Starting Out: Full Tilt Poker

I tried doing a search but it didn't go too well. Anyway, I'm just starting out on FTP and I'm really confused. Can anyone give me a quick explanation on how best to start of on a poker site, explaining what tournaments to enter etc... I see you can enter Play Money tournaments? In my eyes, I don't see how there's no catch. Do you really play with no money? And I'd like to start playing free rolls but how do I enter these and do I need to deposit anything beforehand.

Thanks in advance.

The catch with play money tournaments, is that you just win more play money, so its pointless really. If your starting off with no bankroll and dont intend to deposit then freerolls are your best bet. I wouldnt worry about cashing out yet, trust me if your going the route of the freerolls then you have a nice grind ahead of you.

Best of luck.

Also at Fulltilt the freerolls fill up in a matter of minutes, if your gonna play them be there when the registration starts or you`ll never get in,, if you win money in a freeroll, you have to have deposited first, in order to get your money out.. gl>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. buck

i would start w/freerolls as you try to learn the site/players. it's a great way to practice, but the difference is that people play very differently. much more loose and aggressive.

play money games i think are a waste of time. unless you can sell play money chips which apparetnly, someone on this board was doing.

buck is right; FT freerolls are available to register 40 mins or something before they start, but registration is full after about 2 minutes so essentially you have to be sitting there waiting to register. Then after and hour or two of playing I get eliminated and have yet to collect any cash there that way.

I only bother if I'm at the computer already and doing something else anyway.

On other sites the freerolls fill up less quickly; every site is different.

that's true, i'd try freerolls somewhere other than ft where you don't have to be hovering over the computer right when registration opens. i just opened a bodog account, and it's a little better.

Thanks guys. Right now I only really want to play for fun and I'm not looking into making deposits. To be honest, I'm a student right now, saving up for my second year in uni in September. I'll start playing free rolls and thanks for the advice about registering.

Ta guys.

ya, if ur really only looking for freerolls? id go with the full tilt and bodog cardschat games. im playing my first bodog as we speak and i might make it into the money! hopefully you'll do the same

How often are they on?

There's nothing wrong with playing freerolls. I recommmend them. They're great for getting a feel for how the cards play out. You can learn alot about how NOT to play, which is just as valuable as knowing how to play. Some of the best tournament players here grinded it out in hundreds of freerolls before moving up. Full Tilt has never really catered to the freeroll crowd. They have a few dailys, but as Buckster pointed out, they fill up fast, and they're really not frequent enough to accomodate most peoples scheduals.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but Absolute used to have a $50NLH freeroll starting almost every hour. Also, Cardschat sponsers many private freerolls for it's members. Take advantage of these as the quality of play is light years ahead of what you'll find at the promotional freerolls available to everyone at most poker sites.

GL

They have 6 or 7 freerolls a day with a prize pool of $100. Top 27 get paid and usually last 4-5 hours. Also, these freerolls are either no limit holdem, pot limit omaha hi, and razz.

You're refering to Absolute?

i'm guessing full tilt. they have allthose different games.

Yeah full tilt has all those poker games also forgot horse as well. They have on full tilt poker and usually in the beginning of these tourneys there are a lot of alliners.

I missed out on today's free roll (just) so I decided just to play a play money tournament to see how I'd get on. Currently at the final table with 6 players left. I got 39,058 chips to 1st place with 59,000. Good fun. Players that play play money are idiots lol.

I saw someone mentioned earlier that freerolls on FT were a great means of understanding the competition on there. That my be try on the smallest of micro-limit tables but normally in those freerolls, half of your table will jump on the all-in boat as early as possible. People play overly aggressive like crazy. Just wait ten minutes and look at the leaderboard, someone will be near 10k in chips by that point.

Finished 2nd out of 90 in the play money tournament. Hopefully I'll have similar luck when I play my first free roll.

Hopefully But 2700 Takes A While Longer Start Off Tight And Be Patient With Them And Ul Do Good

Heres an enticer.

Once you get to 500K play chips at Full Tilt, you get access to a $40 freeroll with way fewer people in it. You will only see these if you have 500K play chips, this is why play chips can be bought or sold.

I am taking this info on faith as I do not have 500K play chips. There is a thread floating around that has several posts about it.

Yes, you can win real money without depositing any real money.

i started on pokerstars with play money . After i hit my ist mil i sold them . I'm back to play money shooting for my 2nd mil. I also play freerolls on full tilt

I've tried most of the US friendly poker sites, and I am a bit of a freeroll whore. More on the FT freerolls late in this post.

Playchips on FT are good for a couple of things. First they are a way to learn your way around the software. Second they can give you a basic understanding of bankroll management. But you have to take them fairly seriously. If you are a good player you can advance pretty quickly to the 10,000 chip games and above. Play at the 10,000 and 100,000 level is pretty good, some say comparable to mico-limits.

Once you get above 1 million in chips you can sell them or enter into the 500,000 playchip about 8:00pm ET which has cash prizes.

As for the $100.00 freerolls on FT, there are 6 for NLHE (all times ET); 7:40pm, 11:40pm, 2:40am, 5:40am, 9:40am, and 3:40pm. There is a Razz, Omaha, and occasional HORSE usually between the 3:40pm and 11:40pm times. In addition Ft has been running for the past 3 weeks a $1,000.00 superturbo on Friday evenings. The NLHE events have a max field of 2,700 and the others except the superturo field of 5,000 are 2,400.

To make a sign up for the more popular time NLHE freerolls you have to already have the tourney lobby open and be-ready 40 minutes before the events starts. If you are on a loptop you want to forgo trying to click the right boxes and click on register then spacebar enter. During the week the 2:40am if open for around 5 minutes and the 5:40 sometimes goes off unfilled.

I had never played NLHE before March of this year and have accumulated a bankroll of over $22.00 from freerolls alone.

The forum private freerolls are the best thing going in freeroll land! Usually the field is smaller. Today's CC FT freeroll only had 480 entrants, in addition most payout the top 10% of entrants. The nice thing about this is you can play a sound tourney strategy and even if you suffer a couple of bad beats late you still get a little something for your time.

Besides CC there are a couple of good forums that hold private freerolls. I will not break T&C by listing them here, but feel free to private message me if you are interested.

Freerolls IMO are the best way to learn the game well and build a bankroll with no risk.