Let’s be honest –
Not everyone who wants to play online poker has a bankroll. Nor are they able to get backing, because they don’t have verifiable results and no one knows them.
Then there are others who do have a bankroll. But they’re levelheaded – they know they’re not ready to play online poker for real money.
So, what options do these people have?
While playing freeroll poker tournaments, you also have to watch your own emotions. Poker is known as an intense game, and players go through a gamut of emotions. These tournaments are a great way to experience and even practice to keep them under control. Secrets of Mental Toughness: If you played poker for any length of time, then you know how important mental toughness is to the game. Commentators and professional poker players often talk about mental toughness.
One option is to play free poker games. You can play for free and learn your fundamentals before you dive into shark infested waters.
But that doesn’t help with the bankroll deficiency.
Silver Freeroll Page 1 1893 1701 0Bee 0doncamillo0 1993Niklas 1Donald1 1Str1ker1. PokerStrategy Nick AAlbator AAlooser aaltvater Abrahao Abraxsas Absti. Name: PokerStrategy Double Action Freeroll Starting time: Every Sunday at 17:00 GMT Prizepool: $500 Qualification: Each series of 6 Double Action freerolls is open for players who made their first deposit and have an account created via PokerStrategy.com.
The next option – your best bet – is to play freeroll poker tournaments instead. Most poker sites offer them. Our top picks are below.
The point is this — freerolls can help you launch your poker career. But only if you’re patient and persistent, and only if you learn proper strategy.
We’re going to talk more about freeroll strategy later in this guide.
But first, let’s talk more about what a freeroll is and what makes it unique from other free games.
Tournament freerolls are like free poker games. But there’s one major difference.
Freerolls have prizes. Sometimes they’re money. Other times they’re entries to tournaments with prizes.
Free poker games do not.
The competition in a freeroll is soft like a free money game. But because they award prizes, they can get hundreds or thousands of entrants. So, it will take a little bit of both luck and skill to make money from these.
Lots of people have done it. Some have managed to turn these small prizes into bankrolls they later grew to hundreds, thousands, even millions of dollars.
I’ve cashed in a freeroll or two, though I didn’t parlay mine into a lasting bankroll. But Chris Ferguson, Tom Dwan and Annette Obrestad have.
Ferguson did it as a challenge. But both Dwan and Obrestad launched their poker careers – earnings millions of dollars so far – playing poker freerolls.
You can do it, too. Your first step is to find the best site to join.
Nearly every poker site offers freerolls. Too many options can make it difficult to choose just one or two. So, here are the things we look for:
We would rather join a poker site that offers freerolls on a regular basis. That can be every four hours or twice per day. This is better than the sites who offer freerolls at random.
Even if it means the prize pools are smaller. Seriously.
We want regular tournaments because, like real money tournaments, you’re not going to cash in every single one of them. In fact, the larger the tournaments, the less often you should expect to cash.
The way to cash more often is to play more tournaments. The best way to do that is to join a site who offers frequent freerolls on a schedule.
For example, when Merge Gaming was worth joining back in the day, they ran freerolls every 2-4 hours. Fortunately, many of the sites we recommend do something similar.
Another thing we look for are larger prize pools. Because you don’t want to play for your share of $10, which might be split between 10, 25 or 50+ players.
We recommend looking for sites who offers a minimum of $100 for their freerolls. A cash can get you $5, $10 or even $20. A couple cashes – much less wins – will go a long way once you make the switch to the micro stakes.
Some poker sites let everyone sign up to their freerolls. Which means you might have to battle 4,586 players for your share of a $50 prize pool.
It’s not that you can’t do it, it’s just that the numbers aren’t in your favor. Even if you play well you’ll also need to get very, VERY lucky.
We prefer to find poker sites who cap the number of entrants. We’ve seen freerolls where the fields are limited to 600 or 1,000 players – the top 50 (or less) are paid.
That’s a lot of players. But it’s doable (and on a somewhat consistent basis).
Other sites limit their fields to 3,000 or 5,000 players. This is okay, but only if the prize pool is large enough to justify it. Otherwise it’s too big a field to fight through.
Most bonuses and promotions come with terms. For example, you must earn so many player points to clear your deposit bonus.
Sometimes poker sites have terms for their freerolls, too. The exact terms vary from site to site.
For example, we’ve seen sites who say their freeroll winnings are not cashable. But you can cash out the money you win with it. Others say you need to wager so many dollars before you can cash out, while others say you need to make a nominal deposit first.
We suggest finding a poker site who has as few terms and restrictions as possible.
Okay, so now you’ve found a site or two and got signed up. The next step is to play freerolls. And, one of the common questions we’re asked is, how the heck do you win?
Here are 10 tips which should help you out.
In the early stages, many players will go all in preflop to try to double or triple up. This includes players with any two cards …because why not?
Don’t get involved in this. Yeah, you might get lucky. But 25+ percent of the time you’re going to bust early. And doubling or tripling up early on is no guarantee you’ll run deep or cash anyway.
We recommend you stick to the top of your range early on. Play pairs, KQ, AJ, AQ and AK. Limp small pairs (to set mine) and only play them post-flop if you hit a set.
You should go all in (pre-flop) with QQs+. Jacks are questionable. You can play them aggressively -or- set mine. The same goes for hitting these hands on the flop. You should plan to play AJ+ and KQ+ aggressively post-flop unless the flop is draw-heavy.
This piggybacks off the last tip, but it’s that important. Too many players try to get too creative with their hands. But if freerolls, your opponents will call you with any two just because. So, you might as well get paid. When you hit your hand, bet, bet, bet.
Many players make the mistake of tightening up near the (cash) bubble. This is a huge mistake. Your goal should always be to win. You might bust more often, but the times you don’t you’ll make deeper runs for larger cashes, profiting more money overall.
There are exceptions. For example, if you have 5 big blinds left on the money bubble it’ll make more sense to try to squeak into the money. But unless you’re desperate, go for the win.
Beginners start stealing the blinds too soon in tournaments. The problem is the blinds aren’t worth stealing relative to what they’ll add to your stack. But when you wait for antes, stacks are shorter relative to the blinds AND the antes add dead money to pot which will make a significant difference in your stack when you pick them up.
The reason why we recommend staying tight early on is so you can get more active later (when antes kick in). The benefit to this strategy is that most players will think you’ve been card dead the whole tournament, but now suddenly you’re getting good hands. So, they’ll get out of your way. You’ll be able to steal the blinds uncontested more than not.
Bluffs only work against players who’re capable of folding. Most freeroll players are not. So, it’s not going to make sense to bluff unless you know you’re up against a thinking player.
When you play a hand, you need to think a couple steps ahead. You got to have a plan for how you’ll play your hand if you connect on the flop.
For example, when you play an Ax hand, the goal is to bet. But say you hit top pair while holding A3o with 4 other players in the pot. Are you going to feel good betting this hand for value?
Probably not. Not only will you not like it, but chances are someone has your hand dominated.
A better strategy is to play hands that aren’t often dominated on the flop. You’ll get in trouble less often. You’ll feel better about betting for value, too.
Most beginners don’t adjust their strategy for different table sizes. Many full-ring tournaments will have as few as 5-6 players when players have busted or when the tournament’s winding down. They continue to stick to a tighter hand range.
This is a good opportunity for you to explode – open more hands and steal more blinds. Not only that, but hands go up in value in short-handed play. This includes your weaker Ax and Kx hands. Even when you’re called you can feel good about holding a hand like A9s or KJ.
This is another reason why it makes sense to stay tight early on. You’ll have a tight image, which will allow you to open several hands and steal several pots uncontested. This is much easier to do at a shorthanded table.
A great way to add easy chips to your stack is to “reshove” over preflop limps or raises once antes have kicked in (in the later stages). The reason why this works so well is because most players will have a wide opening range, which means they’ll fold often. And because there will be so much (dead) money in the pot relative to your stack, you don’t have to win the pot very often for it to be a profitable play.
And when you do win the pot you’ll add a ton of chips to your stack.
You’ll notice our tips are a mix of generic poker tips and common low stakes SNG/MTT strategy. But that’s because poker freerolls are going to play the same way.
For that reason, when you’ve practiced these tips and want to learn more, we suggest you read up on more beginner/low stake MTT strategy. It’ll help you out.
After you’ve played a few freerolls, chances are you’ll have cashed or are on the brink of your first one. Which means you’ll want to know this:
Most players will want to parlay this into a bankroll. To move up in stakes and start playing games that aware real money prizes.
And that’s a great idea. But, only if you’re ready.
For one thing, you should only make the jump if you’re comfortable with your poker skills. It won’t be a huge transition, moving from freerolls to real money games. But it’ll help you a ton if you have the basic MTT fundamentals and strategy down.
Then there’s your bankroll.
We don’t recommend switching to real money games with a tiny bankroll. It’s great that you’ve won $10 or $20, but you’ll struggle to find traction if that’s all you take with you to the micro stakes. A bad bout of variance will send you to the showers.
Instead, we recommend having a minimum of $100 before making the switch to real money games. This will give you 20 buy-ins for $0.2/$0.05 or $0.05/$0.10 cash games, or about 30-50 buy-ins for the $1-$3 SNGs.
We recommend playing SNGs because they’re great for learning MTT fundamentals. They’re much easier on your bankroll, too.
But that’s only one-half of the battle. You also need to learn how to manage your bankroll, unless you want to go back to playing freerolls. You can learn about bankroll management here.
And there you have it. That’s how you can build your poker bankroll and launch your career playing freeroll tournaments.
Here are some common questions we regularly get about poker freerolls and freeroll poker sites (and our answers).
These are for community run freerolls. These are hosted by/for a specific website, organization or home game. These aren’t for you unless you’re invited or part of one of these groups.
Many players will go out of their way to steal these passwords. Then play the games to win money that’s not meant for them.
This isn’t very nice or ethical. Please don’t do it.
The biggest difference between free play or free games is you cannot win money. You’re given free chips and you can play any free game you can afford to buy into. But there are no real money prizes. You’ll only win more free chips.
But with freerolls you can win real money prizes – like cash or tournament entries.
Not much. Both offer real money prizes.
The biggest difference is that the VIP freerolls are available only to players on a specific VIP level (or all levels). Players who aren’t VIP members can’t play. One benefit to this is a smaller playing field. The prizes are usually better, too. And it is money the poker site puts up to reward their loyal customers.
There are lots of reasons why you might consider playing freerolls. Here are some of the biggest benefits:
All you should have to do in most cases is create an account. Then find and join a freeroll.
Sometimes you might have to be a VIP member, though, which means you’ll need to create an account, make a deposit and play for real money first.
Yes. So long as the poker site offers freerolls on mobile devices. Many poker rooms don’t offer all their games and stakes for mobile devices. The only way to know for sure is to read our reviews or download the poker room’s app.
Yes. In fact, some of the best freerolls are (and have been) on US-facing poker sites. We suggest starting with BetOnline, who routinely offers daily/weekly freerolls.
Some of the different kinds of freerolls you’ll find are:
Most of them offer freerolls to incentivize and encourage players to play. And when players win from freerolls, sometimes there will be terms they got to follow – like making a deposit or wagering so much money – before they can cash out.
Between the terms and winning money, this can encourage players to deposit more, which is something poker rooms want. It’s how they make money.
In other cases, they do it as a promotion. To give back to their VIP (loyal) players. Other times it’s to promote a live event the freeroll is a satellite to.
It depends on where you play. Some poker sites will let you cash out your winnings. Other rooms may have terms you need to follow first. This could mean making a nominal deposit or wagering so much money (like a casino bonus) before you can cash out.
In other cases, the freeroll winnings may not be cashable. But you can use them to play real money games where any money you earn from those IS cashable.
Casinos put these types of rules in place to protect themselves from people who sign up only to play freerolls and cash out their winnings.
The Millions Superstorm at 888poker is the biggest festival to date at 888poker with more than $8 million in guaranteed prizes across 460 action-packed events from Sept. 10 to Oct. 11.
The crown jewel of the festival is easily the $320 Superstorm Main Event featuring a mouth-watering $1 million guarantee. 888poker is already hosting opening flights for this two-day event and they will continue until near the start of Day 2 on Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. GMT / 4 p.m. EDT when eventually a winner will be crowned.
What you likely already knew is that there are plenty of satellites where you can potentially get your ticket to the Main Event for a fraction of the cost. But did you know that there are also five ways you can earn a freerolls ticket every single day at 888poker?
Playing freeroll satellite tournaments requires a different approach and mindset than other types of poker tournaments.
888poker Ambassador Vivian Saliba sat down with PokerNews to share what you should be thinking about including three big tips to give you a better chance to win.
Whether you play poker once in a while or play all the time, Saliba pointed out that everyone plays the game more than just for the love of poker.
'The most skilled poker player and an occasional recreational player share more than just the love for poker,' Saliba said. 'They both like to win.'
Winning a poker tournament is a combination of luck and skill. Saliba also points out that game selection is important as well.
'We all know that luck is always welcome, but we also know that above all, in order to be a winning player, what really matters is to make consistently smart and profitable decisions,' said Saliba. 'Some of those decisions might involve complicated mathematical calculations but others are very simple such as choosing in what games to play.'
Freerolls fit the mix of game selection since by nature they are free. This means worst case scenario you lose nothing and the best case scenario you can boost your bankroll without any risk.
'Freeroll tournaments are always a good idea, you don’t have to invest any money and can still make a profit out of it,' Saliba shared. 'They are also a great chance to build or even boost your poker bankroll.'
Saliba imparted with some of her years of poker experience to share with the poker community three great tips you should keep in mind when playing freeroll tournaments, including for the Superstorm Main Event.
Freerolls are a great way to build a bankroll without any risk to your own wallet. Saliba points out that for new players, it is also a great way to gain valuable experience for free as well.
'If you are new to poker, freerolls are probably the best way to build your poker bankroll and also to gain experience without investing anything,' shared Saliba.
Of course, 888poker is the place to be right now with five different ways to win a freeroll ticket every day where you can qualify for the Superstorm for free. But the online poker room also hosts many other types of freeroll tournaments.
'888poker offers daily different freeroll tournaments giving away thousands of dollars every month,' said Saliba. 'Besides winning cash prizes, you can also win tournament tickets such as for the millions superstorm main event, a $320 buy-in event with $1 million in guaranteed prize pool. Winning a ticket for a tournament like this for free is great in many ways. First of all, this might be your chance to play in such a big event as the Millions Superstorm main event in case you are not willing to try the regular satellites or make the regular buy-in, you will also be boosting your chances of a bigger prize.'
The last bit of advice from Saliba applies whether you are playing freerolls or entering tournaments with a real-money buy-in.
'Either at the freeroll tables or at the regular events tables, always remember to take your time and think through every decision,' Saliba explained. 'You must understand that nobody will win 100% of the hands and losing chips are just as normal as winning them. Keep it cool and have fun! I wish you best of luck and see you at 888poker tables!'
The Superstorm Main Event is your chance to hit it big. The best part is that you can get into the event for free, but, of course, you will need an account to do so.
If you don't already have one, we have even better news for you as our readers are treated to a welcome package far greater than most new players receive thanks to the special relationship we enjoy with 888poker.
Simply download 888poker through PokerNews and you will be awarded an $88 bonus (£20 in the UK) without making a deposit.
Once you are ready to make your first deposit, it will be matched in the form of a bonus up to $888, or more than twice as much advertised on the site.