Poker Freeroll Tournament Strategy

Over the last couple of years, Freeroll tournaments have become really popular with online poker players. This is mainly due to the fact that they allow players the opportunity to win thousands of dollars without risking a single cent of their own bankroll.

If you can rely on a strong strategy when playing in a freeroll tournament,you can really make maximise the best poker bonus you were able to pick up and, ensure that your bankroll grows nice and quickly.

What's the best way to get your hands on this sort of cash though? Well the following guide has been together to give you the best chance of cashing in a freeroll. It has been broken down into three parts to demonstrate how your strategy will need to change as you progress through a tournament.

Early Stages:

During the first hour of a freeroll, you'll notice a very aggressive style of play. Players will be pushing all their chips into the middle of the table with a less than an average hand. What's more these all in bets may well be called by as many as four or five other players.

None of these players believe they have anything to lose. They've paid nothing to enter the tournament, and if they can catch the right flop they will have hugely increased their chip stack for the remainder of the tournament.

I would suggest that playing this way, you'll find yourself bombing out early more times that you will catch what you need on the flop. Therefore, keep your head down in the early stages of a freeroll unless you're dealt a monster (we're talking AA, KK or QQ here).

Mediocre hands like low pairs or connectors should be folded at this early stage. With so many players likely to be in a pot, the chances of you having the best hand are very small indeed. In fact, the odds are that you'll be heavily outdrawn on the flop.

Rather than playing a lot of hands, spend the early stages of a freeroll trying to get some sort of a read on your opponents. Try to make a note of which players are there to hopefully catch a lucky flop, and which of your opponents are playing a more steady game and are therefore likely to be around when the prizes are handed out.

Intermediate stages:

Once the field has decreased by half, play will tighten up. Most of the reckless players will have departed and the players that are left will realise they have made it through the madness and might start to believe that their luck is in.

Players will become a lot less willing to undo their good work by making a silly call, so play will become a lot more conservative and starting hand requirements will increase.

This is the point where your game needs to become aggressive - especially against those players you picked out in the early stages as being conservative. Start to play as you would do in a normal tournament, so you might want to take the occasional punt on any suited connectors or medium pairs you're dealt in the hole as hitting something on the flop can offer a player considerable value.

Final stages:

Once you get down to the final table, your play needs to move up another gear. The majority of the other players at the table will start to tighten up further, with the final prize now so close.

You need to try and keep your mind off that though. In Freerolls there is generally just one cash prize, so playing tight and hoping your opponents will knock each other out just isn't an option.

Instead, you need to make an all out assault to get your hands on as many chips as you can. Make sure you pressurize your opponents at every opportunity. If a player has fewer chips than you, don't be afraid to move all in on them. Equally, don't let players who are running low on chips limp into the flop without a challenge.

Once you get down to the last few players, you want to be raising almost every hand. If you're re-raised, then be prepared to muck a weak hand, but again the plan here is to put all the pressure on your opponents.

Should you find yourself dealt a monster hand, make sure you don't go all in before the flop. Slow play the hand and try to lure your opponent into making a large raise before coming over the top.