Freerolls at online poker sites aren’t exactly a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, you have to love the game and enjoy playing with thousands of players to get a chance to win small money and build a bankroll.

The term Free Roll means that some online gaming sites offer an invitation to participate in online tournaments at no cost to you. You can win cash prizes simply by signing up and playing Free Roll Poker games with other poker players from around the world. This invitation, although expensive for online poker site operators, attracts potential customers hoping they will play cash games in the future after registering with their poker sites. But if you’re patient and play for fun without risk, then you’ll love Poker Free Roll Tournaments.

You can learn quickly and not worry about your wallet. Personally, I only won a few hundred dollars, but it’s a great experience and has improved my real money game. I have better reads on the players and know when to bluff without going to extremes. I have read many forum posts that say the opposite about becoming a better player. This may be true for some, but in my case it has made me a better player. Some players believe that playing freerolls is like being in fantasy land because there is no money risk. This may be true at the beginning of the tournament, but once the risk takers leave, it’s fun to play and the game becomes much more serious.

I’ve played almost every online poker site and I like to play the non-qualifying freerolls. Qualifier freerolls typically involve 7000+ players and then when you become the top 100, you play at a later date with 7000 other players to win a cash pool of perhaps $200.00 to $400.00. Again, you must love the game and enjoy playing it for a long time, sometimes 6 or 7 hours.

Playing freerolls is fun and gives you the chance to get that same adrenaline rush by playing for real without costing a fortune. I have worked in land based casinos most of my life and I know what a gambling habit can do to someone. So I hope that the freeroll can replace the risk of losing money. In fact, through freerolling I learned that gambling is a short trip to failure. I play for free and I love it.

Why play freerolls?

Freerolls can speed up the process of learning and understanding the various poker games and learn the basics and strategies. If you are patient like me, you can create a small budget and use your winnings to play real money games.

It’s fun to play the big ranking games for a chance to win big prizes. Almost all sites offer satellites that can take you to bigger tournaments with bigger prizes. The odds here are more stacked against you than in the cash freerolls. There are generally fewer cash positions. And even if you win a seat, you’ll have to do very well in the next tournament. You might get lucky and make it to the final table. Others have why not you.

Which freerolls should you play?

That is completely up to you. You can play from 2 to 4 tournaments at the same time. But, the more you play, the less attention you can give to each of the games.

You must participate in freerolls that have a smaller number of participants. It’s better to play with 500 entrants than 9,000. The qualifiers are also long and not a good way to spend 8 hours just to get a chance to play with 9,000 other entrants for a small cash prize split among the top 100 winners.

You can play $50.00 cash prize freerolls or $500.00 freerolls. I like small challenges and prefer $500.00 or more. Although freerolls with smaller cash prizes attract fewer people and therefore give you a better chance of building your bankroll.

What is my freeroll playing style?

Take poker games seriously. Most of the freerollers play recklessly and spoil the enjoyment of the game. Play as if you were playing in a real money tournament and play patiently.

Once all the risk takers are gone, the game becomes more challenging and players take every move more seriously.

Your goal is to play conservative until all the risk takers are gone. Patience is a virtue in freerolls. Although you can win a lot of chips by taking a foolish risk, it will come back and bite you in the ass.

This is my approach using the following steps.

Step #1: Try to get your chip to lead early

There are lots of variations to this. Basically, you are trying to get all your chips into an early pot. Because? Because everyone else is. In some freerolls you may see five or six people betting on the first hand. Even if you wait until the early rounds and play solid tight poker, you can be up against players with 10 times the chips you have. When you’re dealt AA and you have 1400 chips, a player with 20K can call with any two cards and beat you. And you may be up against several players who are prospecting. Your 1400 doesn’t scare them. They can afford to play all the pots and you can’t.

So when you can’t beat them, join them. Push in the first hand, or any early hand, with virtually any card. I would avoid pushing with an ace less than A10, as you will probably get dominated. And hands like 3-5 can probably be folded as well. Better yet, unless you have a monster (JJ-AA). I would wait until the second hand, when you probably have fewer calling players and a better chance of winning a pot.

The benefit of this? Find out soon if you want to spend time on the freeroll. If you can start building a big stack early, you have a much better chance of cashing. Slow and tight can often be a recipe for getting sucked into someone with a much bigger stack. If you lose? So what? You have not lost anything. In fact, you have saved yourself time and energy to devote to another freeroll.

Again, I do not recommend this when the freeroll offers better prizes. Poker is probably much better.

Strategy #2: Be conservative when playing

The exact opposite approach can sometimes work in freerolls as well. Since you know that almost everyone else is trying to get lucky, sitting and waiting for a monster can be a good strategy. Take that super aggressiveness and use it against them.

As we discussed, monster preflop is nice, but it can cause you problems against multiple big stacks. The post-flop monster is preferable, when you have your big hand.

However, don’t sit back and let people bet on you. Bet against big stacks. They will probably call you because they are bored. Or you want to be lucky again.

Playing only the top 10 hands is a good idea, perhaps mixing suited connectors. But don’t look for prospects with junk.

The goal here is to build a bankroll through solid play, which doesn’t always work. But if you play as much for fun as for the result, this can be a good way to play a freeroll.

Strategy #3: Waiting for good hands.

This really could be strategy #1a. But it’s different. Here your goal is to see as many flops as possible before the stacks around you get too big.

This probably means skipping the first hand, and maybe the first several. Once the game settles down, call any two cards, unless you’re facing big raises (more than 4 times the big blind). Once again, the goal is to get lucky and try to accumulate funds. But maybe you are giving yourself dozens of hands to do it. Once again you will find out if you can get a big stack early, making it worth playing.

If you get past the principle, then:

Freerolls start to look like real money games once you’ve cleared a third or half of the field. There will still be a lot of people playing any card and playing super aggressive. And big stacks of chips will make outrageous calls. But mid-stacks and short stacks that have survived early will generally play a more traditional style of poker.

Remember this. Time is an investment, like money. If someone has been playing a freeroll for several hours, they are less likely to push their chips in the hope of getting lucky. They don’t want their investment to be wasted.

But there are still two types of players. Players who want to win, or place very high; and players who want to collect. Players who want to win don’t care if they only charge a couple of dollars. They only play the freeroll for the jackpots. So your game can still be unpredictable. Players who want to cash will get super tight, so be careful if you see them raising or re-raising.

once you’re in the money

If you have received, congratulations. Now you should try to win. There is very little difference, usually, between 50th and 11th place. So you should be playing with the idea of ​​reaching the final table. If you’re short stacked, push with a decent hand. Waiting for a few more people is not worth it in terms of additional money. Get your chips with the best hand and try to reach the top nine. If you have a large stack of chips, don’t necessarily keep your chips, but don’t be complacent either.

Follow these tips, learn poker games and have fun at no cost to you.

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