Starting to Play Again, Freerolls have changed

[TheBigFinn]

I had been playing $1/$2 live pre-pandemic and just messing around with on line play, mainly on America's Card Room. I have three observations comparing today with play from two years ago.

1. There are less free rolls and they have more players.
2. The prizes are smaller. Getting into the money is paid in pennies.
3. There are many more bingo players. Players who will shove with most anything with over 30 BBs behind.

This happened to me twice Saturday. Both times I dutifully folded my suited connectors and medium pairs waiting as I watched players shove every other hand with over 30 BBs. Sometimes they were called and lost and other times they would win. Often the replacement was another bingo player. It seemed like any Queen was good enough. This really isn't poker, is it?

I lost both times with AQ once suited and once off, losing to Axo and 44.

I think this type of play is enougerage by the low payoffs and big fields. The philosophy seems to be shove and get lucky, or go home quickly. One of yesterday's free rolls was the Saturday Cards Chat. I don't recall the CardsChat free rolls playing that way two years ago,

It has only been a couple of weeks, so my sample size is small. Is this the way it is going to be? Is the plan to wait for AA, KK, QQ, and AKs? With the blinds rising and no guarantee you'll be called, it seems like a bad strategy to me.

 

[BIGAUS]

This definitely applies to the freeroll offerings by ACR on their freeroll tab where there's not barrier to entry other than clicking register. Unfortunately in those, you cannot rely just on "perfect" play as if your opponents have nothing to lose, then you could play any hand. If you want to cash in those, luck will definitely need to be on your side.

 

[fundiver199]

If you have been playing 1$/2$ cash live, why are you bothering with freerolls, just because you play online? Not saying you should also play 1$/2$ online. Thats probably not a good idea, since its going to be a much tougher game. But you can start with something like 5c/10c or even 10c/25c and then just go from there.

 

[Alekxandrovi3]

They give a chance. This foru gave me the opportunity to play big bains using satellites.

 

[Sirkiba]

I had been playing $1/$2 live pre-pandemic and just messing around with on line play, mainly on America's Card Room. I have three observations comparing today with play from two years ago.

1. There are less free rolls and they have more players.
2. The prizes are smaller. Getting into the money is paid in pennies.
3. There are many more bingo players. Players who will shove with most anything with over 30 BBs behind.

This happened to me twice Saturday. Both times I dutifully folded my suited connectors and medium pairs waiting as I watched players shove every other hand with over 30 BBs. Sometimes they were called and lost and other times they would win. Often the replacement was another bingo player. It seemed like any Queen was good enough. This really isn't poker, is it?

I lost both times with AQ once suited and once off, losing to Axo and 44.

I think this type of play is enougerage by the low payoffs and big fields. The philosophy seems to be shove and get lucky, or go home quickly. One of yesterday's free rolls was the Saturday Cards Chat. I don't recall the CardsChat free rolls playing that way two years ago,

It has only been a couple of weeks, so my sample size is small. Is this the way it is going to be? Is the plan to wait for AA, KK, QQ, and AKs? With the blinds rising and no guarantee you'll be called, it seems like a bad strategy to me.

From freeroll experience premium hands will almost always get called by at least 1 bingo player so waiting for them is pretty legit. Just gotta be patient, but it's also dependent on how fast the blinds & antes go up. In cardschat games they don't go up that quickly.

However, if we're talking about the freerolls with antes and blinds going up every 2-3min you're probably better off just taking the coinflip with a wider range unless it's already a 3-4 way yolo pot. No point in sitting 2h in these just to blind yourself out.

I do think you're right about the observations, but you can't really do anything about it except play at tables with higher entry requirements if you got the confidence in your skills and enough of a bankroll to deal with variance.