Monday, December 10, 2007

Texas Holdem Online Freeroll Tournament Tips #1

Survival - winning showdowns!

To survive to the final table in any Texas Holdem Online Freeroll Poker Tournament you will be involved in many showdowns. To make the final table, you will have to win a lot of these showdowns. And to win these showdown takes luck!

Suppose we use an example here. You are in a Texas Holdem freeroll and you have an all in showdown where you are favored by 70%. You win. The same thing happens in two more hands. Great, right? Well, maybe not. If you lost any one of those hands you are gone. To survive, you had to win all three showdowns. The odds were in fact against you, with the chances of winning all three hands at about 34%. You were actually an underdog to stay in that freeroll tournament, even with your highly advantageous hands!

Even though you were a favorite in each individual hand, overall you needed to beat the odds and get lucky to win all three hands. And in a freeroll tournament, it is common for some players with even a mediocre drawing hand to take long shot chances at a pot, increasing the odds of hitting that miracle card on the turn or the river, sending you to the lobby!

Our example used hands with highly favorable odds. How about the coin flips, such as your AK suited verses your opponents pair of nines, where the odds are almost even? A few of these will drop the overall odds down deeply. Surviving these all in hands takes luck!

Even if you hold the best starting hand every time, and you have to be lucky for it to hold up. This is the reason you see so many different players winning Texas Holdem Freerolls, it is usually the luckiest player who wins, not the best.

Traditional poker wisdom tells us that you must play tight, get your money in with the best hand whenever you can, and hope the odds go with you.

And this is true in a Texas Holdem Freeroll Tournament, also.

What can you do to improve your chances in a Freeroll?

Here are a few tips that may help.

Play tight early on, and do not bluff! Freeroll players will call anything with anything early on, and bluffing just does not work. By establishing a tight image early, it opens up the bluffing for later when the lotto players have been elminated.

Bet very agressively with a quality hand. This will reward you with the chips from the weaker callers, and either catch the chasers or drive them out.

Do not call an all in player unless you are sure and certain you have the statistically strongly favored hand. Fold immediately if you think these words " If I can catch a _____".

Have a tournament strategy! What is the cash level, and the payout? How many hands do you have to win to cash out? How do you plan to play early on, mid game and in the later stages of the tournament. What to do if you get a chip lead? When do you plan to adjust your playing style?

In my next post, I will discuss Texas Holdem Online Freeroll Tournament Strategy for tournament selection.


And check out the Texas Holdem Dynamic Point Count Super Strategy for a winning edge in Online Freeroll Tournaments!

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Texas Holdem Online Freeroll Tournament Tips #1

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