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Playing Freeroll Tournaments
Freerolls play somewhat differently to regular buyin tournaments. There are many weak players whom you should aim to exploit, which is what we'll try and teach you in this poker article.Exploit the calling stations
Freeroll players are notorious for calling too much. What does this mean exactly and how can you exploit this in your playing So your strategy should be to exploit these calling stations. In a normal poker tournament, people will respect your bets and raises more often than in a freeroll.
Due to the nature of a freeroll e.g. no buy-in fee coupled with the fact that the players are not experienced, freeroll poker players will often not be able to get away from their hands. They might get JJ pre-flop and even though the flop comes AK2, they will just not believe their strong pre-flop hand can now be losing. Those jacks just look to good to fold! For this reason when you know you are winning BET BIG as these in-experienced players will call you anyway.
The value of top hands like AA or KK goes up as you are more likely to get paid off when you are dealt these 220/1 shots. If your opponent has shown strength before the flop, you should try to just get all the chips in the middle. More often than not you get called by hands like pocket 9's, even if there are 3 overcards on the flop. Aim to double up several times in the early stages in a freeroll. Once you get to the later stages of a poker freeroll, you should be playing slightly better opponents.
You are in middle position with 2000 in chips. The under the gun player limps for 50 and you look down at AcKc. You raise to 250, knowing that if you'll flop an ace or a king you are likely to get paid off. Button player calls, and so does the player UTG. The flop comes KdTc2c and the first player checks. If this wasn't a freeroll tournament you might check to induce a bluff, due to it being a freeroll, lead out at the pot maybe even overbet the pot something like 1000.
Button folds, UTG thinks for a while then pushes. Of course you call - you have to you are pot comitted and he shows Jc9c, he is in serious trouble!
