Strategy for Making Money in Freeroll Poker Tournaments
Freeroll tournaments are very popular in many online poker sites and they allow new poker players who don’t have their own bankroll yet the chance to play poker for real money. The amount of money that you will win from placing in a freeroll tournament isn’t going to change your life, but it will give you a small starting bankroll which you can use to play real money games.
Generally you will need to have a full day in order to play in a freeroll tournament because they take anywhere from 2-10+ hours to complete. With anywhere from hundreds to thousands of poker players signing up for every freeroll tournament you will need to beat a lot of players and outlast a lot of all-in bets in order to make money. Often only the top few positions will be paid money in these types of tournaments so you will need to have one very good run in the tournament too place.
During the early rounds in a rakeback freeroll tournament you need to be prepared to see a lot of big betting which means you need to play selectively. I would suggest that you try and only play your strong starting hands and when you do play them, make sure you play them strongly. Players in freeroll tournaments often don’t even consider using any strategy and they only push their chips all-in in hopes of doubling up. You will be able to take advantage of this weakness that most players have in these tournaments throughout the early rounds and you should be able to build up your chip stack.
After most of the fish are knocked out of the tournament and you’re down to the final 200 odd players in the event you will notice that the game changes. Players will start to play like they are playing for real money and not for free and you will need to start playing tighter. You won’t see players going all-in preflop anymore with nothing and you will need to start reading your opponents and picking your spots.
You will need to remain aggressive throughout the entire tournament when you are playing hands and you can’t allow PokerStars players to steal them off of you. The big stacks often bully the other players near the end of freeroll tournaments so make sure when you’re playing a big stack that you’re willing to go all-in if you have too. If you aren’t willing to go all-in then you shouldn’t bother playing the hand in the first place. The reason you need to always remain aggressive is because you can’t stop building your chip stack up. Since only the top few players will be paid you need to make sure that you always build your stack so that you’re in contentions for the money. If you sit back and relax when you’re in the final 50 players you will find that your stack is eaten up by the massive blinds and antes.
Freeroll tournaments are ideal for those poker players who are unable to fund a bankroll, or buy their way into the World Series of Poker but I wouldn’t suggest playing them if you have money too play with. They take a long time and you could potentially play for hours and win nothing which isn’t making good use of your time.