BY TOM SOMACH

As more and more real-money Internet poker rooms either limit their customers bases to certain countries or shut down completely–because of legal pressures–another type of Internet poker room is becoming more and more popular.

So-called “free” poker sites that aren’t really free but get around the law by charging a “membership fee” to join the site and play for cash and prizes are popping up all over the Internet.

One such website–Triplejack (www.triplejack.com)–even goes so far as to refer to itself on its website as a “poker club.”

Because websites like Triplejack are technically not charging players for chips so they may play poker for cash, but instead are charging them a fee to then play free, many such websites feel bold enough to actually operate from the U.S., where laws against online gambling are in effect.

Triplejack, for example, is run from Coral Springs, Fla., while Bet Zip (www.betzip.com), a similar operation which PokerHelper.com previously profiled, operates from San Francisco, Calif.

One thing that makes Triplejack particularly unusual–perhaps unique–is a rule that bans players from confusing poker with roulette.

On a portion of the Triplejack website dedicated to “Triplejack Poker Rules,” an assortment of banned activities for players is listed.

One of those banned activities is: “going all-in on every hand, thus reducing each hand to a roulette game rather than poker.”

A website is free to make and enforce any rules it wants, of course.

But if a game it offers is being billed as no-limit Texas hold ‘em poker, even though players can’t go all-in whenever they want, then it isn’t really no-limit Texas hold ‘em or even poker, is it?

After all, isn’t that the essence of no-limit Texas hold ‘em–that any and all players can go all-in at any moment?

And isn’t that the basis for an excitement factor that no other form of poker holds?

It’s no accident that of all the different kinds of poker that exist, no-limit Texas hold ‘em is the one featured in the main event of tournaments such as the World Series of Poker.

Nor is it a fluke that 99% of the poker-playing you see on television is no-limit Texas hold ‘em.

If Triplejack wants to place a limit on its players who want to play no-limit, so be it. Just don’t call it “no-limit” and then limit it. (E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)