Playing Without Deposit

[Tino11]

If you wish to provide a hard copy of all your personal details to some far flung poker site in exchange for $25, fine by me. Tell ya what, send them to me instead and I'll give ya $50, no questions asked, only because I know I can sell that information for more than the $50 I am gonna give you.
Please folks, dont ask me how or why or to who as I am not going to give you an answer to that one.

 

[Deco]

If you wish to provide a hard copy of all your personal details to some far flung poker site in exchange for $25, fine by me. Tell ya what, send them to me instead and I'll give ya $50, no questions asked, only because I know I can sell that information for more than the $50 I am gonna give you.
Please folks, dont ask me how or why or to who as I am not going to give you an answer to that one.

Serious? I'll do this.
All you give is a username password and email address. The poker rooms handles all your real details. The sites make money via an affiliate payoff not by selling your details. They usually get a choice of $x for each player or x% of the rake that player generates. Well worth the money from their point of view and defo worth it for the poker rooms. By the time you can withdraw the $50 they give you they will have made more than that off you in rake.

 

[AllInDom]

I think if I was depositing I would be stuck thousands now. The money I win in freerolls, goes fast when I play the real games. I've tried sit and go, Scheduled, ring games. I win some loose some but after a period I end up loosing it all. The site rakes 20%, that's one pot out of five. And all the players all have the same goal in mind. That is to win.

 

[Poker Orifice]

If you wish to provide a hard copy of all your personal details to some far flung poker site in exchange for $25, fine by me..

So now it has to be a 'far flung poker site' that a player builds a bankroll on starting from zero, via freerolls? Maybe it's the same site that you & I are depositing on (& giving them our personal details).

 

[Cooking]

I think this is a very good way to build a bankroll if you still don't win your own money (like me..). I started playing freerolls on Everest and they don't ask for deposit for cashing out the money, so, I could use this money to some deposit offers, that are usually much better than the free bankroll.

 

[AllInDom]

Thanks everest does have good freerolls. Played them a few times..

 

[spstevens]

I completely understand starting with freerolls, I started just to see if I could do it and in the begining it was much like golf as in I felt as I was playing against myself with improvement the only real goal. I play poker because I enjoy it with no real aspirations of being a pro. Once I get rolled into a position where I can play cash games it becomes very tough for me to play the freerolls any more.
You mentioned your wins dwindle away when you move to the cash games , likely you need to locate and fix some leaks. A giant difference I see between cash vs freerolls is in cash everybody is taking it serious , no sitters , no easy double and triple ups early on due to overly loose care less attitudes.
Good luck on your strategy , enjoy your game.

 

[AllInDom]

Thanks for your advice, and good luck to you to...

 

[Poker Orifice]

Took 3rd today in a freeroll for $120 (another one 'over $100' ).

Also, just took my 5th 'No Deposit' online poker site account balance over the $500 mark today ( i have sites I've started up with a deposit & a bunch of others (maybe ~10) where I've never deposited).
One thing though.... now to get that money off of some of those sites (&/or moved around to other sites)... so now I'm actually making deposits on each of them, a couple at a time. Not sure how smoothly the withdraw process is going to be.... but I guess I'll be finding out at some point (fingers crossed).

If you're going to try to build a small poker bankroll via freerolls, I'd highly suggest going about it by at least playing something halfway decent (ie. intertops has a couple of $500 freerolls on the weekend, also Merge has a $500freeroll & a $2 buyin with $500added... but am not sure how you qualify for those ones.... I think a bunch of different forum/affiliates qualify for them?). Cardschat has some of the best freerolls going... not only due to fairly decent payouts in them but also because alot of the play in them is very good (much better than you'll find elsewhere). They're a good avenue to work on one's tournament game as well as a chance to get a starting bankroll (this week I heard we even had a player who was playing in the $10K WPT buyin playing in our CC freerolls).

 

[jazzaxe]

I worked up my bank at a couple of sites from nothing. It does take a lot of time and you need to win some tourneys. There are really not many sites that pay cash freerolls. bodog used to be the best but now at Bovada you need to build up poker points to play in frs. If you use fr money to play micro cash games, it takes a long time to get a decent bankroll. Money added tourneys sponsored by the forums are good money but there are some decent players at these. If you don't mind depositing on a regular basis, you can advance a lot faster.

 

[AllInDom]

Took 3rd today in a freeroll for $120 (another one 'over $100' ).

Also, just took my 5th 'No Deposit' online poker site account balance over the $500 mark today ( i have sites I've started up with a deposit & a bunch of others (maybe ~10) where I've never deposited).
One thing though.... now to get that money off of some of those sites (&/or moved around to other sites)... so now I'm actually making deposits on each of them, a couple at a time. Not sure how smoothly the withdraw process is going to be.... but I guess I'll be finding out at some point (fingers crossed).

If you're going to try to build a small poker bankroll via freerolls, I'd highly suggest going about it by at least playing something halfway decent (ie. Intertops has a couple of $500 freerolls on the weekend, also Merge has a $500freeroll & a $2 buyin with $500added... but am not sure how you qualify for those ones.... I think a bunch of different forum/affiliates qualify for them?). Cardschat has some of the best freerolls going... not only due to fairly decent payouts in them but also because alot of the play in them is very good (much better than you'll find elsewhere). They're a good avenue to work on one's tournament game as well as a chance to get a starting bankroll (this week I heard we even had a player who was playing in the $10K WPT buyin playing in our CC freerolls).

Thanks for the advice. I need all the help I can get. Now if I could only start winning regularly.

 

[AllInDom]

Well I'm doing not bad. I have a $50.00 no deposit bonus. I did not loose it all. It's now up to $65. I was playing SnG and not seeming to do to well. I changed to cash and everything has improved....

 

[Eddie Leeway]

Good Luck to you

I'm working the same challenge on several sites, and I'm a US player. I've made the choice to hold out on any deposits as well while just starting up again over the past year online.

I'm slowly grinding away. I slowed down my playing time recently with the change of the weather, but I find this is a good way to work on improving my game as well.

Yes, in FRs you have a lot of horrible players, but it's still a great way to work on your trnmnt game. I use what winnings I make for SnG tables more than I do playing straight cash tables

t is an extremely hard way to make money, but I consider it a challenge and it doesn't hurt me financially so its not a gamble to me

 

[Tolu]

I do the same with smaller sites like Wiliam Hill. They have private tourneys with easy requirements. For example, I won $120 in a private tourney called PkrAce. We were 12 players. I even had my first $20 deposit refunded with a $20 amazon voucher...not bad. You get to participate in all their private tourneys and get to build up your bankroll slowly. Party also have decent freeroll.

 

[xUnrated]

Ive also never deposited, took advantage of free bankrolls and freerolls. If you cant win at that level you have no business playing for real money.

 

[tcummo]

I think the best way to 'learn' the game is to start from freerolls
and play them seriously .
Keep learning.
When you have won some money (which you will if you play them seriously) , move into micro stakes.
When you can beat a level consistently , move up in stakes.
Follow good BRM and see how far you can go .
Does anyone disagree with this approach ?

 

[pokernutts]

Sounds like a good plan. I tried this and it helped my game a lot.

My win rate for free rolls is about 15-20%

Just make sure you dont play cash games the same way you play freerolls lol.

And get prepared for burn out because theres a high chance you will get burnt out before you build up your BR. I sure as heck did and... just made a deposit.

After you build your skill up a bit I think a deposit can be justified. Good luck

 

[fugitive67]

i've built a couple "bankrolls" from freebies ... back in the day i got up to $300 on pokerstars, but was down to $20 on BF

right now i've freerolled up $185 on Carbon

i agree you can learn that way, i never understood why peeps would play with play chips when you can do a little work like with the funsteps on Merge and go from there

now, the problem for you appears to be you build up and then lose it ... which like i said i basically did that on pokerstars altho i did gift some $25 to 2 peeps, but anyway ... a big part of learning poker is BRM ... even if you don't really plan to withdraw your money

 

[jolubman]

Most types of entertainment cost money. If poker is entertainment to you, why not deposit and give it a go? When you have to pay to play you get to play againist better players. See how good you do there.