Here's my first play money post. I know that a lot of people dislike reading about play money games, so you have been warned. I think it can be somewhat useful for inexperienced players to play at play money tables, but once you get to a certain level you should probably switch to micro-stakes real money games. The opposition is probably a bit tougher there. Try reading a book by David Sklansky, Doyle Brunson or some other well-known poker author. If you understand the strategic principles they write about, and apply them to the games you play you should be able to beat those games. If nothing else works, try playing super-tight. The other players at the small-stakes games will probably overplay weak hands, so if you only enter a pot with a really good hand you should have a very good chance to win.
I strayed a bit from the subject here. This isn't primarily a strategic post, but it shows that you have to be prepared to take some bad beats when you're up against poor opponents. I was playing in the biggest no-limit hold'em games at Empire Poker. A lot of the opponents in these games are horrible players. I think one of the reasons is that it's possible to buy or get play money for Empire at various internet sites, so a lot of the players in the games haven't really earned their play money the "hard way". If you want half-decent opponents, I think you can find some at the biggest no-limit play money tables at Pokerstars.
I was playing three tables at once. If I play fewer, I'll just be tempted to get involved with crap hands like 74 suited or 86 offsuit. I happened to get involved at all three tables at once. At the first table, I got a free flop with T8 from the big blind. The flop was T87 with two spades. At the second table, I got pocket kings. I decided to not fool around. There was a raise in front of me, so I thought: "What the heck. He'll probably call a push anyway." I pushed, and returned my attention to the first table. I had overbet the pot as the second to act on the flop. The next player min-raised, and there were five or six callers. I thought that my hand was probably the best, and pushed the rest of my chips in. At the third table, I had gotten involved from one of the blinds with 53 suited. I flopped trip 5s with a ten. I think I bet on the flop. I'll look into it later. The turn was an ace. I bet, and got raised by one of my opponents. I pushed the rest of my chips in. The raiser called, and so did another player. I'm aware that the raiser might have had a better kicker than me, but he might raise with aces-up in that situation. There was a good chance that his kicker didn't play if he had trips.
The river was a 4. I was splitting the pot on the turn. My opponent had 54, and hit his three-outer to scoop the pot on the river. I forgot to look into the Empire hand history to find out what the third player had. At best, he could have had a straight-flush draw in spades (two spades on the flop). In that case he had at most eight outs to scoop the pot on the river (five spades that wouldn't make someone a full house, and three aditional straight cards).
The hands at the other two tables had been finished. I looked into the hand histories. At the second table, I had only gotten one caller. He had QJ offsuit, and flopped trips to beat my kings. At the first table, there were four players that had called my push. Two of them had gutshot straight draws, and both hit. Another player had called with bottom pair, horrible kicker and hit trips. The only player that might have had odds to call my push had a tiny flush draw, and missed. Against all those draws, I might have had slightly less than 50% chance of winning the pot, so this was probably the smallest of the bad beats I got. Maybe I should start playing four tables, and see if I can manage to go busto on four tables within a minute...
