T
ThunderPT
Rock Star
Silver Level
Since I never had the intention of making a deposit since I started playing poker, I've always been mostly a freeroll player. Even after becoming a more serious player (I mean, after I decided to start reading books and register in forums like this to become a better player), getting an initial bankroll through freerolls was always my goal.
Since the fall of last year when I first started playing poker, I've played TONS of freerolls in plenty of different sites (I have 13 installed in my computer right now). I've always had more or less an idea of which freerolls had the most value, we don't need to make any calculations to know that the Full Tilt Round 1 Freerolls aren't worth our time, but today I was curious and decided to actually put it all into numbers and see how each of the freerolls I played stacked up against each other.
The two deciding factors are, obviously the prizepool and the field size. I ignored other less quantifiable factors such as the quality of the field (we're talking about freerolls anyway, even if we could quantify this I doubt there would be any difference) and number of sitters.
For the tournaments that have variant number of entrants I used the numbers I could get now from finished (but still visible) and running tournaments (making an average in case I got more than one). Since my sample size is very small (just one example for some tournaments, really) and since it's Sunday, the number of entrants I used may not represent the usual turn out of the tournaments, but the difference in the expected value between tournaments should still be close to the truth.
With the number of entrants in a tournament we can get the probabilities of finishing in each position of the tournament which I assumed are all the same. After this, we could use this formula:
EV = P * ITM * PP
P - Probability of finishing in each position
ITM - Number of places paid.
PP - Prizepool
The tournaments included were only NL Hold'em ones and had to be completely restriction free. No new depositors or similar freerolls were considered. This little exercise is targeted for players who want to start a bankroll and can only play open freerolls. For the same reason, no party poker freerolls were considered as they require a deposit for players to even have a real money account. I also only included freerolls I played in the past, so there might be better freerolls out there at sites I never tried.
So, without further ado, here are the results:
1. intertops Poker: Sunday 1k Freezeout Satelite
With no surprise to me, this one took the crown of best freeroll between the 13 I analyzed. If a lot of people read this, it might easily not be for long since it's value comes from the ridiculously small fields. These satellites run twice a day and the top 3 qualify for a freezeout tournament on the next Sunday with a $1.000 prizepool. The cool part is these satelites usually have only a 100 to 130 players field AND the Sunday 1k have around 40 players. It's insane, this freeroll leaves the others waaay behind.
2. Purple Lounge: $20 Freeroll
Not that big of a prizepool, but fields of around 150 players make this freeroll one of the most profitable out there. Even when I was a total fish I was making more money at Purple Lounge than at any other site. You might not like the selection of games, the 10 handed tables or just the purple color and not want to play there afterwards but with a withdraw limit of only $20 you can always make that amount, cash out and put it at your favorite site. There are 3 of these every day.
3. bodog: $500 Freeroll (with re-buys)
Finally a well known site! Also not a surprise having the biggest prizepool of a tournament that we can enter directly, despite the fields of around 4.000. It can be very frustrating as only the top 63 get paid, I've finished in the top 100 without cashing twice, I know how it feels. But this is about the long term and when we do cash, it's not for 10 cents.
The possibility of re-buys and add-ons kind of go against the assumption that all players have the same chances of finishing at all positions but since not that many players use them, I decided to include this freeroll anyway.
4. Celeb Poker: Cash Crazy $33
The number of entrants will be around 300 and 350, gotta love small fields. The top 3 get paid for $11 each, which is really a weird payout structure. There are also re-buys and add-ons in this one, but again, very few players use them.
5. Titan Poker: $50 Beginners Freeroll
600 players, top 80 get paid. Not spectacular, but well above average.
6. Carbon Poker: $200 Freeroll
Big prizepool, but also big fields (always above 2500, sometimes above 3000). Only the top 10 get paid.
7. pokerstars: PSO $50 Freeroll
Easily the best freeroll out of the 2 biggest sites. The number of entrants is usually around 1000 and, though it doesn't influence the numbers, having a lot of sitters is also good news. Plus, this is the value of the tournament alone, soon playing this tournament will qualify us for the PSO league where we can win even more money.
This is not a completely open event, but since for playing we only have to register in PSO's site and complete a really easy quiz, it'd be harsh to leave this one out. It's a kind of restriction that everyone can overcome easily, so it's basically not a restriction at all.
8. Poker Heaven: €100 Freeroll
8. betfair: $5 Freeroll
8. Full Tilt: $150 Freeroll
All these freerolls offer us the standard 1 monetary unit for each 50 players. Poker Heaven is actually ahead since the Euro is worth more than the Dollar, but only because of that.
11. Pokerstars: Daily 90k Sat
Now we enter the group of freerolls that aren't even close to worth it. This freeroll has something exciting to offer: 7 Daily 90k seats (worth $55 each) and from 8th to 60th we get $5.50. However, we're talking about a field of 40k. That's just way to much. Still much much better than the Round 1 freerolls of both PS and FT.
12. Pokerstars: Hubble's NL Hold'em AKA Round 1
9000 players, only 72 advance advance to the Round 2 2k tournament. There, the field will be 5000+, but the hard part is getting there. Still, twice as profitable as Tilt's Round 1, so Pokerstars wins this private war.
13. Full Tilt: Round 1 Freeroll
250 out of 10.000 gain entry to a Round 2, so this first part is better than the PS equivalent. However, the Round 2 will have a field 3 times as big for half the prizepool. Don't waste your time.
The summary, with the actual values:
Intertops 1k Freezeout 0,611995
Purple Lounge $20 0,138408
Bodog $500 0,130588
Celeb Cash Crazy $33 0,102644
Titan $50 Beginners 0,083
Carbon $200 0,068973
Pokerstars PSO 0,049213
Poker Heaven €100 0,025274
Betfair $5 0,02
Full Tilt $150 0,02
Pokerstars Daily 90k Sat 0,016913
Pokerstars Hubble's NL Hold'em 0,003282
Full Tilt Round 1 0,001569
Now, this is only the value according to the prizepool and your chances of cashing (according to the field size). But the number of entrants also determine another important factor which is time, the time you'll spend playing the tournament. For instance, though Betfair's $5 and FT's $150 freerolls have the exact same expected value, you'll waste a lot more time playing the latter and your time is worth money too. In that sense, we can say Betfair's freeroll is better. Taking time into account also makes the payout structure important as freerolls that pay to a smaller than usual % of players like Bodog's or Carbon's will make you have to play for a longer time just to cash.
So, if you want to start a bankroll from freerolls, the main conclusion is that you should definitely get out of PS or FT and try some smaller, lesser known sites. I didn't even include that many in here so there might be plenty of small sites out there offering freerolls like the Purple Lounge one. You can always cash out and comeback to the bigger sites later if you wish (inform yourself, though, there are sites who only allow you to cash out if you have made a deposit before).
These are all regular freerolls open to everyone. If you can play in some private ones, definitely take advantage of that as their value will most likely be better. For instance, Full Tilt's Portugal Restricted Freeroll would be second in the list above. Also, stay tuned for promotions that allow you to qualify to some special freerolls with great value.
Please comment and feel free to add more freerolls to the list.
Since the fall of last year when I first started playing poker, I've played TONS of freerolls in plenty of different sites (I have 13 installed in my computer right now). I've always had more or less an idea of which freerolls had the most value, we don't need to make any calculations to know that the Full Tilt Round 1 Freerolls aren't worth our time, but today I was curious and decided to actually put it all into numbers and see how each of the freerolls I played stacked up against each other.
The two deciding factors are, obviously the prizepool and the field size. I ignored other less quantifiable factors such as the quality of the field (we're talking about freerolls anyway, even if we could quantify this I doubt there would be any difference) and number of sitters.
For the tournaments that have variant number of entrants I used the numbers I could get now from finished (but still visible) and running tournaments (making an average in case I got more than one). Since my sample size is very small (just one example for some tournaments, really) and since it's Sunday, the number of entrants I used may not represent the usual turn out of the tournaments, but the difference in the expected value between tournaments should still be close to the truth.
With the number of entrants in a tournament we can get the probabilities of finishing in each position of the tournament which I assumed are all the same. After this, we could use this formula:
EV = P * ITM * PP
P - Probability of finishing in each position
ITM - Number of places paid.
PP - Prizepool
The tournaments included were only NL Hold'em ones and had to be completely restriction free. No new depositors or similar freerolls were considered. This little exercise is targeted for players who want to start a bankroll and can only play open freerolls. For the same reason, no party poker freerolls were considered as they require a deposit for players to even have a real money account. I also only included freerolls I played in the past, so there might be better freerolls out there at sites I never tried.
So, without further ado, here are the results:
1. intertops Poker: Sunday 1k Freezeout Satelite
With no surprise to me, this one took the crown of best freeroll between the 13 I analyzed. If a lot of people read this, it might easily not be for long since it's value comes from the ridiculously small fields. These satellites run twice a day and the top 3 qualify for a freezeout tournament on the next Sunday with a $1.000 prizepool. The cool part is these satelites usually have only a 100 to 130 players field AND the Sunday 1k have around 40 players. It's insane, this freeroll leaves the others waaay behind.
2. Purple Lounge: $20 Freeroll
Not that big of a prizepool, but fields of around 150 players make this freeroll one of the most profitable out there. Even when I was a total fish I was making more money at Purple Lounge than at any other site. You might not like the selection of games, the 10 handed tables or just the purple color and not want to play there afterwards but with a withdraw limit of only $20 you can always make that amount, cash out and put it at your favorite site. There are 3 of these every day.
3. bodog: $500 Freeroll (with re-buys)
Finally a well known site! Also not a surprise having the biggest prizepool of a tournament that we can enter directly, despite the fields of around 4.000. It can be very frustrating as only the top 63 get paid, I've finished in the top 100 without cashing twice, I know how it feels. But this is about the long term and when we do cash, it's not for 10 cents.
The possibility of re-buys and add-ons kind of go against the assumption that all players have the same chances of finishing at all positions but since not that many players use them, I decided to include this freeroll anyway.
4. Celeb Poker: Cash Crazy $33
The number of entrants will be around 300 and 350, gotta love small fields. The top 3 get paid for $11 each, which is really a weird payout structure. There are also re-buys and add-ons in this one, but again, very few players use them.
5. Titan Poker: $50 Beginners Freeroll
600 players, top 80 get paid. Not spectacular, but well above average.
6. Carbon Poker: $200 Freeroll
Big prizepool, but also big fields (always above 2500, sometimes above 3000). Only the top 10 get paid.
7. pokerstars: PSO $50 Freeroll
Easily the best freeroll out of the 2 biggest sites. The number of entrants is usually around 1000 and, though it doesn't influence the numbers, having a lot of sitters is also good news. Plus, this is the value of the tournament alone, soon playing this tournament will qualify us for the PSO league where we can win even more money.
This is not a completely open event, but since for playing we only have to register in PSO's site and complete a really easy quiz, it'd be harsh to leave this one out. It's a kind of restriction that everyone can overcome easily, so it's basically not a restriction at all.
8. Poker Heaven: €100 Freeroll
8. betfair: $5 Freeroll
8. Full Tilt: $150 Freeroll
All these freerolls offer us the standard 1 monetary unit for each 50 players. Poker Heaven is actually ahead since the Euro is worth more than the Dollar, but only because of that.
11. Pokerstars: Daily 90k Sat
Now we enter the group of freerolls that aren't even close to worth it. This freeroll has something exciting to offer: 7 Daily 90k seats (worth $55 each) and from 8th to 60th we get $5.50. However, we're talking about a field of 40k. That's just way to much. Still much much better than the Round 1 freerolls of both PS and FT.
12. Pokerstars: Hubble's NL Hold'em AKA Round 1
9000 players, only 72 advance advance to the Round 2 2k tournament. There, the field will be 5000+, but the hard part is getting there. Still, twice as profitable as Tilt's Round 1, so Pokerstars wins this private war.
13. Full Tilt: Round 1 Freeroll
250 out of 10.000 gain entry to a Round 2, so this first part is better than the PS equivalent. However, the Round 2 will have a field 3 times as big for half the prizepool. Don't waste your time.
The summary, with the actual values:
Intertops 1k Freezeout 0,611995
Purple Lounge $20 0,138408
Bodog $500 0,130588
Celeb Cash Crazy $33 0,102644
Titan $50 Beginners 0,083
Carbon $200 0,068973
Pokerstars PSO 0,049213
Poker Heaven €100 0,025274
Betfair $5 0,02
Full Tilt $150 0,02
Pokerstars Daily 90k Sat 0,016913
Pokerstars Hubble's NL Hold'em 0,003282
Full Tilt Round 1 0,001569
Now, this is only the value according to the prizepool and your chances of cashing (according to the field size). But the number of entrants also determine another important factor which is time, the time you'll spend playing the tournament. For instance, though Betfair's $5 and FT's $150 freerolls have the exact same expected value, you'll waste a lot more time playing the latter and your time is worth money too. In that sense, we can say Betfair's freeroll is better. Taking time into account also makes the payout structure important as freerolls that pay to a smaller than usual % of players like Bodog's or Carbon's will make you have to play for a longer time just to cash.
So, if you want to start a bankroll from freerolls, the main conclusion is that you should definitely get out of PS or FT and try some smaller, lesser known sites. I didn't even include that many in here so there might be plenty of small sites out there offering freerolls like the Purple Lounge one. You can always cash out and comeback to the bigger sites later if you wish (inform yourself, though, there are sites who only allow you to cash out if you have made a deposit before).
These are all regular freerolls open to everyone. If you can play in some private ones, definitely take advantage of that as their value will most likely be better. For instance, Full Tilt's Portugal Restricted Freeroll would be second in the list above. Also, stay tuned for promotions that allow you to qualify to some special freerolls with great value.
Please comment and feel free to add more freerolls to the list.