Freerolls - Advice

...in the biginning of a freeroll tournament many players are going all in, but they are bluffying most of them....this part of poker is ugly because they make you fold before seeing the flop...:!

be very careful how you play the first hour of a freeroll, most donks only last that long. then your gonna wanna start to keep an ieye on the rest of the field, compare your chip stack to theres, if its to low you need to start playing, if its abover maybe sit out for a while and take a break.

that is the best advice i can give you man good luck

Play them tight, but when you get the hand be agressive. Freerolls usually
include very loose players, especially in the beginning of the tournament
when a lot of people are going allin and trying to get some chips to start
off with. But dont be fooled, in the later parts of the tournament, a lot
of people play very solid, cause at that point the money is about to kick
in and no one wants to be a looser. Your worst enemy would be tilt
at this point so watch out for that and keep your head focused.

I like that piece of advice (I'll try to add the patience part), but whenever I have spent more than 1 hour in a freeroll, I pray when I have called an all-in, gone into a large pot, etc. Where is the Becoming a Champion Article?

I also like that advice; I did that on the 2nd hand earlier with KK, and no one called, so some people are using your advice

I will not argue with what has been said here. However, my sugession is to get into those private free rolls like the ones this site offers for two imporotant reasons. First, there are less people, and second, for the most part the quality of play is much better.

Practice never hurt anyone, but I urge you to stay away from public freerolls. Get you post count up so you can join our freeroll club. Our CC freerolls play more like a micro buy in tournament. You will still find the maniacs, but there are fewer to worry about.

In public freerolls, the game actually does get better the further you go. It's weird, sometimes when the bubble breaks, it seems to start all over again. People have made the money and start freaking out, going all in like they did at the beggining of the tournament.

The thing is, you do want players playing any to cards(ATC). These are the players that, if you play your cards right, you will make most of your money on. You don't want to be playing good players all the time, but it never hurts to have healthy competition.

You have to make adjustments according to the players at your table. If you have a maniac going all in every hand. It's best to lay in wait for a monster hand and make him pay for it.

If you are at a table full of nits, you can raise almost at will and steal blinds. You should be careful of this, because you will have to switch gears eventually when your opponents catch on to what you are doing.

Many times, the cards don't matter. You can learn to play ATC by watching how your opponents are playing.

For example, say you are in the cutoff with 57clubs. UTG + 2 raises and he's been raising every hand. You can call or reraise him and if you've been playing tight game. He'll have no idea what kind of hand you are on, but will probably put you on something better than his.

If you reraise against a maniac like this, there is a good chance that he will lay the hand down right there and you sweep the chips. If you get a call, watch the texture of the flop. Say it comes 5 2 8, you can reasonable think that you are ahead of him, he will most likely check, not knowing where he is at, weak players usually do. You can then fire out a pot sized bet or more and take down the pot right there. Even if you don't hit the flop, you can still fire out a decent sized bet and probably take down the pot. This play doesn't work all the time. The maniacs occasionally do wake up with good hands.

My point is, you should learn how to play all styles. Don't be afraid to be aggressive. You won't win being passive. There are many lessons that can be learned from losing. The key is to remember those times and try not to repeat your mistakes.

I hope this helped a bit. If anyone has anyquestions feel free to ask, but, keep in mind, I am not the best player in the world. These are just somethings that I think about when I'm playing. Everyone has their own style. Keep making the right adjustments and you will be making money in no time.

thanks for the advice,dont have a bankroll just yet(wife,mortgage,kids)and could do with some freeroll oppertunities.Just love to play (sick of playground money)

I agree, I've found myself playing private tournaments almost exclusively now. It is a better environment all in all.

Cardschat runs freerolls? nice.

Oh and as for freerolls, I was playing them very regularly for a spell. It's a real slow crawl to get anything worth while out of them. There's good advice here already but I want to add that a lot of times you'll be at tables with sit outs so your essentially playing shorthanded and need to adjust accordingly.
The best luck you can get is to be shorthanded with nits in these situations as there's always dead blinds to win.

Dont bother with the 7500 tourneys unless they're turbos... it takes an insanely long time to get in the money, what I like about the turbo 7500 is that it only takes about 3 hours to get into the money (bout the same as the DD), and after the money the thing is basically done in one hour, its easy to fold your way up to the money ladder if ur padding a stack.

The only other freerolls you should play should be the DD and the Ferguson freerolls, top 200 and 100 cash respectively, its only a dollar but the tourney only takes 2 hours max so if you're building a roll it can be worth the wait.

In all freerolls the key to successful cashing over and over is stealing. Its pretty easy to play tight at the beginning and middle and just fold anything but the best of it till the end. The problem is, all the freerolls that are worth playing are turbos, and the blinds and antes can rise really quick at the end, so how do you combat them when you fold 50 hands and the aces you finally pick up give you no action?

Stealing, of course. Winning by stealing is a waiting game, especially in freerolls. Sophisticated plays do not work on unsophisticated players, you have to think like them, but not become them, harder than it sounds, I suggest multitasking early on to relieve boredom, the ending stages is where you wanna pay attention.

When do you know to steal? Late in the tournament only, if you're shortstacked you should never be stealing, when your bigstacked you can steal, but you could just as easily play tight. Medium stack is where stealing is lifeblood. You should always be stealing in position, and you should always be going for the other medium stacks. They're trying to fold into the money and will be throwing away hands like A9 or K7s that they would have called a 3BB raise with because they're donkeys. But even donkeys understand that folding is usually the way to go with a hand like A9 when your tournament life is at risk.

Turbo Freerolls are simple, play tight in the beginning, steal at the end.

Play tight early and aggressive later. There isn't much to say. I had a really detailed strategy for the 2700 freerolls, cashed every 10 or so. These 7500s are insane, you still run into donks with 50 left. I've bubbled twice, but just CANNOT cash. Good luck!

Here is the point of playing free rolls, I dont play for the money but I dont want to spend my money either so I play free rolls to actually win real money and feel like I am at least playing for something more than nothing or play chips. I am going to play anyway so I might as well play for something real and this is more a hobby to me! To your main question, you need to play real tight, everyone else is very loose so you play tight and you my get the bad beats but you will win and just stay tight because later everyone is a lot more tighter, you will always have to take a few chances and win some close ones but I think tight play has gotten me to my wins in the free rolls.

Oh, by the way make a list of hands you willing to call with and call a re raise with and go all in pre flop with etc. and stick with it because I find when I loose I start playing a lot of junk and not concentrating on good play, I generally have of course AA KK QQ and some AK AQ KQ etc combos I will play, I limp on some hands I like but fold easily pre flop to big bets, high cards are best, not to complicated just consistant and at some point you have to get lucky and hit your cards (easier said than done).

Free Rolls are tough to win at there are a whole lot of people that play, you get the donks who shove with anything and you get some good players and you get a iot of sitters. They take forever and you dont win a lot, they are good for practice though and I have had a lot of bad beats while playing them.

Go all in the first hand and if you win... then play like a maniac... then if you win some more... Treat it like a real tournament.

FT has one at 13:40 PM (EST), Carbon has at least 2, and PokerStars has many. As a matter of fact, if you want to play the majority of freerolls at PokerStars, learning Omaha Hi and H/L is a must.

Stay solid at the beginning of the tournaments, then start to try and steal some blinds when they get bigger and people start to tighten up, you should never go out at the beginning of a freeroll. Do not call the insane all ins from people at the start either try and only stick to playing good cards, i wouldn't usually say that for strategy but it is crucial in a freeroll. Do not get frustrated when they keep shuving on you only call them with big pairs and ak.
adsthepro

I have also tried the start loose then tighten up later strategy but, that seems to get me in trouble because I never change gears soon enough to tight and if you get moved around to different tables its very hard to know when. I always get fooled by a big stack who looks like they are pushing and then they really got it, tight tight, one problem with that is you must get cards, so patience is necessarry. Most people dont want to sit around for a long time for a couple of bucks so you end up having an advantage.

I only play the turbos on full tilt, everything else takes too long. Get in with anything like AJ+ or TT+ early on but dont play much of anything else, blinds rise too fast to really try and play suited connectors because you're just decreasing your chipstack for when you really need it on a double up.

If you're playing a regular tournament dollar turbo on FT, they now have 7500 people and 45 payed spots, this makes them extremely hard to just play straight poker with good cards because (especially at the end) good cards dont come fast enough to combat the rising blinds. So you need to be stealing.

Stealing is probably the only way to do well in freerolls nowadays at least at FT. Sitting there for two hours and sitting on your 20,000 chipstack that you got playing only the best starting hands is not going to get you into the money when the avg stack with 45 people left is over 100,000. But when you're getting closer to the money (around 300-200 left) the blinds keep rising and they're big enough to increase your stack without even seeing a flop, especially with the rising antes.

This is where you steal, everyone is playing tight, no one will notice if you're shoving every two to three rounds from the CO or BTN, most of them dont even know where the CO is. They will fold to you almost everything. You dont need to do this much to be successful, every two or three rotations 1 steal will basically keep your stack at the same level, 2 steals will increase it at a healthy pace.

I'm averse to stealing with complete junk but I will if my stack is getting low enough that if i dont people will call me when I move in. You want them to fold to you, and you cant do that if you only have 10% of their own chipstack. My preferred stealing range is suited connectors, pocket pairs, A9s+, it seems like junk, and really it is. But it doesnt matter if they're going to fold to you. If I'm playing late in a tournament dollar freeroll this is all I'm doing, stealing. Several times I've done it perfectly and gone from as low as a 5K chipstack with 600 people left to 200K at the bubble.

A few more tips, avoid trying to steal from shortstacks because they're priced to call you with almost anything, also avoid stacks that are much bigger than you because a bigstacked donkey most likely didnt get there by playing smart and will call you down with almost anything 'good.' You should aim to hit stacks that are no more than twice as large as yours from the button, cutoff or even middle position if you have a really tight table.

If you've been able to steal your way into the money, good for you, if you're playing a tournament dollar freeroll, know that it'll be over in an hour or so. So if you have a healthy chipstack you might wanna just fold everything except good starting hands, if you're shortstacked and dont have this luxury, i would shove with position with anything you were stealing with and know that your opponent will probably not be calling you with much better, after the bubble is really loose play.

There are several other freerolls I play, the DD freeroll on FT and the ferguson freeroll, both last a little less than 2 hours. Top 200 get a dollar in the DD, and 100 in the ferguson get a dollar. These are tough to play because of super fast rising blinds, and you only start with 300 in the DD, but the same stealing principles apply, I've done great and terrible things in these freerolls, stealing is very simple when play tightens up.

One last tip, dont worry about your position in the tournament! Sitting anywhere in the middle of the field is fine, the only time you should be comparing chipstacks is when you're looking to steal blinds and antes. Otherwise dont bother with it.

Two options. Play very tight for the first hour or two., avoid all ins in the first 10- minutes cause you will get 2 or 3 callers. Then start playing regular poker. Other option is to play real loose and go all in with any potential (AA KK, suited connectors) in the first two or three rounds. If you hit, now tighten up and wait for those 2 hours to start playing for real. You now have a good stack to work with (starting in a hour or more). If you loose.. hey you just saved yourself 4 hours of agony and can go play real poker at another game.

As I was writing my piece, I was also playing a tourney freeroll, almost made it to the money out in 50th, I was borderlining a shortstack and tried to steal from the button with K3s and got called down with AT, I think a better skilled player would have thrown it away when I threatened his tournament life so close to the money but this guy didnt want to release and I payed the price, got short stacked then went out when a 6 outer on the river for my next and last opponent hit a few hands later, its a bit frustrating to play for 3 hours and not cash but honestly my reasoning was this:

45th place, 90 cents. 1st place, 18 dollars. With a short stack of 150K past the bubble I would maybe get to the 1.35 dollar level if i was lucky, but with 250K I would be able to probably get to 3 dollars being completely card dead because of the freeroll's quick pace. If I got even moderate hands I could easily make the final table. So remember, sometimes playing to win, even in freerolls can be extremely profitable if you're willing to take the risk.

sweet I was wondering why everyone was all in on the first few rounds in the Full tilt site, same with pokerstars. Patience and supertight for me but do not pay too much attn I am a 1 yr player.
I will get there, thanks for the advice everyone.

I say in the beginning if you get a nice suited connector or big pair I would push and hope to 3x-5x up and play solid/tight until blinds are a factor.. then start stealing from those who wanna cash.. you're not there to win .90c right? you're there to win $18 ! Don't bubble!

i have to disagree with chiefer.

Whats the use of having donkeys at your table if your not going to take their money. donks can suck out but that does not matter, there is a freeroll like every hour or something like that. The can't always suck out. Play loose in the first hour, take their money, (dont play flips) if you have ace jack off, and someone goes all in, you are more likely to win. You can make good money of that. But after all the donks die out then you start playing tighter then before dont go crazy with AK because someone will call you with 55 with a flip because the players that remain are not donks but the are still not all that good.

3rd hour, play tight (and you will not really be close to cashing yet) Ace 10 suited is the minimum what you go to flops in late position. and just keep your stack big.

4th hour, 100 people have to go before the money, play loose, everybody big stack wants to play tight so that can cash, every small stack feels rushed and need to double up and the might go all in with ace jack off if the are desperate, This is for people that want to make deep runs and not just cash and be happy with themselves.

5th hour, by know you should have cashed and you should just wait for people to go, (on average half of the field left right after the have cashed will leave in an hour because the feel good by just cashing) This is where you make your money, wait for the people to say, whatever, i been playing for too long its time for me to leave with what i have.

6th hour, Now you are playing with people that are will be pretty loose because their stack is huge compared to the blinds. Play tight, play pairs, hit a set, The will be more likely to call an all in with top pair top kicker because the feel like the need more chips and if the lose at least the made if far, This is your time to take their money.

7th hour, play tight, Really tight until you make the final table, after you make the final table play tight until the are like 5 people left. and start playing loose so that you chips stack can grow and you can take people money.

Final 3 people, play passive and play risky, its time for you to start going all in with hands pre flop that are just marginal hands like ace jack because the probably dont have you

win.

chances of you doing this, not that much, but if you follow the begining steps of this system you will be making deep runs. (this is for 7500 people freerolls.)