Late in a Freeroll

I need some help playing later on in free rolls.

Last week i made it to the top 150 in about 5-6 freerolls on full tilt.

My best finish was 16th, but only the top 3 made money in that tourny.

Other then that i made it to 56, but only 45 got paid.

I always seem to get stuck around 100k in chips and I seem to go card dead.

I have the most trouble in turbos because when there are 150 or so people left out of 7500 you have the big blind around 15000 and your forced to make moves.

Whats the best way to get from the top 150 to the top 50 in order to get paid.

I hate the nonturbo freerolls because they take too long to cash. For the turbos your best strategy for the 45 cashing ones is to get at least a decent stack, if you're in the middle of the field try and make sure you stay there. There is no way to combat the rising blinds in turbo freerolls and cash without getting super lucky or stealing. When you get down to the top two hundred the blinds are large and keep growing, it becomes useful to steal. People begin to play super tight because they want to cash, not as tight as possible but still pretty tight, take advantage of this and steal whenever you can, some good spots are the cutoff and the button, its impossible to steal pots with a lot of limpers in them because freerollers are weaks and will call your all in, at least one of them.

From the CO and Button you can shove with a majority of hands and get no callers, I would stick to stuff you would normally just raise with if you werent short (middle of the field is shortstacked but all ins will stop most players from calling) always go after other medium stacks as they will be playing the tightest, try not to go after big stacks without a hand. Other than your steals play tight, fold everything out of position but really good hands (AJ, AQ, AK, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA) I would just shove with these hands any time from middle to late, unless you wanted to try and trap with a lower raise with AA or KK, from early position I would reduce shoving to TT+ and AK.

Know that this will not always work, freerolls are notoriously difficult because the amount of bad play but you will definitely find yourself cashing more, the key is patience.

Thanks for the advice.

I'm playing the Sat to the ferguson now, rarely place in this one.

in like 300th now

matt0216 said:

I'm playing the Sat to the ferguson now, rarely place in this one.

in like 300th now

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My strategy for the ferguson is to get around 5K then play tight until the blinds increase and there are like 600 players or so left, once i see my table tightening up I begin my stealing conquest. Last time I played the ferguson i got one actual hand and that was queens, everything else was stealing, went from 5000 or so at 500 people left to about 60,000 at the end of the tourney all through stealing. Its impossible to fold your way to a win in the ferguson, you end up bubbling even with 40K in chips because the blinds reach 10K/20K at the end.

Im gonna have to try that. So I basically just have to pick spots to steal and work my chip stack up. How many chips do you need to actually place. I was up to about 4000 with 650 left, but I lost half my chips on a bad beat and blinds killed me the rest of the way.

well in late game i always tend to just wait and play tight because if you just watch the info you can see the small stacks. you should wait until those small stacks get out and then when you get a hand dont go all in or raise but raise with caution. that tends to help me out in freerolls

what can I say that is much harder to achieve success in the free rolls
the full tilt poker tournament in which buy in smaller or micro, as players
of free roll has nothing to hold all in dao and without logic, play any way
they do not lose anything anyway, so you should find a free roll or two weeks with a few players and selected to serve at least to play correctly. good luck!
summarizing to succeed I think that is playing super tight and increase only with good cards

matt0216 said:

Im gonna have to try that. So I basically just have to pick spots to steal and work my chip stack up. How many chips do you need to actually place. I was up to about 4000 with 650 left, but I lost half my chips on a bad beat and blinds killed me the rest of the way.

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With only 4000 around 650 you really need to start thinking about stealing, if you have a loose table and this kind of chipstack it can be really hard. The blinds are only going to get worse from here, play will tighten up as well but its a bit of a bad spot.

At this particular area my advice on position and stealing is the same, steal from position, fold almost ANYTHING early, today i was playing a freeroll and I was folding basically anything under the gun (first to act), all the way up to KQ. I would steal with these same hands and less from late position. An important part of stealing over and over here is to keep your chip stack moving up even by a little, and not down. This is so when you get a good hand like AA/KK/QQ/JJ after 2 or 3 rotations of the blinds and antes you've gone from 4000 to 6000-6500 and not down to 2000. When I say good hand like JJ+, I'm saying hands you dont want to just shove with, but want to make a standard raise and see a flop. For instance every move of mine once i was stealing had been shove in the freeroll I was playing today, then I got AA in early position, I had a healthy chipstack of around 12,000, 150/300 blinds, I raised 3xBB and everyone folded but the BB with about 30,000 in chips who called.

Now, its easy to steal or be all in before the flop with your opponent showing down with you. Its hard to actually see the flop and play it out. It was a relatively harmless flop for me with two low cards and a queen, I made a min raise of 2xBB here of about 600, a bit of a donk bet to look as if i was weak. He called, the turn was a 9, I checked after a few seconds, he came out raising about 3000, I reraised him here and he called. I knew at that point he didnt have me beat unless he was an idiot slowplaying trips or something when I was basically pot dedicated. I made another relatively small bet into a pretty big pot over 11K, of about 5-6xBB, he reraised me all in and I was pot committed by now no matter what and called, he showed J9 suited for a pair of nines that he hit on the turn. I took down a very good pot.

With blinds of 150/300 stealing isnt as important yet, but imagine if there were double the blinds and i had sat and waited for the aces instead of stealing, i doubt i would have even broken 15,000 in the double up with 300/600 blinds and some level of antes that adds up to around 600 per rotation.

Once again I've written a dissertation on stealing... sorry guys :/

I still have so much trouble going from the top 100 to the top 45 in a 7500 freeroll.

Yesterday I played the touarnament dollar freeroll and was doing pretty well.

I had around 160k in 27th place with around 65 to go.

Then I got JJ.
The flop was 2 low cards and a Q.
Villain Checked.
I put a nice bet in.
Villain called.
Turn didnt help anything.
Villain checked the turn.
Another decent sized bet by me again.
He called.
River didnt seem to help at all either.
On the River he went all in.

I really thought I had the best hand here, but I didn't want to risk being knocked down to 20k. ..

So i folded and was with 60k and was around last place.
As always I finished around 55...10 away fromt he money.

I've played a fair number of freerolls myself and I've never come in first. I've made final table here n there and won a few dollars which I've built up to tidy lil bankroll. I hope I never need to go back to playing freerolls. I don't have much advice to offer as there is already good advice in this thread but here's a couple of thoughts.

You can't get too upset with any good effort in a freeroll. There is a surprising amount of luck needed to place but with decent skill eventually the hands will turn in your favour. I found it really important to know who you can steal from and who you can't as the game slows down and the blinds go up. You need to devise a plan for keeping yourself afloat when you don't have enough to make it in the money.

Also, try to estimate where you stand as far as being blinded out as sometimes you can figure out that you will be in the money if you do nothing. Take a look at the stacks of people finishing in the money, see how much they needed. Time can really seem to crawl when you get close and can really make you want to play hands you might not need to play.

As for the jacks you probably made a good laydown but after the flop bet I don't think I'd have fired another barrel on the turn personally. What I would have done maybe is set mine, any over card I'd fold to any bet. People widen their ranges when the blinds start to force action so QJ Q10 are possible; heck in a freeroll Qxs is a common hand so....

Well its time to see if I can place in the ferguson freeroll.
Have over 8000 early in the tourny. Still over a 1000, but im in 36.

My prediction is I will be on the bubble and lose.........Like always

Wow hands keep coming my way..Up to 15k... 8th place... SHould i feel pretty comfortable heree. Still really early.

I have the same problem... Thx for the advice guys.

On break. With 447 left. In 69th for now.

matt0216 said:

I still have so much trouble going from the top 100 to the top 45 in a 7500 freeroll.

Yesterday I played the touarnament dollar freeroll and was doing pretty well.

I had around 160k in 27th place with around 65 to go.

Then I got JJ.
The flop was 2 low cards and a Q.
Villain Checked.
I put a nice bet in.
Villain called.
Turn didnt help anything.
Villain checked the turn.
Another decent sized bet by me again.
He called.
River didnt seem to help at all either.
On the River he went all in.

I really thought I had the best hand here, but I didn't want to risk being knocked down to 20k. ..

So i folded and was with 60k and was around last place.
As always I finished around 55...10 away fromt he money.

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With 160 theres no reason to lose. You have the stack to steal easily, few can threaten you without risking their own life. How did you play the hand preflop? From what position? Preflop is very important to figuring where you're at in the hand.

If you raised standard preflop and he called, then called ur cbet on the flop, i would release the hand. If you just limped preflop he could have nearly anything. Obviously you were out of position against him if he was acting second... this is a great instance where position is super important...

You bet out and he just smooth calls every time because u have to act first, say it was opposite.

You see the flop, theres a Q, he checks to you and u check back, he bets the turn and u fold, getting away as cheap as possible, or he bets a little on the turn and you call, and when he bets huge on the river you know he really does have it because your call doesn't scare him... position is super important.

With a big stack late in a tournament dollar freeroll stealing is not as necessary, but it doesnt hurt to pad your stack. Honestly with position and a big stack you can just destroy smaller stacks, at 160K in chips i would shove all in every button if the two next stacks are either at 20Kish, they're absolutely no threat to my stack, they're going to be blinded out statistically first before they pick up a hand that will really dominate preflop.

For example:
AKo vs. 97o, AK wins only 64 percent of the time, 37 percent of the time I'm going to knock him out with his AK, which is a veritable monster. What about all those times he folded because he didnt have something along the lines of AK? Then I pick up all the blinds and antes for free! Its a win win situation, the most you're going to lose against a 20K stack with 160K chips is 20K, which is nothing. You have much more to gain stealing with any two cards against short stacks.

matt0216 said:

On break. With 447 left. In 69th for now.

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too many left to tell if you can cash. If you get the opportunities to steal, do it. Note when your table gets tight, it should be really soon! If you have the stack just steal away people fold blinds like crazy in the ferguson and the blinds are HUGE!!! I got out of this actually... two pair against a flopped straight :/.

Thanks for the all the advice. I really need to learn about using my stack when I'm in position to do so. I'm pretty new to these tournys and I just need to get better when I have a big stack. I lose to many chips during hands out of position.

Just had a big hand in ferguson freeroll.

My QQ against AK. Held up. Have 22.5k in 36th with 378 to go.

Well, maybe I hate to bring this up but I just saw another thread about stalling and I have used that tactic when I'm real close to the money and see many others do it with some degree of success. I will allow you to see if some other short stacks fall and I hate to shove that close to the bubble although with the right cards as someone pointed out above you need to shove. I try not to get people mad and so far no one has complained and I dont complain when I see others trying to last out a few hands to the money.

budebuzz said:

Well, maybe I hate to bring this up but I just saw another thread about stalling and I have used that tactic when I'm real close to the money and see many others do it with some degree of success. I will allow you to see if some other short stacks fall and I hate to shove that close to the bubble although with the right cards as someone pointed out above you need to shove. I try not to get people mad and so far no one has complained and I dont complain when I see others trying to last out a few hands to the money.

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Nothing wrong with stalling near the bubble, if people cry, they're hypocrites. I guarantee if they didnt have big stacks they would want to stall too. Stalling near the bubble in this kind of tournament is just something to be accepted, sometimes your stack is too small to steal with or bluff with.

Im beginning to think its impossible to cash in a public freeroll because you need to have so much luck..

I'll probably still play the ones I can , but I'm going to focus on getting access to as many private freerolls.

Tomorrow i have two to play. I think ill be able to place in the $5000 in the Sit N learn freeroll I qualified awhile ago. The top 540 get paid and there will be around 2500. Plus half of the people probably won't even be there when the freeroll starts. If I don't place in that I should just quit.

Then theres the poker curios one. I placed in it last week, but only for .40c.

Also I started playing a non turbo freeroll 2 hours ago. I usually don't play these since they take 6 hours, but I did anyway. I went all in with anything early and somehow got up to 25k. Now up to 44k in 19th. Only 4 more hours to go. LOL

this was prabably the most useful yhread i've read in a long time i play the same freerolls all the time and i try to play tight the hle game and about half way through my cards go cold but i feel that if i try to steal that i would get called, cuz most of the time i do get called and what happens to the cards why all of a sudden they go cold that makes no sence

Your in the same position as me. Hopefully we'll get lucky one of these days.