to consider strategy. So you can play the competition, in which case you'll be up against top players, or play side tables where you might not be and could win more money.

Alternatively, consider other card games which might be more social and less risky, ie Bridge or Canasta.. Which can also be played for money, and get expensive even on 1p/point.

As has been said you can just play using chips or counters that you don't end up exchanging for real money. It will never be quite the same though because if players have no real risk or reward they won't bet in the same way.

If you're concerned about losing lots of money just use chips worth 5p/10p and set a limit on the amount you can bet on a particular hand. At the end of the night no-one should be up or down by more than a few pounds and even if you lose you'll have had an enjoyable evening for the cost of a couple of drinks. Betting for small amounts can still give it that real feel and tension.

Or are you reluctant to bet any amount of real money due to moral/religious reasons?

Yeah, we do something similar.

We use a blind timer and have several mini-tournaments during an evening - depending on how things go, 3 or 4 timed games - if you get the timings right, it takes about a 1hrs to 1.5hrs per game.

If there is 5 players, it'll usually be £5 buy-in per tournament played with the winner getting £20 and the runner-up getting their stake back. So if you have a shocker all night (which will be rare), you'll only ever lose £20 over the whole night (plus drinks/food costs).

We've done £10 buy-in tournaments, too, but £5 seem to work best.

Poker's sort of pointless without the money. Use a play money site to get familiar with the hands, then put a tenner on a real money site and play micro stakes until it's gone. You'll find out if you have a taste for the game and save a lot of time.

I'd suggest the opposite. Play against real people using real cards & a real table, then think about trying online poker. It's an entirely different dynamic and most of the fun is removed in online games.. And it's probably easier and quicker to lose money via clicking.

On the money aspect, best advice is never to gamble more than you can afford to lose. So that's easier if you go out with say, £50 and leave cards at home so you're not tempted to draw more cash. Plus I think it's more satisfying if you win, and walk away with a larger wad of stake money.

I play in a league, you can find ones with buy-ins around £5-£10. It's a fabulous game, you have to act well when you play in person! A lot different to online play. If you want to brush up on techniques/rules, I recommend Zynga Poker, too - that's how I learned all those years ago.

me and my Dad used to play with matchsticks, even today a matchstick seems very valuable to me, don't even think about stealing any of my matchsticks

Sometimes it involves just taking your clothes off.