Many people look down on free rolls and believe that its impossible to play real poker in these competitions. I disagree and believe free rolls are the perfect place for a beginner to gain experience.

However they are different from other types of tournaments and require some adjustments which I will analyze in this two part article. It is important before we begin our chosen tournament to categorize the particular free roll we will be participating in. We need to do this to ascertain what type of player this free roll will be most likely to attract. There are four general types of free roll;

1.)   Regular Daily or Weekly competitions open to all site members. Generally attracts new players trying to build bank rolls and players rebuilding after a losing run. 

2.)   Regular Daily or Weekly competitions with a qualification requirement usually a particular number of raked hands. These competitions attract a lot of solid successful players and few wealthy fish! 
  
3.)   Big ticket events these will most likely attract a mix of solid successfully players, new players and bank roll builders.  

4.)   Regular competitions held by poker clubs and forums. These competitions are usually frequented by experienced solid players and those trying to improve there knowledge of the game. These can be some of the tightest free rolls to play in.

Solid Poker players approach free roll competitions differently than any other variety of tournament, understanding this can be the key to succeeding in these events. Most successful poker players have learned that one of the key’s to success at the poker table is to control the gambling instinct. This runs counter intuitive to most poker players because at heart we all love to gamble and this desire can be very difficult to control. So when normally solid players are offered the chance to play with no personal outlay they will generally gamble more than usual. We can take advantage of this mentality by pushing big hand’s harder as we are more likely to be paid of by draws. Be careful of solid players playing in competitions with a lot of players they might know (such as forum organized free rolls), they will not wish to be seen to be making any ‘donkey moves’ so will play tighter than they would in other free rolls. 

Weak and new players can be very dangerous in tournaments; they will not respect positional raises and will draw against the odds. Be careful when unlikely draws hit because these guys may well be in there with some pretty random holdings. Avoid making any particularly fancy moves against these players as they will call you down when many more experienced players would not. Don’t pass up potential stack building large bets on the river as you will most probable get paid off.  

Kevin Stevens is Article Editor for UKpokerinfo and content writer for UKpokernews.