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Poker Tournaments for You This Week
There is never a dull moment in a poker player’s life. Obviously, the main reason for that is the constant existence of poker tournaments and poker events that one can participate in. These events are not just for making money, but also to have some fun and get better at the game in the process. Several live poker tourneys are lined up for this week and the coming weeks. Here is a note on some of the tournaments you can … Read the rest
2012 PokerStars Macau Poker Championships Announced
PokerStars is one online poker room that never takes a break from hosting tournaments. The poker room recently released details about its upcoming event, the PokerStars Macau Live Tournaments. The Macau tournaments hosted by PokerStars is one of the biggest and richest poker events held in Asia. It includes 4 major poker series – Macau Poker Cup (MPC) Red Dragon, Asia Championship of Poker, Macau Poker Cup Championship or MPCC and the yearly Asia Pacific Poker Tour event at Macau. … Read the rest
The $30,000 Winner Wednesday Dozen Unveiled
Winner Poker has partnered with pokernews.com to bring a new promotion to its new members. The online poker room announced its new promotion called Winner’s Wednesday Dozen Freerolls, which literally lets you win free money. The new promotion is open to all the new players who register with Winner Poker and make a deposit. The promo will run for three months, and all you need to do is play poker and earn as many Winner Points as you can. Here … Read the rest
Free Poker Tournaments
Thursday, February 24th, 2011 by Phil
Free Poker Tournaments
Want to practice your poker skills without risking any money? If you already understand the basic poker rules, then free poker tournaments are a great way to do so. And online poker makes finding free poker tournaments easy. Free poker events are held by poker sites and other organization, and they usually offer a real money prize pool. Even a small prize pool offers an overlay in a free tournament, so if you have no bankroll and few skills, freerolls can be a great way to learn and build a bankroll at the same time.
Brick and mortar casinos offer freerolls too, but they’re less common than Internet freerolls. Online poker freerolls are starting around the clock at various real money poker sites. There’s no shame in participating in these tournaments. Lots of new poker players start this way.
Free Online Poker Tournaments
Why would a poker site give away free money?
It stimulates more play on the site. Players who play more often are more likely to deposit money. Internet poker sites use freerolls to sweeten the pot. And if a player wins some real money in a freeroll, and then loses it at the cash tables, that money goes back into that room’s poker ecosystem. And that’s good for everyone who plays there. (Except the fish.)
Freeroll prize pools are small. $50 or $100 isn’t much money. But they do weed out players who aren’t serious. The competition at free poker tournaments is weak. Since you can’t lose money, and you can win money, the expected value of this bet is effectively infinite. Until you take into account the value of your time, anyway. And I’ve never seen or heard any stories about poker sites running off players who only play in freeroll tournaments.
Sites that offer freerolls include a freeroll schedule in their lobby. Poker sites like Full Tilt Poker have a schedule of freeroll tournaments. Players can play the same events on a daily basis. The catch is that these events usually fill up quite quickly. If you don’t join right away, there is a good chance that you are out of luck. Full Tilt usually sets the maximum number of players allows at a few thousand.
But these site-run free tournaments are not your only freeroll option. Many poker forums or other poker sites routinely run freeroll promotional tournaments. If you browse the tournament offerings of any given poker site, you’ll notice some “private” or “exclusive” events. These tournaments almost always run with a password required. Passwords are added to these events in order to keep “freeroll whores” from playing a tournament to which they were not invited.
If you’re a legitimate member of a forum or other poker site and are invited to play a freeroll tournament, check it out. If you are trying to play free tournaments to which you are not invited, you probably won’t be able to register.
Free Live Poker Tournaments
Free live poker tournaments are harder to find than free online poker tournaments. Some brick and mortar casinos do offer free tournaments from time to time, but the time required is a lot compared to the payouts. The best free live poker tournaments are usually run for celebrities and aren’t open to the public. Casinos can’t afford to run free tournaments like online poker sites can because it would cost too much money. Casinos need to pay for dealers, floor men, and other service people and it would not be a logical way to draw in players. There are other live outlets, however, where free poker tournaments are readily available.
Bars and restaurants have been known for their free poker tournaments. Free tournaments are not common in an ordinary restaurant, but some bars have them regularly. (The Ranch House in Sachse, Texas offers free poker on Wednesday and Thursday nights.)
These “bar leagues,” as they are known, have produced many World Series of Poker players. Most players don’t actively seek out a bar league in which they can play in, but instead play in one that happens to run at an establishment that they regularly visit. Bar leagues usually offer prizes in lieu of actual cash payouts. For example, a year long bar league might award the overall winner with a seat at a World Series of Poker event. Other bar leagues could simply give out credit to be used at the bar itself. Bar leagues are not the best way to learn about poker and improve your skills, but they can be a great way to kill some time with a free poker tournament.
Freeroll Poker Tournament Strategy
Free poker tournaments are the easiest type of tournament to win. You don’t need to be an expert to beat most of the people who participate in freerolls.
Some ill advised players think that freerolls are impossible to beat because everyone is so unpredictable. And a lot of freeroll players are reckless. But this is not an excuse for losing.
The more careless your opponents are, the easier it is for you to win. Skilled players are more likely to take your money.
Would you rather lose when you get called after making a bad bluff, or when your AK lost to A4?
Maybe that bad player shouldn’t have put all of their money in the middle with a mediocre hand, but you had a great chance at winning. When you bluffed and got called, however, the better player simply outplayed you. Poker players remember when they get unlucky with a good hand after a player calls them down with a weaker hand. These same players forget when their AK beats A4 for a huge pot.
The strategy for winning freerolls is simple. Play tight in the beginning. Play a little more aggressively in the middle levels. Play a lot more aggressively toward the end of the tournament.
Don’t make fancy plays or bluffs. They’ll backfire.
Accumulating chips only becomes important after the first few levels of play. In the early stages of a freeroll, most players give their chips away by playing wildly.
You can combat this by playing tight and letting the chips fall into your lap.
Free poker tournaments might have small prize pools, but they’re easy to win.
