Freerollsmonitor Poker Freerolls Guide

Of course, you all know what poker freeroll tournaments are... but in case you're new to online poker, you should know that a freeroll is a risk-free possibility for players to make some money. They are no-buyin promotional tournaments meant to lure players to a certain poker room. The truth of the matter is, however, that freerolls have become a marketing-weapon most poker rooms use nowadays. Choosing the right kind of freeroll ( one that is actually worth playing in) has become quite a bit of a task lately. You see, the problem is, there are freerolls which are a mere waste of your time and there are freerolls that are not.

Freerolls that are available to the general public absolutely free are seldom worth playing in. The reason is, that because of their nature, these freerolls draw in huge crows of players, some absolute newbies some experienced, some only there to mess up someone's day some looking for a good game of poker.

Despite the fact that these games are not worth joining money-wise, they can still provide valuable training grounds for those who intend to seek success in other freerolls or real-money games on pokerrooms such as BetUS. They are a lot like real money tournaments and they are completely free. If you're a rookie, it'd be a crying shame to miss out on such a great opportunity.

As soon as you regularly manage to survive right up to the break, you know you need to move on to something else. This is about the time when your focus should change from getting training under your belt to actually making some money.

These public-access freerolls are no good for that, simply because of the sheer number of participants taking part in these games. Even if you do manage to finish in the money (ITM) the prize won't justify the 4-5 hours of hard work you need to do for it. Prize pools on these freerolls are simply disproportional compared to the number of people taking part in them.

What freerolls should you play in then?

Most poker rooms offer their customers the possibility to play in a variety of freerolls ( how many there are and how big the prize-pool will be for these tournaments, depends on the promotions offer of the online poker room you play in.) Access to these freerolls will be restricted to actual customers of the given online poker room. Some are played for action points, some are absolutely free but still only available for those who have a real money account at the room.

These poker freeroll tournaments are a pretty good chance for you to actually end up with some money when they conclude. The number of people participating will drop, but the level of competition will rise. At any rate, you'll find yourself spending a lot less time fighting over much bigger prize pools.

Strategy-wise, one peculiarity you'll need to pay attention to when playing in a freeroll is dealing with the initial onslaught of maniacs. Maniacs are representative of every freeroll. There are two kinds of maniacs you'll have to deal with and survive. The first kind is the reckless one, who's only after ruining your day, pulling an extreme play on you and seeing if it succeeds. The second type is the kind of maniac who only acts reckless up to a certain point. This guy wants to see whether or not he gets hit by extreme luck in the beginning and thus rack up a sizeable bankroll. If he achieves that, he'll settle down and hit you with his regular play. There's no need to iterate that the second one is the more dangerous of the two.

How do you deal with them?

In the very beginning, you need to play extremely tight. Your starting hand selection should be extremely careful, however this is not enough. Every now and then, ( whenever your starting hand justifies it) you need to lash out and hit an extremely aggressive note. This is how you'll get rid of the pesky "type one" maniacs. You also need to do this in order to make your stack grow, otherwise you'll soon be faced with overwhelming blinds and huge bankrolls on the part of your opponents. Since we all know a big bankroll will always dominate a smaller one, you'll know exactly where you need to be.

The second type of maniac should answer to the same treatment. Even though he's a much more reasonable player than 'type one' , in the opening stages of a freeroll, he's vulnerable to the same counterstrategy. After that, you can only pray you'll be able to outplay him.

Whatever the case, you certainly don't just want to play in any freeroll. You need to find yourself the right one. Fortunately, just like it happens with online casinos, there are websites on the internet whose sole purpose is to guide players like yourself to the most worthwhile freerolls.

See the poker freerolls schedule here