Freeroll Strategy

Freeroll tournaments at online sites are an interesting animal.  Some people believe that they term comes from the early days of Las Vegas, when people would receive a free roll of nickels to play in the slot machines when they checked into the hotel.  People would ask for their “free roll”, and the term became slang for gambling for free.  Regardless or the origin, (and even if the above story isn’t true, it sounds good), these tournaments, that are free to play but pay out real money, have aspects of play money games and real money games.  Let’s look at the differences:

Real Money Poker

This is any kind of poker game where real money is on the line.  It doesn’t matter if you are playing a deep tournament with a buy-in of $10,000, or a home game with friends for $50.  When real money is on the line, people play real poker.  The degree to which they play depends not on how much money is at stake, but how important that money is to the player.  Everyone at a casino $1/$2 no limit cash game could have the same amount of money in front of them, and yet they could all play very differently, based on how important that money is to them. One lady may have suffered a huge loss, and has dropped down to these super “small” stakes to regain her confidence, while another player could be playing cash for the very first time, and has saved the $400 they brought to the table over the last six weeks.  While it isn’t possible to predict how everyone is going to treat their buy-in, one thing is clear: when real money is on the line, people play real poker, to some degree.

When I first started playing online poker, I won some money playing tournaments for $0.10 and $0.25.  I tried playing cash games at the $0.01/$0.02 tables, and I was amazed at how many people were playing real poker (and way better than me).  I got destroyed the first few times I played, and while there were always some crazy players popping in, for the most part, people played real poker, even with two cent blinds. 

Play Money Poker

To say it another way, when there isn’t any money involved, people do not play real poker.  Sometimes I am sitting at the kitchen table dealing poker hands to myself and thinking about the game (what do you do on the weekends), and my kids come over and want to play a few hands.  Without any chips, we deal some cards and play, saying things like “I raise,” and “I call,” but there aren’t any chips on the table, and we really don’t care.  At some point, one of my kids will say “All in!” and then when they lose, remark how it’s all fake anyway, and go outside.  But when they win, they get very excited to have kicked daddy’s butt.

Just try playing some real poker for play money on a social networking site and you will see what I am talking about.  Everyone just pushes all in, and they don’t care what happens.  They just keep playing until they get lucky.  Without real money on the line, poker goes from a game of skill to a game of luck.

Luck vs. Skill

I can’t tell you how many times I have been talking about poker, only to hear someone say “I don’t play poker because I don’t gamble.”  I used to respond with “But poker isn’t gambling.  It’s a game of skill like chess, or golf.”  This would spark a debate that, in relation to how much alcohol was being consumed, could drag on for hours.  And yet, I would never be able to change their minds.  This is why I now just nod my head.  Because they would push all-in with any two cards, and turn the game from a skill game to a slot machine.  This is what makes freeroll tournaments an interesting animal.

Freerolls start out as play money games, and then transition to real money games.  At some point, which is different for every tournament, it looks like this:

This is why my strategy might seem weird.  To win the tournament, players need a huge number of chips.  If someone were to simply watch what is happening during the tournament, they would see, at the beginning, a few players gaining a huge amount of chips.  While chip accumulation like this doesn’t happen as quickly in real money tournaments, at the beginning, it is play money, without regard to skill.  Unfortunately, to make it through the transition from luck to skill, and to have enough chips to play real poker, a player needs to get lucky, multiple times.

Freeroll Strategy

My strategy is, in the beginning, to see as many cheap flops as possible, regardless of starting hands or position.  However, it is important to remember to never give up.  If you call with 53o, only to face a re-raise and an all-in, just fold.  Don’t get frustrated and tilt, pushing in chips with crappy hands.  It can be irritating, because the play is still in the slot machine zone.  The goal is to flop 2 pair or better, and then get all your chips in, hopefully against multiple opponents. 

Now this is not a money making strategy, but there isn’t any money at stake.  You can play freerolls all day long.  Sacrifice some tournaments for the chance, once in a while, to end up with a huge stack early on.  Once an initial large stack is acquired, perhaps twice the size of everyone else, then start raising every unopened pot, regardless of starting hands or position.  And, just like before, without giving up and dumping off all your chips, see as many flops as possible while stealing the blinds, and driving all the people trying to play real poker right to the edge of madness.

At this point, many people will have already left the freeroll, and many others will have turned off their computers, their online avatar slowly losing chips each round.  Those people trying to play real poker, folding all but the best hands, will have dwindling stacks.  As the blinds continue to rise, they are forced to wait for great cards, and even if you call and double them up, they won’t even dent your stack. 

During this transition phase, many people drop out, and big stacks start appearing at your table.  As you continue to try and get lucky, pushing all in with two pair or better, you will, at some point, end up all in against a big stack, and whoever wins that hand will end up in the top 10, and stand a good shot at making the final table and winning the tournament, or at least getting some of that free money to start climbing the real money ladder.  And everyone likes free money (except babies).  At this point, it is time to start playing real poker, reading your opponents, and adjusting your game from tight to loose depending on the other players at the table.  There is no guaranteed strategy at this point, but getting here is half the battle.

Next time I will post my stats for freerolls, so you can see how this strategy is working…

Ciao,

ZenToad 

Freeroll Strategy II: http://zentoadpoker.blogspot.com/2012/07/freeroll-strategy-ii.html
Freeroll stats are here: http://zentoadpoker.blogspot.com/2012/06/freeroll-statistics.html