Freeplay Freerolls Are a Boon or Curse?
There are several sites in online poker that allow for freerolls with play money. The only investments in these games are ego and time. And from a business perspective this seems all fine and well. The company shows off its software, no one’s losing any money, and maybe the players will one day migrate into the pay to play realm, where they playing for real money, you know, real gambling.
All seems well right? Everybody wins. Well that essentially is the boon of the freeroll. That’s the good part. But there is in fact an ugly side.
Since it’s play money, there’s no social consequence. The players enter into what social psychologists and educators call “psychosocial moratorium.” This principle simply states, that people are more prone to act more recklessly, when there is no social or actual consequence. So what do we see all the time?
Rags called, mucks not mucked, 7-2 played religiously as if it were AA. All ins with nothing, or worse, less than nothing. What we see is this, what we see is bad play all the way around. And there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it’s free and people are entitled to play the way they want. The problem we see is that many people first learn to play online poker in these rooms. And all too many times, where we learn and what we learn first, tends to translate over into habit. And habit, tends to follow us no matter where we are. So, what happens to these players after they transition into a live game or an online poker money game? Well, they carry over the loose, maniac play, the play for playing’s sake, style of recklessness that endangers their chipstacks from the outset.
And it’s sad, because, for many of them, they don’t know that they’re playing badly. And they come back to the free rolls, and they win some, and then they are reaffirmed that such loose play is how it’s done. After all, that’s how it’s done “on the internet.” So they get this ingrained, the second psychological principle of play, “positive reinforcement,” Only the positive should be replaced with poisnous. Thus, the vicisous cycle continues. Bad play for free translates to bad habits when playing for money, but it is reaffirmed after they catch a lucky break from winning. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.