Suck out. (See pic from the all-in-pre-flop final hand of yesterday's freeroll)
Naw, just kidding.
Luck is involved, but there's a whole lot of room to create opportunities.
Last night I was dealt 7/2 nine times, while statistics say it should have come up 4.5 times over that same hand sample. And I had A/K twice, when it should have come up 4.5 times. Freerolls have a lot of weak players, so there is plenty of opportunity to exploit them.
I don't play a lot of freerolls. When I do I often play less than seriously.
I did hit th FR last night pretty seriously (because I was disappointed in my final table play the previous night in the UB buy-in and wanted to redeem myself).
Early in the game you still have the worst players in the game, so it's a matter of isolating yourself with them and exploiting them. They don't understand things like the value of position or continuation betting.
Often there will be a situation where Player-X limps from middle position, it's folded to me on the button, I raise my 4/5 to isolate, the flop is 8/9/A, he checks, I raise, he folds. I'm only in the pot because I know I can take it post-flop the 2/3 of the time he misses. And sometimes he does have a hand, but I hit something weird like two pair and bust him (then he whines that some idiot raised him with junk and then busted him when he had top pair or an overpair or whatever, whereas I was realling making a +EV play vs people like him).
Or I get in
hands where the opponent keeps min-betting each street (which is weak) so I chase my draw or steal when a scare card hits the board.
Early on, for the most part, I sit back and play tight except when I see opportunity. That is, I'm folding A/J from early position. I'm limping with small pocket pairs from early position (hoping for a set to bust the people who will stack with their top pairs).
In the middle stages it's a lot of the same. Really, there are still a lot of weak players out there. Stealing becomes more important. Stack sizes are a big factor in stealing though. Steal from people trying to hold on to their middle stack, not from desperate short stackers.
By the end, well, the money for the upper positions is a lot bigger than the money for lower positions. This is when you get chips, because it's worth it. (This is true for most tournaments, and something people often miss)
Let's put it this way. Last night's game paid $54 for 1st, #34 for 2nd, and $25.50 for third.
When we were down to 3 we were all guaranteed $25.50. So essentially we were playing for $0 (3rd), $8.50 (2nd), and $28.50 (1st).
So getting 1st place pays us more than triple the difference of getting 2nd place. That is *totally* worth getting into coin flip situations for. Heck, that is worth getting into less-than-coin-flip situations for.
I mean, yeah, you don't want to take unnecessary risks, but you need to be playing for 1st place and if you go all-in and are only 40% to win but are practically guaranteed 1st place if you do win, well, that is a *good* situation to be in.