Beating The Big Freerolls

OK, fellow poker gurus, let's put out heads together. How can be beat those gigantic freerolls of 3,000 to 10,000+ runnners? I'm talking about the ones where half the field no-shows and people spend the first half-hour stealing the blinds.

There are various good strategies in poker books, but these seem to focus on tournies like the WSOP where good (or at least confident) players have put up a serious buy-in. These things are Detroit Donk City.

he trouble with a massive tournament is what some call the "schooling effect," that so many people see the pot that you have odds to call with any two cards. But if you keep calling, you're losing chips as the blinds go up.

How shall we beat them? I have one theory: The First Hour Doesn't Matter. Basically, you sit there pretending you're in a play money ring game until the first break. You sit there quietly, trapping idiots with good cards and building up a decent stack.

After the first break, you start playing like Dan Harrington, T.J. Cloutier or Joe Shlabotnik tell you to play.

What do you guys say? I don't play tournaments often and I tend not to take freerolls serious. But they are a good way to build up a bankroll, since no buyin means you are +EV just for showing up.

( There's a guy in the UK who claims to have qualified for the WSOP via freeroll without playing a single hand. He forgot about the tourney, went to bed, and found out in the morning. Supposedly he got a lucky run of cards and was limped over the bubble. )

What say you guys? How you do trap such a large school of fishies?

Originally Posted by Yakuman

OK, fellow poker gurus, let's put out heads together. How can be beat those gigantic freerolls of 3,000 to 10,000+ runnners? I'm talking about the ones where half the field no-shows and people spend the first half-hour stealing the blinds.

There are various good strategies in poker books, but these seem to focus on tournies like the WSOP where good (or at least confident) players have put up a serious buy-in. These things are Detroit Donk City.

he trouble with a massive tournament is what some call the "schooling effect," that so many people see the pot that you have odds to call with any two cards. But if you keep calling, you're losing chips as the blinds go up.

How shall we beat them? I have one theory: The First Hour Doesn't Matter. Basically, you sit there pretending you're in a play money ring game until the first break. You sit there quietly, trapping idiots with good cards and building up a decent stack.

After the first break, you start playing like Dan Harrington, T.J. Cloutier or Joe Shlabotnik tell you to play.

What do you guys say? I don't play tournaments often and I tend not to take freerolls serious. But they are a good way to build up a bankroll, since no buyin means you are +EV just for showing up.

( There's a guy in the UK who claims to have qualified for the WSOP via freeroll without playing a single hand. He forgot about the tourney, went to bed, and found out in the morning. Supposedly he got a lucky run of cards and was limped over the bubble. )

What say you guys? How you do trap such a large school of fishies?

Just a thought to consider. There are some freerolls worth playing, but many that are not. Just a tip for you guys, before you spend your time on a freeroll, consider the following: How much is the freeroll actually worth to you? In other words, your equity. Ignore what the first prize is for a minute. In a cash tournament, your equity (assuming even skill) is equal to your tourney buyin. $5 buyin * 1000 players = $5000, you have $5 equity. The same works for freerolls, but u calculate the opposite way:

If a freeroll has a $10000 prize pool and there are 1000 entrants, you have $10 equity (10000/1000 = $10) This would be a pretty damn good freeroll and for someone on a low bankroll this would basically be a free $10 tourney. Now, most freerolls arent as good. Lets say you join a $2000 freeroll with 10,000 players. Your equity is now only $0.20 (2000/10000 = $0.20). So you are basically only playing a twenty cent tourney for free. This probably isnt even worth your time.

As a general rule, I would suggest doing this calculation for any freeroll you want to play. I would recommend only playing those that have similar (and preferably greater) equity than normal tournaments you are playing. In other words, lets say you have a $150 bankroll and are playing $1-$3 MTTs, you probably dont wanna waste your time on a freeroll with anything less than $2 of equity. Well, i dont wanna hijack your strategy post but I thought this might be some useful info for you guys, enjoy and good luck.

You're probably better off stealing your dad's credit card, losing all your BR in 5000NL on stars, and then crying in stars chat for the guy to give you your money back or else your dad will kill you.

Originally Posted by bigred

You're probably better off stealing your dad's credit card, losing all your BR in 5000NL on stars, and then crying in stars chat for the guy to give you your money back or else your dad will kill you.

Lol, true, but there are some good freerolls for some beginners out there if they look hard enough. I started my first bankroll on the $5k - 2500 player ones stars used to have.

Originally Posted by bigred

You're probably better off stealing your dad's credit card, losing all your BR in 5000NL on stars, and then crying in stars chat for the guy to give you your money back or else your dad will kill you.

LOL I saw that happen.

I don't think you can simply devide the prize by the number of players because of the huge amount of dead money. Half the pool is gone in half an hour and another half is gone by the first break.

I submit that a freeroll equity should be based on one-third the number of players.

I'm not a big fan of tourney poker because in order to have a positive exepectation you must be 1.) really good and 2.) play a lot of these things. There's money in cash games and s&g, but I don't see it in tournies. So I play for fun.

I don't want to spend $200 to sit there for five hours and then bust out on the bubble because my aces cracked. No way.

Holdempoker.com

6:00PM everyday a freerole. Usually no more than 1000 join. Don't have to download anything, just click, and a page pops up and you can play. The Pot is $500. Sometimes it's cash, but most of the time it's for tickets.
And at 2:30AM theres a Turbo Freerole. Only around 400 join that one.

First three levels I don't play a single hand unless its a pocket pair or AKs. AA KK QQ and JJ I raise pf and play like the nuts without an overcard. Everything else I play for set value. AK I do half pot raises when I hit. I fold when I do not hit.

I typically have about 1.5-3 times the average stack by the beginning of 50/100, basically not paying attention at all and set farming. Not hard.

prima

bet365 on a saturday and their monthly one for 1000raked hands or something probably have decent equity. Otherwise its hardly worth itm you have, as lamb points out, more chance and better equity in winning a $1-$3 mtt than any freeroll imo

honestly, as someone who has come through the freeroll route ($0.80 holla), I wish I'd deposited around $500 to start with.

don't bluff early, don't bluff if you don't have a good read your opp can fold a hand. Don't c-bet your missed AK

KK/AA if its like first 10min or so when the donks (and by donks i mean freeroll donks among a table of donks) havn't all bust out yet sometimes i find my best value is just pushing PF. There are people calling AI with the top 20% hands or so. They are also hard to play post flop as you cant really put your opponents on a range of hands, and dont know if they are pushing AI with the nuts str, or top pair...

Sometimes you might just want to gamboll it up. 88 push, eather bust out early and only waist like 15min, or you double up, and you have a big stack going into the break. I mean these feilds are so huge and shrink so fast, the average chip stack is often 3-4 buy-ings at break, and you will nee 20-25 buy ins to cash. You can't just sit around and wait for the cards to do that.

Once the blinds get significant, and the average stack has a M around 10-15, you may need to open up and start stealing the blinds more. One thing i noticed in freerolls a lot is people min bet a lot going "o shit my 84 didn't hit, i dont want to bluff a lot so im just going to bet 200 into this 2k pot and hope he folds"...but often you read is correct, you re-raise big, and he can't fold his pair of 3s.

oh yeah, and don't even bother bitching about bad beats in freerolls. They happen way more often in freerolls as people are pushing all kinds of crap.

This isn't spamming, I promise, but my r4keback provider runs monthly freerolls with fantastic equity. The first one I entered was $10k guaranteed - and only 122 entrants! It worked out to about $82 equity per player - and I managed to make the final table for a lovely $200 profit. The next one was $8k guaranteed and I came 32nd (out of 140 or so players) I think and still made $40. These are the only kind of freerolls I'd really bother with.

When I was playing them, I would register for several on different sights at once and push any two good cards early. I would play hyper aggressive and try to build a stack. You don't want to waste a bunch of time playing for nickels, you are trying to make the FT and when you get any 2 decent cards and push early and try to double or triple up. You don't want to be an under average stack for 3 hours and bubble out or just make it in the money for a $1. Use yur time wisely. you can play in 20 a night you only need to FT one. Play like a smart maniac and go for an early stack. As far as equity is concerned, Lambchop makes a good point. Treat it like the $0.20 it is and go for glory or bust. Also never consider the fact that you play 2 or 3 hours in a freeroll as tourney experience. Even the $1+ $0.10 on stars is worlds apart from any freeroll. Get in, FT and get out.

I think Trainer nailed it. Wasting your poker brain on these things is awful. That way madness lies. Only pick the better freerolls mentioned in this thread. Open push anything decent and bust or double.

If double, I'd actually post and fold for half an hour. Or repeat the open push and go for the triple.

You sit there quietly, trapping idiots with good cards and building up a decent stack.

Too much work. You need to have "real" tournaments open at the same time, and do this in those. The freeroll should be looked upon as gravy if you happen to catch a wildly hot streak.

Originally Posted by midas06

honestly, as someone who has come through the freeroll route ($0.80 holla), I wish I'd deposited around $500 to start with.

Skip the freerolls and instead spend the time mowing lawns or whatever so you can make a deposit.

Originally Posted by DaNutsInYoEye

Skip the freerolls and instead spend the time mowing lawns or whatever so you can make a deposit.

Your right Dnuts, but I don't think what we say matters. People will always try that route. They think it's free money. And they need to learn on their own. We've told them before, If you spend 5 hours trying to win $20 bucks Just get a part time job for a couple of weeks. Use the time to read up and learn. Make $200 doing something real easy. Make coffee, flip burgers or sell pop at ball games. It's faster and easier to do than play 3 months of freerolls and have nothing to show for it. Even at 5 bucks an hour, one 5 hour freeroll will not pay you $25 play 5 and that could have been $125 and you could have seen a few ball games.

I played for 4 hours, and won $1.35
I say, get a job!!

Originally Posted by mrhappy333

I played for 4 hours, and won $1.35

That's exactly the same way I figured out freerolls are an utter waste of time when I was starting out.. by making it ITM and having spent 3 hours for a buck fifty..