Something to watch for in a mega-freeroll

Hey all,

I read this somewhere on CC, but I thought it was worth reiterating because I tried it last night, and it worked! I played in a 7,500 person freeroll and finished in 58th!

In the beginning, a lot of people aren't even at the table, so a bot plays for them. The bots *always* fold if someone raises. So, once you figure out who the bots are, you can *always* steal their blinds with a min raise.

Near the beginning of the tourney, I tripled up with AA all-in. That put me at 4,500 chips. But at the end of the first hour I had 10K clips from blind stealing. It was just me and one other player stealing blinds, going head to head every so often. Then a third player joined us. It was like playing three handed but with free chips every so often. If no one raised by the time it got to the third player, the third player just did a min raise and took the blinds. It was very cool.

Anyhow, just thought I'd share that as it really helped in the first hour or so work my way up the ladder. I'm not sure if I would have even thought of it had I not read it here on CC.

Thank you CC! And enjoy those mega-freerolls everyone!
-Dave

they aren't bots...

its just people sitting out, it just doesnt say sitting out in tourneys

It's people sitting out -- and you can tell who they are by looking at the hand history on the replay screen. It's both a little annoying and very nice that people are not there to hold on to their chips.

It's great to collect those chips and build up your stack for the run later in the tourney, but alas, those folks get blinded out and a big stack takes their place.

OK, OK, so they're not quite "bots". But they're not just sitting out either. They can technically win hands when in the BB position.

In FTP, is that the "Last Hand" button in the upper left hand of the screen? There are none of these "sitters/quasibot types" right now, so I can't test it on them. Will it actually indicate that they're not there? Wow, if so, I'm going to start using that feature!

Thanks for the advice! It seems there are always answers on CC!

-Dave

True, especially something like the country freerolls on fulltilt where people will sign up 24 hours before and forget about being in the tourney. You get lots of people timing out. Also note that these players start to drop finally in the 300-800 tourney positions, so if you've got 800 people left, wait a few minutes, and a few hundred ghosts will be gone.

i think i was in the same tournament

Not that big of a problem if you understand what is going on. I will say it is annoying at first until the blinds go up and the field is reduced, and, the real poker starts. Nothing like scooping up a few blinds to get your stack to a size where you can manage your risk and placement in that tournament.