Why Would Anyone Buy Play Chips?

Just saw a post on PocketFives asking this question and it brought back a few good memories. When I first started playing online poker, it was because a friend of mine introduced me to it. I signed up on UltimateBet and, of course, began playing with free chips. I didn't consider myself anywhere near good enough to play for real money and, to be honest, was a little frightened of playing a game against people I couldn't see. The fear soon went away and was replaced by frustration. I wasn't frustrated because I couldn't play the game; I was frustrated because I couldn't find a table where anyone was serious. As I'm sure you're well aware, you only start with 1000 chips and you have to work your way up. The only tables you can buy-in with 1000 chips are pushfests. You just go allin and see who wins. No matter how good you may be at the game, it takes a fair amount of luck to build any sizable bankroll. Well, one night I finally managed to do it. I got on a table and won a few rounds of bingo. Next thing I know, I have about 20k in chips. So, I leave the table and buy into the highest level I can. Over the course of the next couple of hours I managed to turn that 20k into about a half million chips. From then on, I was set. I could play the highest buyin tables and get something that at least resembled a serious game. I got to know the regulars at these tables. We had fun sitting at the same tables, playing a little poker, and chatting. I actually looked forward to it.

So, why would anybody actually pay real money for free chips? I think it's pretty simple. There are a large number of people who like to play poker who simply don't want to gamble (or risk real money if you don't like that term). These people make friends at the tables they play on and see poker as nothing more than entertainment. Of course, most of these players aren't very good. It's hard for them to build up enough chips to play at the tables where the buyin is high enough to keep out most of the riff raff. Once they do build up enough, it's hard to maintain. They go broke quite often. Being a decent player myself, I never went broke once I made it all the way up to the top. I have no idea how many actual chips I won over the course of my free chip career, but it was a lot. At one time I had over 15 million, but I was also constantly tranferring chips to my online friends. Back then, UB would allow you to transfer more than they do now. I don't know if there was a limit, but I would transfer a million at a time to several people a week. I would imagine most of the free chip players don't have a friend who's able to support the bankrolls of their entire little circle. So, instead of constantly trying to make it through the mine field time and time again, why not just buy a million or two for a few bucks? It's just the cost of entertainment. At least, that's why I think people do it. Either that or they're just nuts.