Better strategy for freerolls?

So I've been reading about the best strategies for freerolls because I routinely get ousted due to bad beats. I was wondering which strategy is better.

The first article I read encouraged playing a little loose earlier with an emphasis on increasing your chip stack earlier. The rational being that it's a freeroll so you have nothing to lose. And once you get to the middle rounds you play more conservative. And the closer you get to the money the more you should attack the small stacks to steal chips.

The second strategy is the more common... It stresses playing tight aggressive the whole way through the tournament only playing stronger hands. The problem with this is that my strong hands almost always get broken.

So I'm asking you all... What strategy works better for you? And how well do you usually fare in freerolls?

I assume you're referring to open freerolls with hundreds of participants. the best strategy is to improve your game the small amount that's necessary to make them no longer worth playing. Aside from that, the next best thing is to accept that because the fields are large and the tournaments last a while, it's relatively unusual to go deep without taking a beat or two. Sometimes, you have enough chips not to bust or be crippled, sometimes not. The tighter you play, the less susceptible your hands are when you do enter pots, but trying to avoid them is an exercise in futility. So just play the best game you can, and don't change it to try to take fewer beats.

They are both good strategies, I definately play loose in the beginning, with alot of calling, especially behind limpers, just to see cheap flops... if you hit a str8 with connectors for example, chances are someone with one pair will stack off against you...sometimes even with AK type hands. Just the same though, bluffs will get called with anything, so don't wory about bluffing, especially early on. And if you get a good chance to gamble early, for stacks, sometimes it might be worth a shot. If you bust, oh well at least you didn't have to play for 5 hrs for nothing, and if you hit, an early double up can always be a good thing. If you make it deep play gets better but not that much. Just try to stay away from coin flips with huge stacks, it still is a freeroll, and you will be surprised what people will call with. Tilt is inevitable, but hey...you have to learn to deal with it somehow.

i had more success doing the waiting game playing tight because u were going to get action when u got something.

the downside of playing tight was sometimes it doesnt work because u dont get anything and ull be forced to play a smallstack game. but if ur playing a regular structured 10m a round, u should be ok.

ur gonna get bad beats because ur playing a whole bunch of ppl who dont know the odds or what they are doing lol. you should try to avoid coin flips, ur ak vs a possible hidden pair early etc. and really focus on the basics like pot odds- like the pot is only 50, blinds are 15/30, should i be pushing all in with 2nd pair? lololol i dont know ur level of play, but it might be hard for a beginner to know their standing in a hand if they play alot of hands early anyway so ur might be at a disadvantage playing many hands with the blinds low, trying to turn a crappy hand into gold.

u could do what phil helmuth does and sit out the first 10-20mins. the blinds are low so u wont really miss anything. the field will probably be cut down to at least 30%. less ppl= better chance of winning.

playing a tight solid game and even some practice playing smallstacked will help ur game a lot and get u ready for more advanced tourns.

gl

At the moment I am doing a challenge with the Full Tilt Poker Academy about M zones, and that seems to be helping my freeroll results.

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Well, I'm a college student who has no source of income at this point in time. That's why I'm playing freerolls to try to obtain a bankroll. The freerolls are frustrating b/c my strong hands routinely get broken by some schlub calling with J4 (or w.e.).

I've actually placed a few times but never gotten first. I placed a few times on both Bodog and Carbon. And I can't seem to place on Intertops. I just wanna win the Bodog $500 freeroll once or twice b/c the money is great. But, I'm getting bad beats right off the bat. For example, I lost with QQ to Q9 suited today in the middle stages because he hit a flush.

Honestly I have to tell you, it is possible to make a bankroll out of freerolls... if you get lucky.

Freerolls are luck, no way around it. Say you get aces, they hold up, then you get kings, they hold up too. Then you get aces again, they lose against JTo or something and you take a knock, then you go card dead, maybe you squeak by the bubble, but probably not in a long freeroll.

I've tried really hard to break freerolls, I've looked at the strategies, but honestly although you can make a few bucks, you're never gonna be able to build a BR from regular freerolls. That being said, the cardschat freerolls on FT are infinitely better. It takes about 2 hours to cash and 3 hours to get to the final table. Speaking as someone had played in 7500 player freerolls, the time to cash is over 6 hours in a normal 10 minute blind increase freeroll. Its just not worth your time and effort.

Stay on cardschat, read, post, and in a few short weeks you'll be able to join in the freerolls and you'll never want to touch another open freeroll.

But do not expect to win easy the CC freerolls Less players but everyone is as good or much better.

Too much luck in them big freerolls, the more you enter the more chance you have of winning basically, of course with all the fish there you can increase your chances of cashing by playing tight, premium hands but of course you will get busted out now and again thats poker!

I've played freerolls for two to three years now, and am just starting to play the 30c satellite tournaments for the BLT or Daily Dollar. It depends whether you expect to be able to play well straight away, or are prepared to grind away at it until you can see that your game is improving. Patience is a big part of poker, and playing freerolls will test your patience to the limits.

This is true, but my point is supported, you can make a few dollars on freerolls, then you have to grind microbuyins like satellites to the DD or BLT to actually build any semblance of a BR.

You would think better quality of play would deter me... but you have to understand that at the average level of play for the CC freerolls, its very predictable. Don't get me wrong, we're all way better than the average freeroller... but it almost makes it easier.

I guess an example would work best... someone raises UTG in a freeroll at any time in the tournament, you have no idea what they have unless you've had them on the table for awhile. Literally, I've seen freerollers raise from anywhere with stuff like 55 or A4o. You see someone in a CC freeroll raising UTG at any time, you respect it, you can define a very thin range to it, two face cards or 99+ at the least.

Once you get the hang of them, the only thing holding you back from cashing is variance. Sometimes your kings or queens run into aces when you shove, sometimes your flush is beaten by a higher flush... or you go card dead. I play a very simple game, but it works pretty damn well in the CC freeroll.

I could and do play the same game in a normal freeroll... I would most likely do very well... but the bubble is too tough to break. Simply put, you need to get lucky to get over it... in CC freeroll, once you know what you're doing, you need to not get unlucky.

Yea I've been looking for some good freeroll strategies/tip too. I've just been getting a lot of bad beats and then almost getting in the money playing for hours and then BOOM Lol Im out just like that. I have a lot of patience and skill but I need more.

Highlighted relevant bit.

hmmm,well i would go with the 1st strategy since i dont wanna be a short stack sitting ther for 6 hours and getting nothing so i build my stack well (in the top 20%) by playing agro and then i tighten up and play strong hands mostly and before the bubble if i have a good stack i get very loose and bully short stacks and stay away from the big ones and then if i'm lucky i cash or get FT...

I like the first strategy better. It makes you more of a participant, and you have to be active in knowing down when to lay your hand down.

A key part is playing position. You should be most active in late position generally, especially against a tight table.

I would go with the 2nd strategy, not because it's a freeroll, but because survival is the key, then even if I get short-stacked, I have the answers for how to play with that stack. Not that I think it's the better strategy, just that it's the one that works for me.

Strategies that may be best.
Relying more on player and table texture will advance you further then a set of guidelines and rules on freeroll play.

The problem is you are playing against players making poor decisions through out the tournament.
Therefore logical and correct decisions on your part will not necessarily yield winning results. More often then not it may lead to frustration and disappointment.

Learn what you can from Freerolls but don't let frustration and disappointment taint your derision making abilities and outlook on the game of poker.

Well put, and by far the best answer of this discussion

+10!
Nuff Said!

Play tight. Trap the donks, and you should be successful at freerolls. Don't expect to win every freeroll you enter, you will get sucked out!

I find the best place to start from zero to something is Everest. They got 10c limit holdem sngs. You can get started very easily there. Yes the money is small and its limit, but you will probably be playing against 8 fish and one decent player. Hit a staight or a flush on the flop and you'll get raised/reraised by 5 ppl holding a pair or some longshot draw all the way till river. Getting to 30-40c in one day (multitabing) is hard work but you will get there if you just stay solid.
Then you can work your way up to NL 10c sng's, double/triple up sng's etc...

I started from nothing 4 days ago doing just that, now got 7$ and playing 6-table, 50c double up sng's

They got 10c limit holdem freeroll sngs

strategy for freerolss... "hope the bad plays with bad cards your ooponents play actually dont hit when your allin."

best strategy is to play T/A and get all in with AA & KK and try to steal a lot, sometime you will find yourself in a table AFK all of them, sometime just 1-2 players of 9, so when you take them out, it's all yours to get some chips.
When you make some, close to bubble play more aggressively.

I love freerolls, especially here on CC, great players, great people, had a fun playing on CC.

You have 2 realise public freerolls are always a donkfest. Play tight as possible and as it progresses most of the donks will be out. Hopefully.

i suck at free rolls sometimes i will make it and win a few bucks but when i take a bad beat i get so mad i tilt

Big field freerolls are not worth the time, but private freerolls with 100-300 participants can be lucrative. In big fields you have to gamble / get very lucky and play for so many hours. The smaller ones are like normal tournaments, decent play and good chances of a prize.
I play in freerolls like i play in MTT´s with buy-in.
But you also can gamble early, because you can´t lose money in freerolls, only time. Good luck ! :-)

Both strategies are acceptable. I will play either way depending upon how I feel that day. No matter how you play, you will often be ousted by bad beats. Either way, big freerolls are indeed a donkfest and luck is heavily weighted in determining the outcome.
I remember reading a article, I think it was on FT by Phil Gordon. Anyway, the upshoat was, even if you went into each hand a 2:1 preflop favorite, over the course of a large tourney, the probability is very good that someone will suck out on you.....there are just too many hands and luck becomes a huge factor. So just realize that and roll with the punches.

I see a point that was only lightly touched on but bears repeating.

Do not bluff on a freeroll.

Bluffing is all about indicating you have some kind of specific hand. The trouble is that your playing against many people (present company excluded of course) who have no idea what hand they have so how can they possible know what your supposed to?

I've played a some freerolls and built my meagre bankroll from it and the amount of time and effort and tears it took makes me stay within my current BR as I never want to go through that again.

I do not think it matters if you play TAG or LAG earlier. Your not really in a game where you can exploit tendencies of your opponents except to know that when you get the nuts you will likely be paid off.

The only strategy is determination and patience.

I will call 2 or more allins with almost any 2 cards the 1st couple levels because you are usually getting good odds, and alot of freerollers will shove with very little, if i get knocked out i have wasted only 10 to 20 minutes but if i triple up two or 3 times i have a much better chance to go deepand then i tighten up but play premium hands very agressively. I made 5 final tables that i remember with 3 top 3 finishes playing this way.I have read a few good books that helped me with the actual playing late in tourneys and i havent had to play any in quite a while because i moved on to small to medium buyin MTT and have done pretty good so my bankroll is all good now, one of my favorite books is the full tilt one by there pros it helped alot, gl at the tables!!!

OK, everybody talks about the CC freerolls, well where r they? When do we start?

I'm sick of those 7500ppl freerolls man. There is no rationality whatsoever. Nobody plays poker there until ur down to about 500ppl. If u ever get there...

http://www.cardschat.com/f31/announc...l-club-145133/ (http://www.cardschat.com/f31/announcing-cardschat-freeroll-club-145133/)

^^^^Thank You

The best you can do is try the national freerolls (while there is a donkeyfest there too) but at least you ve to face 800 people and the first 20 cash , i ve made some cash there and then i played 0,01/0,02 plo cash games , i think that donks there will pay you a lot more than in sng´s or tournaments

I like the latter of advice. Play your best right from the start. Play tight. Wait out a couple of few blind levels but always play your best abcpoker. Play freerolls just like you were playing for cash. Otherwise you will bring bad habbits to the real cash tourneys. And yes the bad habbits will haunt your bankroll. Trust me on that one. Goodluck in turning a buc.