Overcoming variance in freerolls at full tilt

[swingro]

2 nights ago i went out 130 something from Dayly Dollar with 8.5 dollars after 5 hours of play. I played last mounth BLT and cashed 6 dollars. I registered for the first time depositor ticket after putting 10 dollars on FT, forgot to play but found 4 dollars in my cashier. I went out in the money without playing after 17k ppl registerd.

You can cash something playing correct poker in this kind of tournaments.
But if someone has 20-30 dollars i would advise to play the 45 ppl 1+0.1 dollars sngs and play it by the book, super tight, without trying to bluff untill the money, because they will cash more.

But with 3-4 dollars ... i think 0.25+0.05 Dayly dollar 9 ppl sng sats are the way to go. Qualify , deregister and you have 95 cents. But you have to play it right , even to win at this SNgs you need to read the Moshman's book.

For pokerstars with 2-3 dollars i would advise the 2 cents sngs. They are better than freerolls.

 

[absoluthamm]

But with 3-4 dollars ... i think 0.25+0.05 Dayly dollar 9 ppl sng sats are the way to go. Qualify , deregister and you have 95 cents. But you have to play it right , even to win at this SNgs you need to read the Moshman's book.

I disagree. I love Moshman's book, but it will not help you all that much with the extremely low level thinking of the players you will be playing with in these SnG's. The concepts of the book are way beyond them. Just play ABC poker and you're going to be good. IMO the best place to start getting aggressive in any SnG under $5 is when there are 4 people left and 3 get paid because down here, everyone is so concerned with at least a min-cash that they tighten up way too much.

 

[swingro]

I disagree. I love Moshman's book, but it will not help you all that much with the extremely low level thinking of the players you will be playing with in these SnG's. The concepts of the book are way beyond them. Just play ABC poker and you're going to be good. IMO the best place to start getting aggressive in any SnG under $5 is when there are 4 people left and 3 get paid because down here, everyone is so concerned with at least a min-cash that they tighten up way too much.

I played ABC poker and got my butt kicked. Simply what goes in the tournaments does not go there at those small buy-in tournaments. There are a lot of situations specially when there are 4 ppls left and the blinds are high where you should think about the book. The concepts of survive , high blind play , high blind limpers are probabely the most important things you should consider when playing with beginners and that will give you a serious edge over them. Also shortstack play at SNgs is most common at this tourney for a TAG player. Avoiding to get outblinded is also an important part in SNG.
Even here the book is giving you an important edge. If i play ABC poker at absolute beginner lvl i only can play Aces or kings because of the bunch of callers. Untill readding the book i alyaws thought that i never get good cards to play TAG so that's why i suck at SNGs. After reading it comed the revelation

 

[HipHopStoner]

Pushing and praying is the basic guide to these games.... I came 9th once... out of thousands. It was shear luck almost.

 

[mrmonkey]

Because those are typically multiple players going all in so even if you have AA, your chances of winning drop like a rock. It's a long tournament plenty of opportunities to double and triple up. Can't win the tournament on the first hand.

With freerolls I like to adopt a different mentality, since there is nothing at stake other than your own time. If time is not of a concern, then playing ABC poker and only getting it in only when way ahead will probably lead to more cashes/profitability on a per-tournament basis. But the thing to remember is that there is another new freeroll every 2 hours and there is no initial stake involved -- so busting out early isn't exactly a huge problem and is actually somewhat preferable to busting out after 3-4 hours time invested.

If I'm at a table and there are 3+ all-ins on the first hand before the action comes to me with JJ+, I'm putting my stack out there because there's an OK chance I'm still ahead of or at least in good contention against the donkey range of the other hands. I'll take a 30%-40% chance of quadrupling up or better, with minimal time invested in the tourney, and no money invested. Sure, I'll bust out 60-70% of the time, but if that happens I don't really care because there's another tourney coming in two hours.

Starting the tourney with a huge stack helps a lot, because it offers some protection down the line -- the 4-out gutshot straight caller that hits his miracle against your flopped set will only hurt your chipstack instead of eliminating you. Then you have a read on your opponent and can retake his chips when the time is right.

 

[CistaCista]

^^^ This tbh.

Freerolls are cruel in many many ways. One of them being that if you play tight and sit out the first rounds, what happens is that that once the 1/3 of most lunatic players have shoved themselves out, half of the remaining players now have twice as many chips as you have.

 

[swingro]

^^^ This tbh.

Freerolls are cruel in many many ways. One of them being that if you play tight and sit out the first rounds, what happens is that that once the 1/3 of most lunatic players have shoved themselves out, half of the remaining players now have twice as many chips as you have.

Nothing happens. You are closer to the money. Do not think that those that have huge stacks after the first half hour will win it.

 

[CistaCista]

Nothing happens. You are closer to the money. Do not think that those that have huge stacks after the first half hour will win it.

By playing tight you are basically entering a tournament with half as many chips as the other players. As the poster above said, you might as well get down and dirty with an early allin to get in with it, or else just start another freeroll.

 

[swingro]

By playing tight you are basically entering a tournament with half as many chips as the other players. As the poster above said, you might as well get down and dirty with an early allin to get in with it, or else just start another freeroll.

Or that

But also with that dirty all in it is not guaranteed to get ITM.

 

[flytyerjsb]

If you play in free rolls you are going to get the donks etc no matter what. I play a lot of them and just have to over come them which is not that easy either.

I try and play good hands but every so often I get knocked out by a rag pair or something to that effect. Ive gone all in with large pocket pairs and someone calls me with 6, 3 off and hits two pairs or a straight.

Stuff happens but more so in free rolls. I just play a tight game to start and then hope for the best.

You will never get away from them in free rolls at the start of the game.

 

[takethepain]

I know it can be frustrating playing in freerolls and microstakes, hell I've been playing alot of freerolls over the weekend and I've been knocked out with some ridiculous hands...but I've also made it into the money (well...satelite entry places anyway) a couple of times as well just by playing solid poker.

I think you have to look at it this way, yes being called by crap cards that most people with some clue would fold, and then getting smashed on the flop/turn/river can really really suck, but its also these type of players that help you get into the money. If you are short-stacked and go all-in with AA, you might expect to be called by one player on a 'good' table, hell you might not get called at all. Compare this to a free-roll where you might get 3-4 people calling you. More chance of losing for sure, but you are still the favourite to quadruple your chips which over long-term play is a huge advantage that you simply don't get at the better tables.

My advice is to just put the bad-beats in perspective. You have spent nothing but your time so its not like you are loosing your bank roll to one of these suck outs and over time your superior poker skills will pay off.