FreeRoll strategies

I'm looking to change my FreeRoll strat. I use to play real conservative waiting for the idiots to knock themselves out and than out play the good players. But the problem with this is while everyone else is making a large chipstack I'm folding borderline hands. by the time I'm ready to go at these players it's to late and their chip stack overtakes me.

Yeah this is true and this is why you need to play pretty loose I think. Always go all in with really good hands early on, hoping you can get an idiot to call you and then double up. Once you get around three times your starting stack doing this, I recommend playing really tight and waiting around after the idiots are gone.

i try to play loose because you really do need to be one of those players with a dominating chip stack to stand a shot

this is very challenging thing that i ahvent quite figured out yet... you must play very tight in the beginning because if you dont you will get busted on a crazy guy going all in with nothing and pulling the miracle hand. But yet u must play very aggressive because i am one to tell you i can usually make it down to like the top 50 in about every tournament i play in but the key is to win it or at least place in the money and the trouble i ahve is having that big chip stack going into the final 50 poeple im usually coming out from the bottom

Actually guys I have had a lot of free roll success and i normally go afk for at least the first 30 minutes of any free roll...i know in theory it doesnt sound like a good idea but early on you do not lose much from blinds and the retards who make excessive raises that sometimes push you out of playing a decent hand cannot steal your bets...everyone has their own strat and trying to double triple up early is cool but its not consistent...plus always remember chips that come fast leave fast so if you have success make a preset line and dont cross it because theres a fine line between being on tilt and being on a tear

In the early stages, just play solid hands. By this I mean only play high piocket pairs (JJ-AA) for a raise, and call with lower pocket pairs in an unrasied pot. Also, only play big connectors such as AK or AQ, stay away from hands like J10 and QJs early on unless everyone has limped in and you are on the button or something where you are getting crazy pot odds.

Actually playing tight or loose does not really matter in online poker. I have personally come across cases where I am in the hand preflop with AA and have gone all in and another idiot goes all in with 36 and manages to make a full house. This is a basic flaw in the online poker where the cards are generated randomly each turn , and not placed in a shuffled ordered like with a real deck, and I think that is amajor flaw and if you guys notice , 90% of the time even if you have a very good hand , somebody with alarge stack would always win even if they went in with ahand which is inferior to you. Don't believe me then check it out next time.

i just played in one and was very low till i hit the top ten then ended up finishing 4th so i dont know but that was the first time i accually did good inb a freeroll

In Doyle Brunson's book Super System, Doyle writes about playing aggressively. Example, after raising pre-flop, 90% of the time you should bet after the flop, even if you completely missed.

If a player has been calling you all the way (with your aggressive play as mentioned above) and a 4 flush or 4 straight shows on the board, it would be a good time to bet at it hugely, because the other player may have simply had top pair.

Play suited connecters as much as you can for as cheaply as possible, because when they hit, you can take your opponent compltely by surprise.

Never slow play Aces, Kings, or Queens, because if you do, a mediocre hand, like suited connecters will play and could bust you for all your chips. A raise pre-flop with these hands will force out the drawing hands that could be your undoing.

Doyle's super/system seems to apply to playing against people that are at least decent at cards. In the freerolls, I've noticed that people will frequently call another guy heads up with just a flush draw for all their money, or even make the raise all-in with that flush draw. So in the freerolls, if you bet at a pot when a 4 flush or 4 straight is showing, no matter how much you bet, you stand a decent chance in the early round of being called.

unseasoned poker players are there for the early lead and never think of th elong haul.

actually since the explosion of TV poker i am skipping most freerolls and playing the lower buy in tournamnets 5.50 or less while granted you do get bingo players in them they tend to play more "real"

find the aggresive players first. observe for awhile you'll usually find some of them earlier. attack them with good hands. or call them then bet firmly toward the end of the hand they will usaully fold.

what are freerolls i have never played in one, are they harder than regular games to win. Can anyone play in them?

i play the same way you do but at the start of a tourney i am more likley to play looser until the blinds get too high.

eric

There is the arguement that you should play more loosely when the blinds or bets are low. I don't agree in tourneys. Play nothing but premium hands IN POSITION early. Wait till the blinds mean something then play your normal style. It just is not worth gambling when there isn't relatively anything to gain. Wait till when the bets mean something that is where skill comes into play. yes there will be a few looney toones who get up big early but usually you can handle those players if you don't run out of time. btw I ran out of time in out pokerstars final 2day

Ask 10 different poker players for a good strategy and you'll get 11 different answers. Seriously you need to find "a" strategy that you can stick with. Playing loose or playing tight in the bigging will get you through the first break but the real strategy needs to be in your end game. Plently of people can say they've made it to the finaly rounds but fewer people can truthfully say they have won the tournaments. Dealing with the deadbeats in the beginning its dealing with the pros at the final table who actally know what they are doing that is the difficult part to me because they know how to set traps and how to avoid them. Personally I'm a big fan of playing tight but using table presence at key points against small stacks. I have heard people who say I don't bluff it never works" well if you don't bluff in poker then you arn't a very good poker player. The fact is you just can't get the cards ALL the time and if you do then you are one of a kind (and a liar) you have to learn how to push and know when your bluff is being called and get out of the way and not end up trying to bluff a winning hand. Sometimes the cards just don't go your way. I've had several losses at the final table that you couldn't have paid me to play differently, flo a full house only to loose to a higher full house on the river etc there are always horror stories but you can learn a lot by just playing. Best of luck in the tournies

-capax

I am in the same boat as you ren, i play really tight and then i am dominated by others chip stacks. I am going to try to play a couple freerolls loosely and then i will post back to you and tell you how i do. Talk to you then.

i get disgusted when people decide first hand after waiting since the start of registration to go all in, that is not good poker until the blinds get highter imo

eric

yes i agree with the number of posts here some of freerolls are annoying as people either sit back and wait till more people are out before playing or they go all in and spoil it for therest on the first hand

i think i might attempt one or two freerolls using some of other peoples tactics just to see how i get on i just wish i could get close wish me luck lool

My strategy(in holdem) is to call almost everytime preflop. The reason for this is that anything could come up. ANYTHING. So except for 27 off...ill call unless a raise. It is a decent startegy considering you only waste big blind if you dont catch anything and if you do catch something then....well....you cought something lol.Try it

At the start you have to play agressive and try to win the pots but then later when you have i big chip stack you begin to play tighter. That is the strategy that i use anyways.

this advice seems to apply more to cash games than tournaments. in cash games losing a huge all-in bet can actually be productive so that you get more action with your solid hands when you re-buy. in tournaments losing one big all-in bet means the end of your tournament

I like the post about someone saying that if you ask 10 different poker players for a good strategy and you'll get 11 different answers. This is true -- you do need to find your own strategy but isn't the whole point of this post to say YOUR strategy to help other people adopt one?


That being said... I'd say that the way I like to play freerolls (and I don't like to play freerolls) is to be real tight in the beginning and only play premium hands. I don't remember who said it, one of you Freeroll #1 Winners, but that's how I play it too... The pots just aren't worth that much to be throwing away money. Wait till you have a killer hand, then play it. This way you know you will probably have the best hand entering the flop and if it goes your way you are in for a big chip increase. This is the time when you double up early when your big hand catches a big flop.


Man I love those little smileys... Basically you have to hope for a good hand to double up on early to get a decent chip stack. Once you get established you can see more flops and take down more pots, increasing your hand. This is because the blinds are now starting to increase so less players are seeing flops and you can bet out lower stacks preflop with raises with less than premium hands.



Once you start doing this, fold to hands where you aren't the strongest because you want to keep your chips, not gamble. You only gamble against short stacks that won't significantly take down your chips. If you have 5 times as many chips as someone, calling his all-in isn't a bad idea (depending on your hand of course). Just try and accumulate as many chips as you can -- meaning don't throw them away!!! If you can do this, then you will start to get later and later into the freeroll and find yourself among the best players (or the luckiest). You can't avoid a fish or two having plenty of chips later -- so always keep an eye out. After this it's all about your skill as a poker player taking you to the finish -- and I can't tell you how to play this part.



--jomega--

i will try this out, thank you for the tips

the averaage chip stacks in freerolls literally change every second, so u want ur stack toto increase consistently to keep up. With nothing to lose in them, u gotta be more aggressive at the table.

T.J. Cloutier in his book "Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold 'Em" with Tom McEvoy makes a great point that I try to keep in mind in ANY tournament situation, whether it's a freeroll or a cash buy-in.

"It's all about survival."

You can't win if you don't make the final table. His goal in tourneys is single-minded: to make each break with more chips than he had at the last one. One chip or a thousand chips, it doesn't matter. Just be patient and add to your stack. Stay away from hard decisions. Muck the coin tosses. Put the pedal down on big pairs ONLY. In short, keep it simple. Takes a lot of pressure off your game.

P.S.: I read "Super System" and tried Doyle's philosophy of "attack, attack, attack", and "stab at a lot of pots". God bless him, he's The Man, and he's made millions, so far be it from me...but I nearly went broke. I prefer slow and steady to constant skirmishes.

Even though it didn't cost me anything I still think there is alot of pressure to deal with because money is still on the line.

Yeh i had a bad beat on the full tilt tourney today did terrible. Had top pair n he got trips. Then same guy cought jacks on the river to beat me. Every week is a new strategy but mostly i just call alot cuz u never no wut cuold come up...especially at full tilt.

I think strategy depends on the number of players and the pay out structure. This is probably obvious. My strategy is if the pay out is only to the top 10 or so--i'm forgetting about the ones where 100th place nets .50--then you've got to get up early. I've spent far too many hours widdling away my time waiting for good hands only to be slowly widdled down and never reaching the money spots. I figure go all-in every decent hand you get early on, try to double and triple up as early as possible to give you more breathing/waiting room in later rounds. You've got to get a big stack early or you'll lose. This is especially true in any tournament, but even more so for freerolls with 6000+ players.

I read an article by Mike Caro on Multi-table Tournament Strategy. He said that the number of players in the field and the quality of the opposition are factors, but it's important to remember that the one thing that never changes is poker percentages. KK is still a big pair and you still don't try to draw on the river with two outs. Don't get so hung up on grabbing chips in the first hour that you make bold moves with weak cards. On the subject of aggressive vs. passive play in the early rounds, he believes that the low blinds are a good time to play more of the marginal hands that you might muck later on. But initiating an all-in with J 9 is probably not a good idea.