Downloaded My First Online Poker Site…Now What!

After finding the right online poker site, you finally decide to download, install and play some poker. I can trust that you found the download button, it is every where, real big on all the home pages. It may annoyingly pop up at you while you are reading or even follow you around as you scroll and peruse, but hidden it is not. Installing is just as easy, find where you saved the file you downloaded, double click it and let it do the rest.

So after a few minutes of anticipation, the screen comes up, loads the initial screen (usually lobby) and all of a sudden you wonder what you got yourself into. Banners, maybe the latest happenings and promos scrolling across the screen, a bunch of tabs with different games and you haven’t even looked at the menus yet. I thought they mentioned playing for free on the main site also, where the heck are those tables? Don’t worry, let’s walk through it.

First thing you have to do, whether playing for real money on BodogPoker or play money on PokerStars.net, is set up an account. To do this you need to find where the “New Account” button is. There is no way to pin point this for you because every one has it some place different in the lobby. Must have one in their lobby for new players but if not you can usually find it in the menu bar at the top of lobby or can push login and it may give you the option to sign in or register.

Once at the registration page, you will have to create a player name and password which you will use to login to the site so keep it handy, and some basic information about yourself. If you downloaded just to play for free, this is all you do. Once you have submitted all the required information, you will end up back at the lobby. You may have to login in with your new name and password.

At this point you are back at the same lobby window you were before. For play money, each site gives you chips to play with, they have no value and can be gotten anytime you run out. Most sites it is in the cashier, that you can see how much play money chips you have and a button to “re-load” the chips if need be. Finding the play money tables is well beyond the scope of this article, each site seems to do it different. I will assure you though you will not be able to “accidentally” sit at a real money table. If you do click at a real money table at FullTiltPoker.com you will be asked to deposit and sent to cashier window, just cancel out and look so more.

You will notice that the table is listed in a window in the lobby and one of the categories is Type. In that row you need to find Play or Fun and those are the play tables. Some sites even have a different background color to distinguish them. Enjoy and good luck. There is one caveat: There is not much educational value beyond getting use to the online experience and the game buttons by playing the play tables. Everyone knows if they run out of chips they can get more and play accordingly.

If you want to play with real money there is only one extra step. You need to go to the cashier window and sign up with one of the many ways each site gives you to deposit money with them.

Every site also utilizes a support team that can usually be found under the Help menu at the top of the lobby. Most support staffs are very helpful but like anything, there are fluctuations between sites on how fast and accurate the support is. Support can come in minutes, hours or even days depending on how good and how busy the site is.