Freerolls - Advice

I just started playing freerolls recently and have yet to cash. Interested in buy-ins in the future, but decided to test my skill and LUCK with freerolls first. Any advice on lasting in the freeroll would be appreciated.

In those 2700 player tourneys, get some coffee or whatever to keep you awake cause they take FOREVER.

Yeah you have to have a lot of patience with those freerolls. Try not to let the blinds take your money. And you need a lot of luck!

Go to the advice/strategy/beginners boards on this site and you will find all kinds of tips for freerolls and any other types of questions you might have.

Since nobody actually wants to give you any advice, I'll give it a go.

First, freerolls are a mad house. they are just ridiculous. You can not and will not learn how to play poker effectively playing freerolls.

second, I feel that you have to look at freerolls as a number of tournaments within a larger tournament. Let me try to explain.

For the first hour, you should play extremely tight, and by tight i mean you are so tight that you couldn't fit a greased BB up your arse. The first hour is generally where most everyone will be going all in with any two cards(ATC). A lot of times, you will see players winning hands with this strategy, but don't buy into it. the majority of these players will be out of the tournament by the first break. So in short, you should fold anything but a premium pair(A's, K's, Q's) or AK, AQ suited. Even if that KQ suited looks just too damn pretty to let go against the idiot that went all in the last hand with 92 offsuit. If you must play a bit looser, only see cheap flops, and by cheap I mean George Jefferson cheap.

Once you've made it to hour two, the tournament actually begins. you will start to see better play almost immediately. I generally compare the second hour of freerolls to the first hour of small buy in tournaments.

you can start to loosen up a bit now, but don't go nuts. Expand your range to AJ, A10 suited, high suited connectors(KQ, QJ in late position) and medium pocket pairs(77, 88, 99, 10, JJ) By now, players have invested enough time in the tournament to actually take it a bit more seriously. Not to mention, the better players are the ones that tend to last longer and go deeper in to large Multi Table Tournaments(MTT).

By third hour, you should be close to the money. Bubble play is a completely different animal. i suggest you focus on making solid decisions on every street, learn to play your position, work on not being results oriented and getting yourself to the bubble before you work on learning how to play the bubble.

I might add that, it would be wise to stick around here. Read as much as you can and play as much as you can. you will find a completely different world of poker exists when you understand and take the time to study the game itself.

Work on getting your quality posts up here so you can join us in our freerolls. you will find that the level of play in our games is much different then the public freerolls.

I hope this helped. If you have any questions feel free to ask here or PM me if you wish. Perhaps later we can work on bubble play and In the money(ITM) play.

Also keep in mind that what I've said here may not be the best strategy, and some will most likely disagree with what I've said. This is just how i approached freerolls in general. If anybody else has anything to add, please feel free.

very well said chiefer. I wouldn't have given any advice because i just recently started to make decent money at it(freerolls) and have to adjust my strategy constantly

Thank you. That is great that you are winning consistently at them. I rarely play them to be honest. Aside from our CC games, I'll play an OFC or one with friends just for fun.

I think it should be said that public freerolls are pretty consistently a donkfest. However our CC games play much more like a small buy in tournament. If a player is going to play freerolls consistently, it would be wise to concentrate on private tournaments such as ours.

On a side note. this should probably be moved to the strat section.

Just as long as you don't shove green M&Ms up your nose up should be fine...
But what the hell do I know, I'm drunk tonight. (not a usual occouracne)

What do yo mean there is no spelling suggestion for the word occurrence?

oh, found it...
ct

Freeroll or other tournaments, take care of tiredness.
That's often with a small mistake at a later stage of the tournament that you get kicked from it.
So, stay awake and avoid these little errors.
Obviously, some good readings about tournament play may give you extremely useful advices

if you can play tight for the first hour or so and only play prenium hands like AA KK then hope to hit some hands later or steal some blinds. then you wont go far wrong in cash tourneys. patients is the key good luck

I shocked by how many replys this post recieved. Thanks guys!

I´d like to say that the key to success is patience. Of course the blind structure has something to do with the playing specially especially if its a short stack tourney. As said above, just keep playing premium pairs until the first break. After that it´s up to your skills.

Sit out the first 5-10 hands so the donks stop going all in

And if its not a turbo play really tight, turbo play looser

As a veteran of many of the public free rolls (never won one but made a few final tables) let me repeat as others have said "they are a complete waste of time". If I knew back then what I know now I doubt I would have played in more then 1 just for the novelty. Even when you make a final table the miniscule amount you win vs the literly 3-5hrs it took for you to get there is just not worth it. Join the forums and play the private freerolls as others have said. If always near broke like me as you improve your game try the microlimit cash games and cheap sit-n-gos. I am actually starting to be able to hang onto a bankroll now and if it continues to grow I will start to look at the cheaper satellites to start actually having a shot at some of the bigger money tournies.

I agree that a lot of the public freerolls (especially on FT) are a waste of time. If you don't want to or can't make a deposit, there are a lot of quality freerolls ($100 or more) out there. I started out playing online in just play money tables and freerolls on Virtual Poker Club (now Doyles Room) and won $90 for taking 2nd in a freeroll, which I was able to turn into a real bankroll.

Cut your hair very very short. This will help prevent damage when you try to pull it out!

If your playing the FTP or Ultimatebet freerolls you are going to be there for at least 5 hours to cash.. Even cashing could be $.10 so there are certainly better ways to make money.. If you want a good chance i would try sit & go's.. $1 sit nd go wont tap you and you have a 3 in 9 chance of cashing..

Thanks for all the advice I know I need It. I always do good untill I almost get to the bubble then i lose. But I am getting better.

Thanks for the advice....I think. I believe a few of them might actually help but I have to pass on the hair cut right now. Pulling my hair out will give me something to do while I'm losing.

Wait out the Donks that just goes all-in. This happens with in the 1st hour of the tournament. If you have a great starting hand, crush the Donks !!! Be very very patient in these freerolls. Like al MTTs, this is marathon to the finish, and not a sprint.

Playing poker is just like playing any other game - you have to consider all of the variables. Those variables should guide the way you play the game. Your game should never change too drastically, but you should be cognizant of the type of tourney you are playing in and the effects that may have on the game, such as the likelihood of less quality hands being played in a freeroll. A lot of times when I play a freeroll, I'll have a great hand, but get blindsided by something stupid, but that's just poker and you just gotta let it go. You have to be confident in your play and not let yourself think you played it wrong because if you got donked then it was most likely just a lucky play from the other guy and you would prob win that same hand 9 out of 10 times playing it the right way with confidence.

I am also in that same situation before and i thought that freeroll is enough and no need to put some cash into it. But after i decided to put some little cash and played , i really enjoyed it moneys are flowing init especially in 9&45 SNG's . where i play almost everday and i increased my bankroll!!!

so i will say put some cash is best thing!!

[quote=chiefer77;1068906]Since nobody actually wants to give you any advice, I'll give it a go.

First, freerolls are a mad house. they are just ridiculous. You can not and will not learn how to play poker effectively playing freerolls.

A very good piece of advice chiefer but i do not fully agree on the above

there are diff. freerolls with ranging form 100 to 10000 people
the smaller ones are very good to learn poker but thats not enough ofcourse. you should also read read read poker books, watch poker shows/internet, play some live games, play real money games etc.

But if you are a beginner just play a lot of different freerolls (little to big ones) and in my opinion these freerolls will help your pokerskills

Since uve got nowt to loose on freerolls then be super aggressive. Start puttin ppl all-in from the start. U cud b that lucky person who knocks out ppl's AK with Q5 or J2. Yep those ppl are annoying but them ppl manage to get a large amount of chips who can bully. Be selective in ur aggression tho. And play patitent too. Watch oppents who can fold and take action against them.

yup you definitely need coffee to get you through. I place twice last week ..... It was a fluke! But I was in fourth place both times and I played till 3am! Oh... the games I played started at 8:40pm. I don't know how long it took the remaining 3 players because I went to sleep....lol. You really need to have patience. Don't let the aggressive players get to you and play premium hands. Especially in the beginning. There alot of all-iners and you don't want to call with mediocre hands. Especially out of position because there's a huge chance someone could go all in and you'll have to fold and keep wasting your chips. Just wait... fold.... and wait... until you have a good hand. Then get as many chips as you can and wait some more.....

I just try to stay patient and not get overzealous especially in the later hands. Patience is key to lasting in freerolls.

The main thing you will get from these mass freerolls will be the ability to practice being patient. You will not start to see much real poker being played until about 90% of the players are eliminated. I have made final tables out of 2500+, you have to commit a lot of time for very little reward, but it is good practice and "free"

Good luck

may be its a good idea go all in at the begining so you double up or goto take a nap insted of waisting hours for the same reward

Normally in freerolls I sit out the first few hands and let the all ins have it out. Usually until the first break I try to make it a point to only see 10% of the flops. The only time I see more than 10% of the flops is if I got a streak of decent hands and my win percentage is pretty high. Then usually with under 400 people left I start playing a higher percentage of the hands and try to position myself for whatever the cut is for the money. Once ive made it into the money I usually sit out the next 8 or9 hands. People seem to start going all in again at the start of the money and lose their patience. Ive had pretty decent luck playing this way but I do wind up on the bubble a lot and spend the last 5 minutes trying to scrape enough chips to make it in.

I ve found that the besty freeroll(most places paid) is on bodog at 240 pm and 940 pm.And its seems unlike on full tilt and others that u wont have 5 or 6 people shoving on every hand.

At the beginning of freeroll tournments there are a lot of all-in players try and let this pharse pass,I suggest only play strong hands.Try and always stay above average and play tight- aggressive poker no matter what don't let your emotions get in the way i lost alot of times because i got mad when i lost too stupid players or and these tournments are long it takes about 5 hours or so.

Do you realize you totally contradicted yourself in your advice, UK? Which is it, start going AI at the start or be selective??

Wow, you've got plenty of advice coming your way. I think patience is a key factor. Practice makes perfect but luck is a pretty big factor also. Good luck at the tables.

It is big difference to play freerolls and Real money game.

Real money - it is more nervous.
Mainly playing NL Texas Holdem Tables

they are long so just stay focus i find myself playing extra tight with low stake and alittle looser with deep stake like calling more often there free