Pre-bubble freezing

I started playing online a few months back with the intention of building up a bankroll without ever depositing, currently up to $80 from zip over 3 sites.

I play a $100 free-roll virtually everynight at FT and have developed a decent strategy for making it through the bubble and landing myself some free $$$ on a regular basis.

I think being a naturally tight player has helped me but the downside is I find myself "locking down the hatches" completely pre-bubble in order to make the cut. This generally leaves me short stacked post bubble and in poor position to make the higher value payouts.

Should I be content in making the payouts as I am or should I be looking to "loosen up" pre-bubble to try for higher payout position and risk not making the cut at all.

I am definitely happy with the $2, just feel I need to take my game up a level, no guts no glory type of thing, I feel my tight play will restrict me when I move out (in my plan) from playing freerolls into playing cash tourneys.

I've only ever once managed to take it beyond the minimum $2 payout to the next level of $3 and in myself don't think thats good enough over the number of payouts I've managed.

Whilst I'm certainly happy to coin in the free $2 I think my long term game may suffer from becoming stuck in a rut with the strategy that wins me that $2.

I think that you should try at least 2 times per week to play more hands before bubble and try to reach higher payout.

I can understand how important is to reach the money for tourneys with buy-in of $10+ , however freerolls and smaller buy-in tourneys should be played to win them.

If you don't have your sights on first place, you will never win consistently. You have to want to win all the time. Don't be content to just cash. What you need to do is learn how to exploit the bubble. Nobody wants to go out on the bubble so it's a easy way to pick up blinds by raising a lot of hands. Don't put yourself in jeopardy if you don't have to though.

Try this. when playing at the bubble. try raising in late position wit any two cards, if you have them covered you will most likely take the blinds and at that point in the game it's pretty good idea to steal the blinds as much as you can.

Google bubble play and see what comes up. I'm sure there are some good articles that you can read.

Bogweed1964 you are learning one of the biggest lesson in tourney play. Go for the win. Play to go deep in the tourney-do not play for the bubble. All the real money is at the top. At bubble time start to steal blinds against the weak players who are waiting for the bubble to bust. Look for opportunity to get chips when people slow down. It's better to make one final table then to make 20 bubbles and then lose.

Play to go deep and not the bubble.

Good luck on the felts.

Thanks for that, it highlights a weakness in my game that will be evident at the table, I'll definitely work on being more "positive" at that point of the tourney, logic dictates that I would do better being prepared to possibly sacrifice a few low payouts for the opportunity of going all the way. Sometimes just need other people to confirm what your inner self is telling you, once again thanks for the advice, hopefully I'll be able to report back soon with a positive result.

Have you read many tutorials on MTT play? If you haven't I'd really recommend reading some. There's a great one up in the articles section here. It sounds like you are doing pretty well already, they'd just polish your game up a bit more. One big thing you may need to work on is changing gears depending on what stage of the tournament your on. The beginning, middle, and end should be played fairly different from each other. Like tpb221 said, when you get to the bubble, you really need to loosen up and build your chip stack up so you have a good chance of getting to the final table, or even winning. Alot of people really tighten up when it gets to the bubble. They know they are close and don't want to waiste all the time they've put in. This is a perfect time to steal blinds, and take advantage of peoples weak tight play. You may not cash as often as you have been, but when you do it will more than make up for it.

well, i believe your dilema is a rather common one at that.
anyway, seeing as you play primarily freerolls, making money should be at the top of your list, not how much you make.
i believe if you can make a regular payout in those 2700 person freerolls (crazy donk-fests), your doing quite well.
i believe that if you want to make more money, just take those 2$ and play the daily dollar touney a few times. you sound like a good MTT player, thus it should suit you well.
if you want to make the higher payout, you need to take chances and steal as many blinds as you can on the later stages.
i play the daily dollar freeroll here and there and usually manage to get that 1 $. i immediatly unregister from the daily dollar and play cash games with it. sometimes i get myself up to aroun 10-15 dollars and thus have managed to build myself a rather nice bankroll out of thin air and a nice dream.
bottom line is, i would recommend you stay as tight as you are, like a crab's rear end. if freerolls are your only way to build up your bankroll, i would focus first on making it into the money rather than how much you make eachn time.
also, start playing private tournaments. i play a lot of them.
they are practically a give-away.
gl 2 u!

No guts no glory!

But be aware they will be some who exploit the bubble along with you and you will need to adjust accordingly. It pays to pay greater attention when there's more at stake. Mix it up accordingly!

Responses here run the gamut don't they?


Seeing as you are building from nothing, you've done very well. Time consuming, but that is the downside of freerolls.

So now that you have a small bankroll, maybe you start moving away from the freerolls some. No rush, but treat yourself to a limited multi-table sng. 45, 90, 180 seats maybe. If you can skip the $1 and $2 games (donkathons) and go directly to the $5 game, the style you describe that you play now will do you well in those.

You will need to start working on that aggression aspect, but don't be in a huge rush, stay near what got you to where you are. Treat the $5 SnG's as an occasional 'reward' for staying on plan. One per week or so. Once you understand the basic differences between real money games and freerolls, you can re-evaluate.

Your problem moving to real money games will be something you won't even realize exists. 'Scared money'. You will not even realize you suffer from the Scared Money Syndrome. You will suffer from it tho. You already do, as evidenced by your batten down the hatches approach statements. Understanding that you are playing with chips and were willing to lose them fast might help, but I'd bet most of the experienced players here still suffer this syndrome some.

Google ICM (Independent Chip Modal) to get some good info about late stage play.

In top-heavy events payouts are pretty flat until the end positions. It's those top places what balloon in payout. Ideally you'll want to hit one of those because that's where the real money is at.

That is, and this is rough but gives the gist of the idea: Going all-in three times on coin flips will lead to elimination 7 out of 8 times, but one in eight times you'll have 8 times your starting stack which will put you in good position to win 10 or 15 or 20 times what you would have.
Again, that's a rough sample, but it illustrates the point. You have to be willing to die in order to live.

However, let's say you get to a point near the bubble where you can fold to a $1 payout, or take a coinflip that will either knock you out with $0 or advance you a little farther down the line (realistically a $1.20 or $1.30 payout). In that case fold to the money, as it's not worth it.

What you need to do is find balance.

Freeroll players are bad for the most part. A good player has a big advantage, so you want to avoid playing big hands that endanger your stack, and instead take as much easy money as you can.
This doesn't mean you should be too nitty though. You should be siezing opportunities as they arise. (Their post flop play is generally really bad, so I like isolating bad players to abuse them post-flop) By the time you hit the bubble you should have a big enough stack that you can bully the smaller stacks that are trying to make the money.

Bogweed, this isnt advice but I play the uk freeroll every now and then and im sure ive seen you there. my FT screen name is ATi 4870. I'm pretty sure it was in the money and you were short lol.

I've managed 4th,5th numerous other 9ths etc. I don't know what my problem is but I suffer from a problem in MTTs that I always bust out while running good and late, wether it has to do with nerves or something I dont know. But it seems as if 90% im deep into a tourney facing a chance of some real money I donk myself out with a stupid play.

Anyway GL and I think your BR could support a venture out of the FRs and into some real money games. I can only echo the great advice given above by the previous posters.

I'd say you are doing just fine, especially since your goal is to build a bankroll from nothing. Are you going to fight through 2,600 people over the course of several hours and then risk a great shot at $2 for an outside shot at $15? That doesn't make much sense to me.

Just remember, when you get away from freerolls and are playing in the low buy-in MTT's, the winner might get several hundred dollars vs. $2 for the bubble. This is when you will find it is plus EV to loosen up and go for the win.

I'm going to go with setting my targets higher, my plan is to start ploughing bank some of my "ill gotten" free bankroll in the new year to try and get it rolling higher, I need to step up my game in readiness.

Not having the best of weeks so far, think i upset the card fairy, was in the minor cent payouts in one pre-bubble, table chip bully went all in, I called with K's (something I wouldn't have done last week), his form had me sure he had little, sure enough he had 78o, he hit the 7 pair flop and set them on the river, if I'd taken it I'd have been nicely placed in the higher payouts and in the right frame of mind to keep up the momentum, but at least I came away confident I'd done the right thing in the circumstances and on another night it would have paid dividends.

Once again thanks for all the excellent advice, oh by the way I qualified for the "Daily Dollar" at the weekend via a 50FTP SnG, didn't realise the final runs at 1.15am UK time, after 2 hours of play I gave up the ghost, needed my bed more than the $$$.

those freerolls are so random so whatever gets u SOME money is a good thing....u can however start like i did on fulltilt which is to play the 500k play chip tournament where u can get 2-5 cash a night and they pay about 30 percent or the field