Online Poker Rooms Freerolls - Best Tour to Tournaments Tips

When it comes to freerolls (especially massive MTT ones) you’ll probably hear many of the “wiseguys” proclaim that there is no value in them whatsoever. Remember though, that things in poker as never as simple as they seem at first glance.

Freerolls are usually offered by poker rooms to players who sign up and possibly deposit at their site, or as a reward for those who generate outstanding amounts of rake. Such freerolls do not present a large competition, and they offer their participants excellent value: a huge prize-pool for zilch investment.

Other poker rooms use their freerolls to draw in new players and to generally become popular with the poker-playing public. Such freerolls draw massive traffic, their rewards are small so basically they do not present any sort of value for an established poker player who’s already generating money at the cash or paid-entry tournament tables. If you happen to be one of those players, do not play in massive MTT freerolls such as these. Speaking from real experience, it is possible to state that even if you do reach the final table out of 2,000 players, (which is not a simple feat in itself) you’ll only be making about $5/hour, which is quite abysmal.
 
On the other hand, as the saying goes: one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. For players who cannot afford to deposit money in order to start a poker bankroll, or just do not want to, such freerolls can represent a priceless opportunity. As poker professional, Chris Ferguson proved it, it is possible these days to start a prolific poker career out of nothing by joining the right poker room and jump-starting a bankroll by playing in such massive freerolls. While the odds are very much against any individual player (regardless of their skill level) truly good players will sooner or later manage to catch a few money positions and get a skeleton of a bankroll together.
 
How do you go about achieving this? Well it’s not that difficult actually: you just have to be prepared that you’ll take many bad beats on your way. As the tournament starts, the action is usually pretty frantic. This is absolutely contrary to the principles of any sort of healthy poker strategy. If you have ever studied poker, you probably know that one of its basic principles stipulates that the smaller the blinds (or antes) are, the tighter you should play. The bigger the blinds, the looser you may get. This is explained by the pot odds, but it is not an original idea which should give us a credit for it. Still, the beginning stages of any massive MTT are very chaotic with people going all-in left and right, without any regards to pot odds, effective odds or anything of the sort. Stay well clear of temptation and wait for a truly good hand to punish that loose cannon at your table. Let this person bully you around, and look for that good hand. Not only will revenge be that much sweeter, you’ll give your stack a huge boost as well. As the game progresses, try to come out of your shell and look to create and exploit positive EV situations whenever you can. When nearing the bubble, you might want to tighten up a bit again, just to make sure you reach the money, and then come out firing on all cylinders. Once you’re in the money, a couple of places further up or down the ranking won’t make a big difference in these freerolls, so get down dirty and loosen up, all the more so because soon the blinds will impose a looser game-style anyway.
 
Once you take down your micro-bankroll, make sure you do not let it all go to waste at the cash tables. Play in paid-entry STTs with them. Remember, at this stage you’ll be disadvantaged by a multitude of factors: you won’t enjoy a rakeback deal – which is a huge setback, you’ll be under bankrolled at just about any limit, and you’ll feel the stress of fighting to hold on to your last nickel. Busting out at this stage is a probability, so you need to be on the lookout for that EV+ like never before.