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Poker Texas Hold’em: Shuffling Cards by brtsergio, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  brtsergio 

Poker is a game that it takes time and practice to get good at. When you first start playing poker online, expect to lose a lot of games. You’ll be up against some tough competition, including poker professionals who spend all day, every day playing poker. And the thing is you never quite know the calibre of the people you are playing, so even on a low stakes game you could be playing someone who knows far more than you do about the game!

A great way to get started is to join a site that allows you entry to some freeroll poker tournaments. 32red is one such casino, and as well as giving new players entry to five $500 freerolls, the site also offers 30% rakeback to poker players too. Click here for more info about 32red online casino and the different bonuses available. The other main casino sites will offer similar deals, and opportunities to get involved in freeroll tournaments, so when you first start playing poker online, it may be worthwhile joining a few different sites, so that you can rack up some freeroll playing experience. Once you’ve found your favourite place to play, play there consistently and you’ll earn loyalty points in the process.

So what is a freeroll? It’s a way of playing for a real cash pot – provided by the casino – but where none of the players needs to buy-in to take part. So, all the players are playing for nothing, which means that they will play in a fairly fast and loose style, but at the same time, they all want to win, so will play to the best of their ability! This is the perfect training ground for a poker newbie, as you won’t risk any real cash, but even if you don’t win, you’ll come away from a freeroll poker tournament with real experience and increased knowledge of the game.

The term freeroll is a bit misleading, as there’s no rolling of dice going on in the game of poker! However, it’s thought to stem from the early casino tradition in Las Vegas of giving a ‘free roll’ of nickels for customers to use on the slot machines when they arrived. Over time the words were said as one ‘freeroll’ and came to be applied to any free gaming bonus.

If you’re signing up to a freeroll, make sure that you’re not signing up for a play money tournament. With a play money tournament, the prize money is also play or fun money, so you won’t be playing for a real cash prize. While they still have their uses – in terms of allowing you to increase your poker knowledge and skills – play money wins won’t have such a sweet feeling to them as real money ones!

You’ll quickly gain knowledge and experience and then whenever you feel confident in your poker abilities, you can start to join in pay-to-play tournaments, where the games get even more exciting!