There are a couple of ways to play free poker on the internet. One
is to play at the play money tables, where there is no actual money
being wagered, just "chips". These chips have no real monetary
value, although I've heard rumors that some people buy and sell play
money chips on eBay. (I can't imagine the mindset involved in that
type of transaction, but whatever floats their boat is okay, I
guess.)
The other way to play free poker on the internet is to play in
freeroll tournaments. Freerolls are tournaments with a $0 buy-in
that pay actual cash prizes. To me, this is the best way to play
free poker online, because you actually could get something for your
trouble if you play well, and you could eventually scratch together
enough of a bankroll to actually be able to play real money poker.
Playing for real money eventually should be your goal anyway. Poker
without money being wagered just doesn't make much sense. It's like
drinking non-alcoholic beer; it misses the whole point.
Online Poker Sites That Offer Freerolls
Absolute Poker and
Poker.com are two sites who offer frequent, daily, almost
constant freerolls. There are plenty of other sites who offer
freerolls on a regular basis, and a lot of
poker forums sponsor their own freerolls as affiliates in order
to pick up affiliate revenue from the percentage of players who
convert to real money play.
Poker Analysis is one of my favorite poker forums with frequent
freerolls available.
Interpoker is another site with frequent freerolls, and I love
playing there, because I'm of the opinion that the British players
who are so common there love to bluff. And any of the
Prima Poker rooms are worth taking a look at, because they
normally have a lot of freeroll action there too.
Want to know when new Freeroll Tournaments are announced?
Freeroll Tournament Strategy
Most freerolls only pay out cash to less than 10% of the players
involved in the tournament. If you play really well, you can
probably double or triple your chances of actually landing in the
money. (And I say triple because the competition in most freerolls
is so soft that it makes your odds even better.) So for every 10 or
so freerolls you play in, you can expect to win some money in two or
three of them if you play well.
Early in the freeroll you need to play really tight poker. In other
words, only play really good hands, both before the flop and after
the flop. In the early stages of a freeroll, there are a lot of
players going all-in a LOT. They usually have crap, but don't risk
it. If you lose early in the tourney, then you've got nothing to
show for it. Just wait for the cards you want to play, and then play
them.
In the middle stages of the tournament, you can loosen up a little
bit, but you're still going to want to play solid, tight, aggressive
poker. Don't cold-call raises - if you're hand's not strong enough
to re-raise with, get away from the hand. You want to hang onto your
chips and gather chips at the same time.
Late in the tournament, keep playing well, but loosen up a lot when
you're short-stacked. Find a hand you like preflop and push all-in
if you're short-stacked, because you're going to have to make a
stand at some point. Good sized pocket pairs are good for that. And
any time you get a chance to pick up the blinds, it's a good idea to
go for it.
Also, at this point in the tournament, you want to beware the big
stacks and attack the short stacks.
When you're finally in the money, start gambling. Get aggressive and
play your hands hard. Dominate the table till you're the chip leader
or you bust out.
The Ultimate Freeroll Strategy
The ultimate freeroll strategy is to get together enough of a
bankroll to start playing real money poker. Once you've got about
$50 or so won, you can start playing some of the microlimit and
nanolimit games out there, the stuff where the blinds are in the
0.01/0.02 or 0.05/0.10 range. Build your bankroll gradually, and
make sure you've got enough money to cover about 200 big bets.
Pay attention to the changes in the level of play as you move up in
limits. If you play smart and nurture your bankroll, and take
advantage of some of the bonus offers available at some of the
different poker rooms on the net, you can be playing $3/$6 in a
matter of months.
Building a solid poker bankroll and playing real poker after
starting with absolutely nothing but what you've won playing
freerolls is perhaps the ultimate poker challenge.
Other articles you might be interested include our discussion of
David Sklansky's all in or fold Texas holdem tournament strategy.
The information we provide on
Texas holdem SnG strategy is topnotch stuff too, and should give
you some ideas about how you can improve your freeroll strategy.
And if you're brand new, and just learning to play, the article
about
Phil Hellmuth's starting hand guidelines in no limit holdem
might also be helpful.
This page was last updated on January 5, 2006.
