Freerolls are a great way to build your bankroll from scratch. Almost every online poker room offers them—many upon your initial registration.
Most freerolls pay a very small percentage of the total entrants. Freerolls at high-traffic poker rooms like PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker often have upwards of 3,000 entrants. You can play for over three hours, finish in the top 8% and still walk away empty handed. It’s a lousy feeling, which is why so many people choose to play erratically and hope to get lucky. To avoid an early exit and make the money, it’s important you break down the tournament into stages and use the following strategies:
Early stage
The blinds are quite low in comparison to your starting chip stack, which causes players to play way too many hands, and playing too many hands is the number one mistake made in online poker.
Here is a common early stage scenario: PokerFanatic decides to limp in with A-5 from early position. BigBluffer raises three times the big blind from late position with A-Q and PokerFanatic calls. The flop comes A-7-2. PokerFanatic bets, BigBluffer raises, PokerFanatic goes all in and BigBluffer calls to eliminate him from the tournament.
Playing too many hands early on can result in you making loose calls out of position. The result? An early exit.
It’s also not uncommon to see players make huge overbets at the beginning of the tournament. The pot will be 60 chips and a player will fire out 200. Don’t be sucked into these bets. Wait for the cards to come to you. There is no reason you should be making big bets to win such small, insignificant pots. Play tighter in the beginning stage and you’ll usually advance past the first break.
Steer past the all-in bonanza
In the early stages players will go all-in with almost anything. Many ship it on the very first hand. Sure a freeroll doesn’t cost anything to enter, but doubling-up on your first hand doesn’t mean much in the scheme of things. It might be fun to do, but if you’re serious about winning you’re going to have to dedicate yourself to hours of play. If you want to win big freerolls, you must practice patience. Within an hour most of these freewheeling fish will have been knocked out, so you won’t have to deal with all-ins in every hand.
Take note of the players who consistently go all-in. Record where they went all-in (i.e. pre-flop) and what hand they had. During the first half hour or so, players will play almost any two cards from any position, so try not to read too much into their play.
Don’t go all-in just because you have an overpair. In the early stages, big pairs like Kings and Aces get cracked all the time because a player thinks he has to go all in when the board shows something like Q-9-J. Someone can easily be playing K-10, Q-J, 9-J, Q-9, J-J, or Q-Q from any position.
Middle Stage
This is where you need to start being more aggressive. Protect good starting hands with pre-flop raises and slightly open up the range of hands you play.
Do not micromanage your chip stack! Too many players worry about their chip stack in relation to the average stack, and then they become even more upset when they see that the chip leader is light years ahead. Worrying about the size of your chip stack will affect your play and you’ll end up either playing too tight as a chip leader, or too loose because you are far behind.
The middle stage is also an opportune time to pick up a few small pots. Short-stacked players will be looking for those all-in worthy cards. Take advantage of this and bet into them when they try to get away with a smooth call pre-flop or a check on the flop. If you have position, you’ll likely pick up an easy pot.
If you find yourself a few blinds away from being knocked out of the tournament, you need to be more aggressive and look for a hand to double up. There is no way you’ll make the final table or even close if you’re blinded all-in every few rounds.
Final Stage/The Money
Congratulations, you made the money! Still, for many freeroll tournaments, making the money isn’t enough to justify playing online poker for three hours when your reward for getting 40th out of 2000 is $5.
You should always gun for the final table, but if you’re really low in chips it’s important to take a look at the payouts and determine what you’d be happy walking away with. For instance, say you are in 37th place. The payout for 37th is $10, which you wouldn’t be satisfied with. However, if you reach 30th place the payout goes up to $25, which you decide is definitely worth it. You have to look at the other chip stacks and decide if you have a realistic shot of squeezing in by folding, or if you need to go all-in before the blinds reach you.
If you have an average to large size stack you can bully the small stacks around. Like the aforementioned situation, many players want to reach a certain level of payout, and they’re going to be playing very tight poker in order to do so. They’re likely folding or going-all in when they get a good hand. If they show weakness against you, and especially if you have position, don’t be afraid to bet. It wouldn’t make much sense for them to check-raise all-in when they’re so low on chips. Even a medium-sized bet will get them to fold.
Conclusion
With the blinds threatening to knock a player out every other round, you must walk a fine line of tight and aggressive play in the final stage of a freeroll.
Players will play very conservatively from the blinds. With the blinds creeping higher and higher, by making a pre-flop raise from late position you stand to pick up some easy pots.
Remember, the hardest thing for many players to do is take a freeroll tournament seriously. Don’t fall into a fish net in the early stages and you’ll be on your way to winning some free money.
Do you want to become a better poker player? Learn the 6 things you need to do to win heads up!
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