In my last article I talked about Building a Bankroll from Scratch. I went over the different levels that you need to play at online, depending on how big your Bankroll is. Now I will go through the different levels of play, one by one, so that you can maximize your earnings. We start with where many will start - with no money, wondering just how they can make money playing poker. The only answer for these people is by playing online freerolls, free poker tournaments that various online poker rooms hold. My favorite freeroll site is Absolute Poker, as they have freerolls with some of the better payouts on the net.
First of all, let me go over just what a freeroll is. There are freerolls of other games, but our strategy in this article will stick to Texas Hold 'Em Poker. Your average freeroll, depending on what poker room you go to, will have roughly 4,000 to 12,000 participants. Generally you need to finish in the top 100 or top 50 to get paid. And for the lowest brackets the pay is usually less than ten cents.
So you know, playing Freerolls is a bit of a grind. Depending on how much time you can dedicate to play, it will take weeks to months until you have enough of a bankroll to start playing at higher limits (non-free games!). A lot of this is due to the sheer odds and probabilities against you, when you have to grind your way through thousands of people. Normally, you're very happy when you get all in when you're a 95% favorite with your opponent having two outs. The problem is, you may get all in under those circumstances 20 times, or even more, over the course of a very long tournament. That 5% adds up, and in the long run, the odds are against you.
Once you get past the frustration that you will be hit with bad beats constantly throughout your poker freeroll career, then you can start to play seriously, and that's when you start to win. Breathe in and out deeply, find some inner peace, and don't worry about the fact that some guy's J4 drew out on your KK. It happens. It's a freeroll.
Freeroll play is generally divided up into three stages, each involving a very different style of play.
Early Stages
This is roughly the stage from the beginning of the tournament until around the first break. This is the highly chaotic stage where various players who don't care or are bored will push all in on marginal hands, however other players are also looking to double up early, so they will also push with AA or KK and so on. Your best bet in these early stages is to wait for a hand that is AK or better, push all in with it, close your eyes and say a prayer. Some would even go so far as to not push with AK or JJ, however I'm a daredevil. If it busts you out early, then there isn't much that you can do. You usually only get 2-3 good hands in these early stages, and if you don't take down some pots then you're going to end up with a meager stack barely hanging on by the mid stages.
So in summary, in the early stages the name of the game is to play tight. If your table is such that you can see flops cheaply with low to mid pocket pairs and hands like suited ace, then by all means do it, but for the most part you're looking for AQ/AK or better, or simply throwing it away.
Middle Stages
The middle stages of online poker freeroll tournaments last from the end of the first break until the antes kick in. At this point, the pace of play slows down. You will see many small stacks pushing as they struggle to stay afloat - hopefully you should have a healthy stack by the beginning of this phase so that you can afford to call a few of them with hands like AJ and hope to knock them off and add to your stack.
At this stage of the game, you should loosen up just a little bit, and start playing the game a bit more. You can play hands like KJ, JQ, or even suited J10. Be careful not to bluff, however. This is a point in the game where you want to see flops and play trappy poker when you hit big. This is usually where I'll slow play a set or AA in order to knock someone out. At this point in the tournament, I want to cultivate an aura of fear as well, important table image for the final stage of the tournament.
Late Stages
This is the stage in the tournament when antes kick in, all the way until the end of the tournament. This stage is typified by a lot of bluffing as players fight over blinds and antes.
At this point in the game, you truly need to start to play the players, rather than the cards. You need to play fast and loose, using well timed aggression against players who you read as holding weak hands to literally steal their chips. You will need to bet big with crap often times in order to steal blinds and pots, otherwise you won't be able to stay afloat as the blinds rapidly go up. You need to be aggressive and pick your spots wisely. Don't try to bluff the same guy twice, unless you're sure that he's weak.
This point in the tournament can really be a crapshoot, as it is very easy to find yourself all in on a coinflip or drawing 70/30% and getting knocked out. However if you are successful and aggressive, your stack should hopefully be up there when compared to others, and you should try to build it by knocking out smaller stacks. Be aware that risking your entire stack at any point is highly not recommended at this point unless you have AA, KK or end up with a small stack. You should avoid interactions with big stacks unless you have something truly nutty.
Final Table
Alright well, the Final Table is technically a part of the late stages, but I just wanted to give a few tips and pointers here. First of all, going into a final table in a freeroll as a short stack, as opposed to a big one, is huge. Often times at a final table there are 2-3 people who are very short stacked who have little to no chance of taking the top prizes (and first place for one of these freerolls can be over $10, where tenth will usually take home $1).
If you are one of those short stacks, then just go ahead and get it all in. Wait for an ace, or a K10, or a suited 9/10. It doesn't really matter, find something that looks halfway decent and push, get it over with. If you don't have enough chips at a final table to be able to safely bluff, you have no chance.
If you're in the middle range of chip stacks, you should be very cautious until these short stacks are knocked out. Feel free to call them if you wake up with a good hand, but other than that they should be avoided. Steal blinds and antes whenever the opportunity presents itself, but don't overbet and don't be afraid to fold to a re-raise (or sometimes, the right play is to re-raise them, if you think that they're bluffing to re-steal).
When you come into the final table as a big stack - now that's where the fun is. Cruise down to about the top 5, calling down people only when you have good hands. Steal blinds once in a while, though you don't need to be nearly as aggressive in doing so. Cultivate a very super-tight table image until you get down to the top 5. Then start bluffing rapidly and stealing pots. Your tight table image and intimidating big stack will cause people to fold hands down to you that they wouldn't fold against other people at the table, who have needed to play loose and aggressive in order to stay in the game by fighting constantly for blinds and antes.
Hopefully with a bit of practice, you will get good at playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker Freerolls and will win enough money to be able to play at higher limits. It is very possible to turn nothing into literally millions online, and I highly suggest that your journey begin at Absolute Poker. Freerolls can take time though, so you may want to deposit some money and go right to playing at the micro limits. If you have $50 or $100 to deposit you can play for months and start right out playing for real money, which means that you get to not worry about dealing with the general annoyance and frustration with freerolls. I'll cover the strategy of playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker at those micro limits online in my next article!
Check back soon for more tips, tricks and advice right here on How to Make Money Playing Poker.
