| 18+ | Play Responsibly | T&C Apply
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
Expired
header-bg

3 Poker Freeroll Strategies That Don’t Work (& 1 That Does)

Have you ever wondered why you never win any of those poker freerolls you play?

For new players they’re called bankroll boosters, exclusive ‘New Player’ events and similar. They look like you could make some easy money but they can end up a source of frustration and bad beat stories.

The reason is you’re doing it wrong!

Read on and ask yourself if you can find your play in any of these categories. If yes, you have something to fix; if not, we’ll take everything back and say you’re just the unluckiest player in the world.

Here are 3 main poker freeroll strategies you’ve seen a hundred times -- but still shouldn’t copy.

Poker Freeroll Strategy

1) Going All-In, All the Time

How often have you been busted by that terrible player who just moves all-in every single hand? Too often, right? Why do you think this happened? Because the guy is Russian?

freeroll strategy poker
Always shoving? Not good.

If you believe a poker room makes you lose on purpose to favour a worse player -- while at the same time trying to make you come back -- there’s something wrong with your analytic thinking.

You might think the guy does that because he’s drunk (and he might well be) or maybe he just doesn’t care. But that guy isn’t going to win the tournament even if he gets lucky to bust you.

And that’s why you shouldn’t adopt that strategy. It’s simple. The math is against that strategy and it will catch up with you at some point. 

The more often this works, the closer you get to the end of that streak. It’s never going to last all the way.

Also, you’re not losing as often as you think. Jot down the hands where you call a random all-in with a better hand. You’ll notice you’re pretty close to what equity expects.

If you let yourself get frustrated and just push in all the time, it won’t take long until you’re picked off by a big pair and that’ll be the end of it. If you don’t believe it, try it a couple of times.

After all, it won’t cost you anything.

Related Reading:

2) Bluffing

When you play in a freeroll, don’t bluff. Don’t even think about it. Why? Because of the nine people at your table right now:

how to win poker freerolls
Big bluffs? Waste of time.
  • 3 don’t know how to play
  • 3 are playing in all the freerolls they can find and
  • 2 don’t care at all what they’re doing

Each and every one of your bluffs will be called by a random hand from someone who doesn’t realize he shouldn’t call. And he'll still have the better hand.

Don’t expect common sense because you won’t find it. The button you clicked on to play in the freeroll shouldn’t read “register." It should read “you agree to forget common sense."

In fact the only reason it doesn’t say that is probably because the phrase is too long for one button.

Related Reading:

3) Playing ABC Poker

Didn’t you read the paragraph above? You’re trying to apply common sense again. Don’t forget that people do. not. care.

how to win poker freerolls
Freeroll world works ... differently.

Forget all the poker strategy articles you’ve read because the freeroll world works differently. It’s like a place close to a Black Hole where physics doesn’t work as usual.

Do you think a 3x raise with a good hand will win you the pot if no one else has something? Not gonna happen.

The concept of “raise and take” is also absent from this world. Try it, you’ll see.

Checking it down with someone else to bust a small stack? Not happening either. You’ll face an all-in on the river. Brace yourself.

Related Reading:

The Strategy That Works in Freerolls

As we have now established that all traditional strategies don’t work and we’re mostly facing careless and bad players under the influence, we’re going to use that to our advantage.

A few rules of thumb for free online poker tournaments will get you started:

1) Do a Lot of Limping

You won’t find that in a strategy article but do it anyway. Any hand you raise from early position, you’ll probably be faced by an all-in -- even in Level 1.

So, you can raise your A-K and J-J+ but you’ll always be up against at least two players. Check a poker odds calculator to see your equity against two random hands; it’s not very good.

Instead, limp with a lot of hands and play the flop. The later your position, the more hands you can limp.

If you flop two pair, push. If you flop a set, push. There’s always someone calling with top pair or even just overcards like A-Q.

Related Reading:

poker freeroll strategy
The 'ol Jamie Gold top-top is good a lot.

2) Call with Top-Top

Even so, you shouldn’t play good hands too aggressively. You should always call something like A-K on a board like A-T-9-5-3.

You’ll sometimes look at 9-5 or even 4-2, but much more often at A-Q, A-J, K-K, Q-Q, J-J or even just second pair. 

Top pair, top kicker will be the best hand most of the time.

3) Push Your Monsters

If you find pocket jacks or better, don’t slow play. Don’t try to trap; don’t try to be smart.

Just push all-in and wait. Worse hands will call you and, although they will sometimes win (they have to as you never have 100% equity pre-flop), you’ll often build a big stack very early on.

All in all, loose-passive play will get you going. Quite the contrary of what you expected, no?

Related Reading:

Return to ABC Poker

When you make it to the deeper stages of a freeroll you can apply ABC poker again as all the punters will be gone. If you make the final, you’ll have to get just as lucky as at any other final table.

Keep these simple rules at heart and you will spare yourself a lot of frustration - especially if you play real money online poker.

Related Poker Strategy Articles

More on Poker Tournaments

Related Articles

Unibet Poker Open 2023
Unibet Open Bukarest 2023 – Here we go!

Unibet Open Bukarest alkoi pari tuntia sitten, pahoittelut että blogi pääsee vauhtiin myöhässä. Syytetään Lufthansaa, joka onnistui eilen jättämään matkalaukkuni Frankfurtin kentälle. Nyt on laukku saatu tänne Bukarestin Marriottiin ja…

November 30, 2023 | Juhani Tyriseva
Unibet Poker Open 2023
Suomalaisten chip count, Event 1

Ville Mustonen 65K Aleksi Naski 265K Samuli Hietala 330K Jarno Jokiniemi 85K Max Avela 260K Kai Lehto 105K Feras Abid 130K Topi Palenius 95K Atte Franssila 85K Markku Vihavainen 50K…

September 16, 2023 | Juhani Tyriseva
Unibet Poker Open 2023
Voitonjako on selvillä

Ensimmäisen sormuskisan WSOPC Event 1, voitonjako on nyt selvillä. Turnauksen palkintopotti on 183.360€, ja 47 parasta pääsee rahoille. Turnauksen voittaja kuittaa mukavat 38.510€, ja min cash on 1.100€. Tällä hetkellä…

September 16, 2023 | Juhani Tyriseva
WSOP banner
WSOP Schedule 2020

The 2020 World Series of Poker kicks of in Las Vegas on May 27th. With a time frame of more than 7 weeks and 100 tournaments this will be the…

August 21, 2023 | Arved Klöhn
WSOP banner
Pikku tauon jälkeen jatketaan

Pidettiin pieni tauko, nyt peli jatkuu tasolla bb ante 4K, blindit 2K/4K. 111/573 pelaajaa.

July 25, 2023 | Juhani Tyriseva
melvin shroen live reports from The Festival in Nottingham 2023
PokerListings set to do Live Reporting from The Festival Series in Nottingham (13-19 February 2023) 

Melvin Schroen - Live Reporter For the first time in the history of The Festival Series, an event series is being held at the Dusk Till Dawn Pokerclub in Nottingham.…

March 22, 2023 | Melvin Schroen
PokerListings Awards 2022
PokerListings Operator Awards – Winners 2022

Since 2020, we have been awarding the best poker operators and innovators in the poker business with our PokerListings Operator Awards. Every year the operators are nominated and awarded in…

January 11, 2023 | Bjorne Lindberg
Oliver Hutchins Wins the Trophy in the €500K GTD PPC Malta Main Event (€71,000)

Oliver Hutchins Wins 2022 PPC Malta Main Event United Kingdom's Oliver Hutchins won the trophy in the €500,000 guaranteed PPC Malta €550 Main Event for €71,000 after a back and…

April 7, 2022 | Jason Glatzer
All Poker News
Dave
2020-08-23 13:36:42

Awesome article! Your wry style is hilarious! 😆

Comment on that

Your message is awaiting approval