Freeroll tips

Playing in online poker freerolls is one of the most straightforward ways to getting a bankroll started from scratch. Sure, the money you stand to win in one of these freerolls is never a significant sum, but it is usually enough to get a bankroll going and the truth is, many of the best known online and offline professionals have begun their careers that way.
Most freerolls require players to post a real money deposit before they’re admitted, but there are some which have no such requirements. It’s these freerolls that you should gun for from the very beginning. After all, your goal is to get your bankroll started, and if you have to make a deposit to be allowed to play in the freeroll, the whole thing doesn’t make any sort of sense anymore. If you already have money at your disposal, spending time in freerolls is not what you should be doing.
Freerolls are almost always massive MTTs, and they’re a breed apart. Being good at real money MTTs will give you an advantage, but you’ll have to make a few significant modifications to your approach if you really intend to prevail.

The fact that freerolls cost nothing to register for will mean extremely loose play in the beginning. Nobody has any money at stake, so early strategy will be radically different from real money MTT play. There are several player typologies at action at the early MTT tables. One kind is the player who forces a double-up early on. These players aim to give themselves a good start in order to increase their odds radically, or to bust out right away and thus save the time they would otherwise waste and still come up empty handed. Still other players only play in the freeroll to annoy the other participants. They don’t care about advancing, they just want to bad beat someone out of the game.
Both these player types are bound to leave the game soon, which means you need to be extremely tight in the beginning to avoid the traps set by these guys. The size of your stack compared to the size of the blinds will also justify tight play here. As the freeroll progresses though and more and more players are sieved out, you need to gradually loosen up a little and steal a few blinds along the way too. Always keep in sight that you are playing in a freeroll where people are much more likely to call your bluffs and semi bluffs than in a different type of game. Given that playing the player instead of the cards is not really an option in the pre-bubble stages of a freeroll, you have to fall back on good old Level 1 poker play and play your cards. Bet your big hands aggressively. The fact that people are likely to call you down on just about any two cards is something you can exploit through this simple Tight-aggressive strategy.
Make sure you take advantage of the scare caused by the proximity of the bubble. Most players tend to tighten up once the money bubble is in sight in order to preserve their stacks and sneak into the money. This is when they are prone to giving up their better hands when bluffed.

Following the money bubble the strategy picture changes quite a bit, due to the following factors: there’s now real money involved and everyone would love as big a share of it as possible. Secondly, those left in contention tend to be better players, after all, they have managed to survive all the way to the money.
As the final table bubble approaches, play begins to resemble the final stages of a real money MTT more and more. Creative plays become much more efficient, though another problem now rears its head: due to the escalating blinds and the mounting pressure on players’ stacks, the luck factor creeps back into the game big time.
Make sure you practice short-handed and even heads-up play: in a freeroll, as in any MTT, your goal should be to win and not to just make the money.

Get a true measure of your poker skill through Full Tilt’s Matrix SNGs

If you feel that your SNG efforts get compromised time and time again by lucky calls belonging to poor players, Full Tilt’s Matrix tournaments may just be the answer you’re looking for. You will play the same 8 players on 4 tables in the same time. Do you take a bad beat on one of the tables? Exact your revenge on the other table.

All 4 of the SNGs will pay out just like regular ones, with the top 3 finishers taking down the cash prizes. The Matrix SNG’s however will have a prize-pool for overall performance as well.

You’ll earn survival points for every player you manage to outlast, and knockout points for every player you oust from one of the SNGs yourself. These points are used to determine your overall position after all 4 SNGs come to a conclusion. If you manage to win all 4 SNGs, you will become the Dominatrix. The Dominatrix takes down the whole Matrix (overall performance) prize pool, leaving all the other players in the dust.

Sign up to Full Tilt Poker now, download and install their software, go to their tournament lobby, hit the SNG button and click the tournaments marked with an M. Hit “register”.

Build your beginner’s bankroll at Everest Poker

Everest Poker offers its new players an excellent opportunity for getting their online poker skills on the right track for free, with the possibility of building up a nice starting bankroll too.

Every week there’s a $2,500 freeroll final at Everest to which the entry can be obtained for free through one of the two daily freeroll satellites.

The first of these satellites is reserved for players who have only been playing at Everest for three months and thus they qualify as “beginners”. These satellites send the top 50 players to the weekly freeroll final. Players who are not beginners also get a chance to qualify for the weekly final: for 50 Summit Points they get the chance to play in a daily satellite which sends the top 15 finishers on to the weekly final.
Faster game play is often encouraged in these qualifiers, either by their Speed or Turbo structure, or by the 6-player tables they feature.

Those who are not keen on messing about with satellites can buy their way directly into the weekly $2,500 for 1,000 Summit Points. Players who are not present at the Finals’ start are removed from the tournament in 5 minutes. Those who satellite their way in won’t be allowed to unregister.

Take down a nice bonus at Titan Poker

By simply playing in a cash game at Titan Poker, you offer yourself the chance to win a $100 bonus by hitting the best hand of the day.
In order to qualify, your hand must be bigger than 4 Ks, and it must fulfill a set of additional conditions: at least three players need to be dealt into the lucky hand, your best hand of the day needs to win the hand and if all your opponents fold, you lose the bonus.
You need to use both your pocket cards in the winning hand in order to qualify.
It is the first player who hits a qualifying hand who gets the bonus each day. Only Texas Holdem cash tables qualify for the promotion.

The Bad Beat Bonus features a much bigger reward for the lucky player who ends up a victim of Lady Luck’s caprices. The player who loses on a hand of 4 Ks or better, wins $250 on the spot. The hand in which the unlikely loss occurs needs to go to showdown and it has to feature both pocket cards as parts of the losing hand in order to qualify.
The winner needs to claim his bonus by sending an email to Titan Poker’s support.

Sign up to PokerStars now and take part in their New Depositors’ freerolls

Every PokerStars player who makes his/her first deposit during the month of December will receive a special Holiday opportunity: he/she will get a free ticket to the New Depositors’ freerolls which feature no less than $75,000 in total prize-pools. All you have to do is make your first real money deposit at PokerStars (this means players who have already made such deposits in the past do not qualify) using a special bonus code featured at PokerStars’ site and to register for one of the daily $500 freerolls by going to the PokersStars lobby and selecting tournaments first then freerolls. You can play in as many of these freerolls as you like.

If you manage to reach the cash in one of these daily freerolls, you’ll automatically earn a seat in the freeroll final which takes place on December the 28th and has an impressive $5,000 up for grabs.

Make sure you sign up now and take this excellent opportunity to get into the flow of things while winning real money. You’ll also get the regular 100% sign-up bonus that PokerStars offers to all its new players.

If you’re a good enough player, you’ll build up a nice bankroll through these freerolls to aid your first steps in the world of real money online poker action.