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Take Advantage of Freeroll Tournaments
I have found that playing freeroll poker tournaments can add to your bankroll quickly, and recommend everyone to take full advantage of them. Most every online poker room on the net has them as a way to keep players coming back every day. Beware though, the number of players in such tournaments can get quite large on some of the bigger rooms like PokerStars, and the play can be pretty wild in the early stages. In comparison, at the smaller rooms like Ace Poker the number of players are much smaller.
I warn beginners to just sit tight in the freerolls and play nothing but premium hands till the later stages of the game. At the early stages you are going to run across a lot of "donks" (players that gamble on any hand) that will risk all their chips to try and double up early. Don't let yourself get too concerned with them, those are the players that are usually some of the first ones out. I've even thrown away some right strong poker hands just so I'd be playing poker in the later rounds. (one player I know even sits out the first thirty minutes of Freerolls).
In a normal tournament, people will respect your bets and raises a lot more than in a freeroll.
Since the players have not paid a buy-in fee and in a lot of cases are not experienced, they will often "get married to their hand" . Say they get Q-Q pre-flop and even though the flop comes A-K-2, they will just not believe a player can possibly have them beat. Those queens just look to good to fold ! The way to abuse this is to make large bets when you know you have the best hand, since they are going to call you anyway.
The value of top hands like aces or kings goes way up because you are so likely to get paid off with them. If your opponent has shown strength before the flop, and you connect with your A-K type of hand, maybe you you should even try to just get all your chips in the middle. You'll be amazed how often you get called by hands like pocket 9's, even with the 3 overcards on the flop. Once you get to the later stages of the freeroll, you will likely be facing better opponents and it will be time to adjust your strategy again.
In the latter rounds of the freerolls the play generally gets to be a might better. This is when it becomes more like a game of poker than just an all out "donkfest" (a tourney that's full of wild & crazy players doing nothing but taking a gamble) . You'll see and know when this time comes, believe me. Now is the time to start playing poker ! The later in the tournament the more you should mix up your game so as not to become predictable.
One place that I have done quite well in freerolls is at Ace Poker (Formly known as PDC) The player base is not as large, so you don't find yourself having to dodge several thousand players like you see at some of the sites. They even have small $50 freerolls running every three hours that anyone who has a registered account can play. These games are a very good source to kill some time and have some fun at the felt.
Back when I played on a regular basis (before health problems) I played the comped freerolls every night and more times than not would make the cash. I'd win on the average a $100 or so of that free money each night . Weren't bad at all for a couple hours work of doing something I enjoyed. I've a friend that has won the 50k freeroll and added over $8000 to his bankroll !
Just treat the freerolls seriously. Although you're not investing any money to take part in the online poker freerolls, you are investing an amount of your time. They are a good training ground for learning poker tournament skills and to win one is a very nice achievement.
So remember folk, take advantage of the freeroll tournaments that the online poker rooms have to offer. This is free money that can build up your bankroll in a hurry!