Building a Real Money Bankroll with Freerolls
There have been many great success stories of players launching their poker careers from humble beginnings. For some of these players, freerolls provided a way to begin building a real money bankroll before (or instead of!) depositing their own money. Freerolls are an excellent method for building a real money bankroll from nothing, allowing you to start your poker career without risking any of your hard-earned cash in the process.
Building a real money bankroll by playing freeroll tournaments isn’t easy. Freerolls can be tough, not so much because of the level of competition – the average freeroll player isn’t very strong – but because of the volume of opponents fighting for small prizes. On some of the biggest sites, you might even have to win a large freeroll just to earn a seat in another freeroll where the real money prizes are won! When there are thousands of players going after a few small cash prizes, it takes more than just skill to come out with the money.
This means that, if you’re going to target big, public freerolls at major online poker sites, you’re probably going to invest a lot of time before coming away with enough winnings to start playing real money poker. This isn’t entirely a bad thing; while you play these tournaments, you’ll earn valuable experience that will help you immensely later in your poker career, without costing you any real money in the process. However, if you’d like to increase your odds and cut down on the time it takes to see rewards for your efforts, there are a few things you can do to make things move a little faster for you.
The key thing you can do is increase your expectation as much as possible by entering the right kinds of freerolls. Major poker sites usually have the freerolls with the biggest real money prizes, but they may not be the best value for you; targeting smaller fields in less well-known sites or at off hours might serve you better, even if the prizes seem small. One simple way of estimating your expectation in a tournament is to divide the prize pool by the number of players participating in the freeroll. If you see a freeroll offering $500 in prizes, that might sound tempting; but if there are 10,000 players fighting over that $500, that’s only five cents for each player in the event! Meanwhile, a modest $50 freeroll at a smaller site that attracts 200 players is offering 25 cents per player. This smaller freeroll will also cost you a lot less time; that 10,000 player mega-tournament will likely require you to win a preliminary event that will take several hours, and then play for several more hours just for the chance at reaching the real money.
The best freerolls of all for winning real money are private events that you’ve been invited to. These are often set up by poker affiliates or websites that offer them as a promotion for signing up at a new poker site. The online poker room itself may also offer private freerolls for new players. In most cases, these events tend to have small fields and relatively generous prizes, making them a great value for any player looking to build a real money bankroll.
Finally, it’s important to be patient while building your real money bankroll. When you win your first freeroll prize, that doesn’t mean you have to jump into real money games with the dollar or two you’ve earned so far. Keep gaining experience in freerolls until you have enough money to comfortably play the lowest real money limit offered on your online poker site of choice. Once you’ve reached that point, you’ll feel ready to take on real money poker with confidence.
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