Pokerstars WSOP Freerolls: Ultimate Donkey Bingo

In the regular MTT freerolls, one can play solid poker, and later catch up to the all-in early donks who hit bingo. But in these 4x elimination games, you have to win your 10-seat table in order to move on. So, when 5 donks push on the first hand, I don't see what else there is to do but push - because you are just going to get beat over the head by the big stack of whoever wins the bingo.

Yeah, quite the donkfest I agree. I tried this out to see what it would be like and when I don't want to play in a money game. Sadly, I get pulled into the donkfest because the play turns me off quickly.

Currently, I'm waiting for the second round to begin, which doesn't start until all tables finish. This game started at 5pm and it's 6:25 and still waiting for several tables to finish up. So if you're on the go, forget about playing since it's too time consuming. Just a heads up.

It took 2 hours to get to the second round this afternoon. Any illusions I had that second round play would be better were dashed the first hand, when some donk raised 400 with A5 offsuit, three donks called with less than crap, and they all went all-in when they all missed the flop. An ace came on the turn, so the original donk won, but the AJ I folded would have been better.

Yeah same here. I played for three hours and I didn't make it out of round 2. Interestingly, I started to doze off in the 2nd table, but was awake enough to play the hands - fold or all in with my short stack. After about 20 minutes the full table was down to 4 players plus a sit out and I had doubled up twice. I understand that PokerStars wants to send good players to the WSOP (granted that placing in the top 10 gets you into a satellite if I undersand correctly), but the time commitment is too much. This would be much better if it were a turbo.

Oh yeah, the hand I busted out on was sick too. 3 handed action and I'm the BB (can't recall the blind level) but I have 9-9 and I shove to a min raise from the SB who has KQ. Flop is K-9-K, then turn is another K. Wow!

So if I had to guess, anyone who plays this will be playing for 5 hours or so to get to the final 10 players. I doubt I'll play this anymore.

I'd put the over/under on making the finals at 7 hours. And I doubt that the players that win the seats are going to be very good. They will have the endurance to play all day though.

Maybe you just got on some particularly bad tables... OR maybe I got on some fortunately not too bad of ones. I actually found them FAR better than any typical freeroll on any of the sites (excluding priv. ones of course). I only saw the allin preflop thing happen on one table in early levels and played a few of them. I personally would never play a reg. freeroll online because I feel the play never gets any better... you can wait there all day for a big hand to play hard and you still get the same crap happening (high blind limpers, call call call..min raise.. call call call... raise it up 5 or 6x.. call call call.. etc.).
I also don't believe the bigstack is able to wield their stack in these....simply due to the bigstack from the early shoves is a bad player and very easy to double thru.
Of the 4 I played, I made it to HU in all of them, took one down and in the other three, once I had opponent outchipped by around 3to1 I told them I'd raise to 1 chip less than their stack... they shove ALLIN.. I fold. I did this with each of them cuz I'd lost interest and also because it actually felt good to give them a break and move onto the next round.

Maybe I had a far different experience from your own.. or maybe I hit them as they were just beginning this promotion... because the play was actually good enough that I suggested to some newer players to go check them out for some free SNG practise.

Okay okay... you might not believe what I'm saying. This is how strongly I feel (felt) about it. The games I played in had play that far exceeded any & all $8 satellite shootouts on Fulltilt...by FAR!!!! Maybe they've changed now??? Too bad if they have.

Hmm.. maybe I should've stuck it out and took a shot at final 10plyrs. Guessing you advance to a freeroll of 12K players for a winner take all seat to WSOP ME. Still.. it'd be pretty cool to get it for free.

Oh yah.. the one where I actually decided to play in the 2nd rd. Major donkings in early levels, lol. Maybe I just got lucky with random table selection in the other's I played???

With many working folks having limited time to await the next round, this type play can be extremely frustrating. Now retired, I simply go about my tasks at home or garden and check back to see if the next table has started. The advantage to this method of competition is the gain in experience for Shootouts and Headsup, which can be applied to cash tournaments. Good Luck.

So the play in freerolls is bad ?

Your point is again ?

I won the first 2 rounds in this yesterday and then had to go out, so I didn't even get to play the 3rd round which was 4 hours into the thing.

If you even make the final 10 to qualify for the Weekly Final...they are only giving away one seat and it's going to be about 1000+ people in the thing.

All these freerolls are big time wasters. If you recognize that up front and stop worrying about playing perfect poker and folding AJ to donk shoves, maybe you'll enjoy it more.

This is so WRONG. There is alot of playing yet to be done. These donks will lose there big stacks. These are not turbos, so you have plenty of time to catch up and knock these guys out. I have found that about half the starting field has not a clue how to play these. Take advantage of that. I think this is one of the better ways to have a freeroll as the luck-i'm all in-donks will not be able to make it to the end.

played my 1st one and prolly last one
everyone finished except for maybe a handful of tables
and finally went out AJo losing to A8s AI PF

that's an hour and 15 minutes wasted

Well I retried again today and won my way into the Weekly final.

For those of you wondering, the play at the 3rd round isn't a whole lot better than the first 2 rounds, even though you have a table full of people who have won 2 rounds.

Also the 3rd round almost plays like a Limit table. Almost everyone limps, like 5-6 people to see a flop. Really kinda funny.