by Lee Meszaros

Created on: November 05, 2008

Freeroll tournaments are what they are, free to join with no obligation. Freeroll tourneys are one step above playing with play money, being the competition is about the same. Different from play money games freerolls give the players a chance to win real money without risking any. Freerolls are an excellent resource for new players to learn the game of poker and try and win a starting bankroll to take there game to the next level. Although as mentioned that freerolls are kind of like playing play chip games this is not entirely true. First of all these tournaments are for real money and you will get a mix of players that are more experienced than your typical play chip player that could be down on there luck and need a lift to regenerate a bankroll or people which are many just like a chance to win some money without having to take a risk with their own money.

In the earlier stages of a freeroll you will experience alot of loose play though, this is because many players come in with the gambling I don't care approach because this didnt cost anything and push allin with fair to less than even mediocre hands. This is expected as a player may take a big risk early with all there chips in hopes to get lucky and double, triple or even quadruple their chip stack. If they lose they are out right away it was free and they will be looking for the next tournament that they can sign up for. Now Ada's freeroll tournaments seem to be somewhere almost every few hours, therefore you see why that loose lackluster approach will happen quite often.

Once the first hour passes in most of these freerolls more than half the competition is eliminated on average. After this first milestone the competition starts to tighten up a little more, not completely but significantly more than the first hour of crazyness. Remember that this is a freeroll don't let yourself get too upset with more than often poor play as allot of time these poor plays can make your stack huge. As the hours go by the competition becomes more like a seasoned tournament for what it's worth as the prizes actually start becoming something of value this is when a new player will really get a real lesson in poker play for the first time. If a player really wants to learn how to get better at the game they will start to learn the intermediate strategies to advance in tournament poker.

Freeroll tournaments are fun and can serve as a road map to teach the beginning player the fundamentals of the game and supply learning strategies. Best of all they are free to join and give the player a chance to win a starting bankroll to parlay off of.

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