Freerolls, Egg Rolls, and Other Useless Things

Free online play is common to probably all online poker sites. There is an opening play-money balance for you as soon as you sign up as a new player. There are play money tables and free poker tournaments for your use, and some even promise the bonus of actual cash prizes for Freeroll tournament success. All of which are very nice but, ultimately, useless in my experience and estimation…at least if your goal is improved poker play. If you are there simply for the fun of throwing in oversized bets and playing multi-player showdown every hand, then my comments are not meant for you. Also, if you are using the free tables as a test drive to determine if you like the graphical interface and features of a particular poker site, that is perfectly valid and recommended. You’re not looking to learn the game there. You’re just evaluating a potential investment and that’s always a sound practice. This article is not intended for you…but the rest of you, read on.

My friends and I speak often about poker, and as I am the senior player of the group, I get asked my opinion on various aspects of the game. Several of my friends play the free side of online poker, and I tell them the same thing I am writing here. Nice idea, but it is to real poker as whiffle ball is to Major League baseball. To be fair, I must divide my comments between free table play and Freeroll tournaments, because the tournaments offer a different reward structure that should be mentioned.

Free table-play poker online is just an incentive to get you comfortable with the interface and playing community of the host site. They figure that if 1000 people sample their product at no cost, they will find a decent percentage of those who will deposit funds and play for real. It’s Marketing 101, and it works. It has been several years since I have ventured to the free tables at a major poker site, but to ensure that I wrote of an authentic experience for this article, I spent several sessions in the free zone to reacquaint myself, and I found that not much had changed. At a $1/$2 NL Hold’em table, there were 12 consecutive hands of 2+ players going all-in, many with hands that do not merit such a play in any poker scenario. I switched to a $2/$4 Limit Hold’em table after a while and found a pre-flop raising festival going on, with more than 50% of the hands capped before the flop was revealed, and the betting slowed little afterwards. Even at the most absurdly aggressive real money table, these scenarios do not happen. The loosest of players at real money tables demonstrate at least a small measure of discipline and forethought because their bankroll is finite. At play tables, when your allotment of fun cash is gone, you simply go to the Cashier window on the site and request a refill. With no actual risk of loss, no understanding of reward comes and, thus, no actual lesson on how the game should best be played.

Freeroll tournaments are slightly different in that there is at least some measure of skill to be practiced by surviving into the “cash” positions of the event. Whether paying small quantities of real cash (often less than $1) or awarding seats to second-tier Freeroll events, there is a reward level that makes it somewhat worth the players’ efforts to reach those positions. A couple years ago, I played in my first Freeroll on a major site. I had been playing competitive poker in house games and Vegas-night formats for several years at that point, but it was my first venture into online poker. There were 4,351 players in this Freeroll and more than 8 hours later, I emerged as the winner. Feeling like I’d just conquered the card-equivalent of Everest, I went to see what I won. It was a seat into the Weekly Round 2 tournament, which any real cash player with a reasonable number of Player Points could buy directly into.

In short, I won nothing, though I played it like it was Day 5 of the WSOP Main Event. But tournaments, regardless of the prizes, do provide the opportunity to practice hand selection, good betting tactics, and knowledge of positional play. These are core concepts of poker that are essential to any real-money success. To survive in a tournament and finish at/near the top, you have to demonstrate at least some measurable skill in these concepts, particularly in a large field of players.

Before the astute reader claims that I’m reversing my own position, let me reiterate that with no risk of loss, no gained understanding can come. In a Freeroll tournament, you are still subject to a large number of players who play a variation of all-in showdown right from the first hand. They will either triple up or be eliminated. In that large Freeroll I mentioned earlier, the field lost over 2000 players in the first hour. The only way attrition like that occurs is if a ridiculous number of players go all-in and lose like a colony of poker lemmings. Surviving this mass exodus shows patience, but little else. There is far more skill involved with surviving the last table of a tournament than with surviving 300 tables to get there.

Perhaps the best example I can give of my entire point here is the scenario of my friend “Larry” in a large cash tournament some years ago. Larry is at the final table of this tournament and is low-stack of the remaining 6 players. The prize differential between each remaining position is at least several hundred dollars or more. Larry decides to fold for 3 continual rounds of play, only looking at his cards to not make his intentions be readable. He knowingly throws away KK, AK, 99, and other playable hands. After the third round of hands, he is one of only three remaining players, and his payout has gone from $1200 to at least $5k with a shot at $15k. Many would ask why he didn’t play the KK or AK at least and attempt to double-up with them. The answer is that Larry did not want to finish 6th if he felt he could get to 3rd-place money or better. Maybe the KK wins and he finishes higher anyway, or maybe it loses and he finishes 6th. But in the end, he parlayed this tactic into a second-place finish and took home $9k for his efforts, a brilliant, calculated play on his part.

Why do I tell this story? Because in a Freeroll tournament, there is no reason such a scenario would occur. There’s no implied risk to going all-in with the KK and losing, which probably every reader would’ve done in a free tournament. But ask players if it’s worth $4k in prize potential to them to play those KK or wait people out, and you will get some that fold. There is an entire level of play achieved in real-money events that is not in the education curriculum of the play tables. That level is risk/reward, and at a game of combined skill and chance such as poker, risk/reward is integral. Some might say it’s everything. Hand selection is a risk/reward analysis. Deciding how much to bet is a risk/reward analysis. Advanced poker strategies such as positional raising, tactical folding, and card-chasing… all risk/reward. At live cash play, the objective is to win the pot. At tournament play, the objective is to increase your chip standing and survive elimination. In free play, these elements exist only fictionally. Thus, the format is not something I recommend for any but the most novice of players.

If you want to learn the basics of the game, read one of the many fine poker instruction books available and then play $.02/$.04 real cash tables and experiment with the swings and trends of poker play. On a terrible day, you’ll lose $1, or you might just win enough to get into a small tournament. As your comfort with the game grows, increase your playing limit accordingly. This is the method I recommend. You learn both the literal and intangible values of a well-played hand, and you do so in a more effective classroom setting because the other players at the table are putting their money against yours. They will play with purpose, and you will learn much from every hand you play.

So in summation, the free play experience is recommended only for site evaluation, or for social players who have no aspirations to play real-cash poker with any particular modicum of skill. With no tangible risk/reward element, the free play arena does not offer a proper poker instruction environment… in my opinion.