The quality of players you are seated against will have a huge effect on the size of your bankroll at the end of an online poker session. For this reason it is smart to try to play the majority of your poker at poker sites that have the reputation of being “easy” or “soft”. This article will look at some easy poker sites and also give you a few tips as far as what to look for when it comes to figuring out if a room will be soft prior to signing up and making your first deposit.
Freerolls
One thing that will draw new players (noobies are usually soft) to an online poker room are the freerolls offered by the room. These freerolls will come in two different forms and each are equally as important for nabbing some fish.
1. Freerolls funded by the poker rooms – These freeroll usually have very large player fields and give out a relatively small amount of money. It will be hard for fish to build their bankroll up high enough through these type of freerolls alone, but if they play enough and get lucky enough they could have the cash available to blow it all away at the $0.25/$0.50 tables where you could be waiting.
2. Freerolls funded by poker forums/poker communities – These freerolls are usually password protected and have a much higher prize pool to entrants ratio. It would not be uncommon for a $100 pot to have only 25-50 players entered. These players will often be slightly better than the freeroll whores that don’t even belong to poker forums in order to enter these lucrative freerolls, but these freerollers will have more money in their bankrolls to lose.
The only problem with freeroller fish is that they can likely only amass a large enough bankroll to play the $0.25/$0.50 stakes maximum or some $10 tournaments. If you go higher the fish will really weed out, especially the ones that don’t like to deposit.
Deposit Methods
If it is very easy to get money onto the site then the site will usually be softer because more individuals will be able to deposit easily. Sharks and professionals will have the connections and the know how to get money onto just about any site they like, but fish (aka casual players) may not want to put in the hastle if depositing isn’t extremely easy. So be on the lookout for poker sites that allow a wide variety of deposit options, such as ukash poker sites, visa poker sites, etc.
Poker Rooms attached to Sportsbooks
Poker sites that have their poker room attached to a prominant sportsbook, that is well recognized in the industry often provide soft poker games. The sports bettors, who may not play a lot of poker, will play for fun on occassion when there are no solid sports to bet on. These sports bettors will need their gambling fix and because they already have the poker room funded they will proceed to lose their money (sometimes at high limits).
Soft Poker Sites
Some poker rooms that are known for being soft include Carbon Poker (lots of freerolls), Bovada (sportsbook players), and Juicy Stakes.
