Poker: Build A Bankroll from Nothing

With so many online poker sites vying for your business, the promotions are virtually endless. Every poker room offers you an initial deposit bonus to reward you for making your first deposit, and freeroll tournaments are starting to really take off. Freerolls are tournaments hosted by the poker room that don't cost anything to enter, but allow you to win real money if you finish in one of the top places. A lot of freerolls give you very little money for your efforts. These are usually the tourneys that don't have any sort of requirement to enter. Anyone with an account can play in them. I recently saw a $50 total prize pool freeroll at a popular online poker room. Almost 2000 people played in it, and they paid out the top 18 players. The top 18 players?! Out of 2000?! That's less than 1% of the total number of entrants. Typical online tournaments pay out at least 10% of the field. Plus, everyone up until 3rd place made $1. The tourney was down to 3 players, and I was shocked to see that it had gone on for over 5 hours! Now, if I've just beaten 1996 players and spent 5 hours on a tournament, I better at least get $1 and a giant chocolate chip cookie. The real freerolls to look for are the ones that limit the amount of entrants by imposing some sort of requirement. A lot of Prima rooms have tourneys that are open to anyone who's played 100 raked hands in the past 24 hours. Many online poker rooms have freerolls that cost a certain number of player points to enter. These tournaments are preferable because they're not open to everyone under the sun, which means that you're not going to have to play as long or beat such a massive amount of players to get to the money. The poker rooms usually offer a higher prize pool for these tournaments. I recently played in a freeroll that was only open to player's who had registered their new poker account within the last week. I was eligible for this, even though I hadn't deposited any money in the site yet. The poker room only advertised for this via e-mail, so only about 300 players showed up. The prize pool was a very generous $5,000. A few lucky beats later, and I finished in 10th place for a $100 prize. This funded my poker account without me ever having to make a deposit. The site has since become one of my favorites and I've been able to play some pretty juicy games with my $100 bankroll. Remember, when you do play freerolls you should probably employ a few extra strategies to ensure that you finish in the money. Firstly, you have to realize that players will be willing to gamble much more, as they don't have a buy-in to risk. Thus, freerolls usually start out pretty wild. Unless you really have a premium hand, I would stay out of the way. Even if you do have a premium hand, your chances of winning got way down if 3 or 4 players are willing to play with you. Just play your strong cards and try to get a couple of double-ups in. Also, be aware many players who register for a freeroll don't actually show up. They still have a spot at the table, but they fold every hand automatically. Just call and you'll get their money if they're on the blind. Freerolls also tend to play fairly quick, and half the field is usually gone within an hour. Spotting some great freerolls and playing them right can allow you to build your bankroll from nothing. Even if you already have a bankroll, they can be a great way to earn some extra free money or just as a side game if your table is slow.