Poker Freeroll News May 2008

The Billionth hand is always a very special occasion for an online poker room (I wonder if any offline casinos have ever got close to having played a billion hands!) and at Bet365 they are celebrating the upcoming event.

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If you are a player at Poker Room you probably will have received a free ticket to the VIP Race Trophy tournament. Top prize for this is a fantastic trip to Brno for the semi-final of the Race Trophy - all expenses paid.

Sometimes poker players just baffle me. Or should I say, sometimes freeroll poker players baffle me. Some of the things they do just defy logic, I'll give you an example.

There were 2666 players registered to play out of a maximum of 2700 so it was all but full. That in itself isn't all that remarkable, there are freerolls with more players than that registered.

No, the thing that floored me was the prizes on offer. Or should I say prize. That's right, there was only ONE prize between 2666 players. And the prize? A DVD!

So 2666 poker players were prepared to sit and play for upwards of four hours for the chance of winning a poker DVD - value less than £20. Now don't get me wrong Full Tilt Poker is a great place to play poker and I don't have a problem with it at all. What I do have a bit of a problem with though is people willing to waste their time like this.

Look, the bottom line in poker is money. It is that simple. We all enjoy playing poker but we all want to see our bank balance heading north at the end of each game. Freerolls represent a good opportunity to increase your balance, but ONLY if you have little or no money to spare.

If you seriously cannot afford to risk ANY money of your own at all, then poker freerolls are the way to go. You get to play competitive poker and you get the chance to win some money. On the face of it, the best of both worlds.

But let's get real for a moment. Who in their right mind would play a freeroll where the only prize is a single DVD? You are WORTH MORE! Your time is more valuable than that so here's what I would suggest you do:

Option 1.
Play better freerolls. There are loads of poker freerolls around, choose one with a smaller field of competitors and also a better range of prizes. There are still some good freerolls out there so shop around and find a good one.

You can check out a list of freerolls on Love-Texas-Holdem's freeroll timetable page.

Option 2.
Play real money tables. For me this is by far the better way to go. Even a minimum deposit on one of the larger poker sites opens up a whole new world of possibilities. If you don't want to risk a lot of your money then there are $0.10 and $0.25 tournaments available.

The difference is that 2000 players in a $0.25 tournament adds up to a prize pot of $500! And believe me the standard of poker play at that level isn't any better than the freerolls so you should be in with a good chance of getting amongst the prizes if you stick to the basics.

One of the best, and the biggest sites online to play poker at is Poker Stars. The minimum deposit is only $25, easily affordable to most people. That's nearly 100 $0.25 tournament buy-ins! (after site fees). And you can choose the size of tournament you want to play in, anything from heads-up 2 player games upwards.

P.S. I didn't hang around long in the DVD freeroll, I just stayed for about 15 minutes to get the feel for what it was like. But I kept an eye on the tournament for a while and after an hour there were less than 300 players left. Not a great standard.

If you haven't been to Betfair yet you've missed out on a real treat! Betfair is the UK's biggest betting exchange, where people bet against each other rather than against a bookmaker. People are making SERIOUS money off this site due to the fact that you can bet against an event happening as well as for it.

Without getting into too much detail here, say for example you bet a team on Betfair at even money NOT to win. Now all you need to do is get a price of better than even money for them to win and you will have guaranteed that you will get a return no matter what the outcome of the event is.

There is also the opportunity to use "hedging" tactics like the stock market where you bet on an event at a high price and close out your position by betting against it when the price drops. This is typically available for live sports events where the expected outcome is changing by the minute as the game is unfolding.

Betfair also do poker, and one account lets you into both the poker and betting sections of the site. And the good news is that there are a lot of freerolls for you to get stuck into.

Here's the details of some of the freerolls:

The $1,000 Weekly Welcome Freeroll is open to all new customers, takes place Every Saturday. Prize pot made up of a $550 value WSOPE Qualifier seat for first place and a $500 prize pool shared between the next 29 players.

The Daily freeroll for a place in the Weekly $100,000 guaranteed tournament takes place three times a day. The winner gets a pass to the $100K game worth $550 while the 4th to 9th places get a share of $200.

On Tuesdays there's a chance to win a place in the $30,000 guaranteed Imper1um Special tournament worth $420.

On Fridays there's a chance to win a place in the $20,000 guaranteed Annette tournament worth $212.

Each day you can win a place in the $16,000 guaranteed tournament worth $109. The $16K tourney runs on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. If you win a place you will be entered for the next final.

There's a simple way that you can calculate the odds of winning a hand. Now this method is quick and rough but is fairly accurate and is more than adequate for most players.

All you need to do is work out how many outs you have and your odds of winning are -

To take a simple example, if you are chasing a straight and need a King, you only have 4 Outs - the 4 kings. So your chances of winning the hand are:

This assumes of course that your straight will win the hand but you should be able to tell from the communal cards whether you can be beaten or not.

Players Only Poker are running a great series of $100,000 freerolls, the latest one of which takes place on 31st May 2008.

Now to be honest, when I feature a big freeroll poker competition like this in the newsletter there is usually a bit of a catch of some sort. Let's face it, the poker room running the game has to make money so sometimes they require you to have deposited something before they let you play in these freerolls. Or sometimes there is a restriction to players from certain countries, like the US, which means they can't take part.

Well the good news is you can go straight into the qualifiers for this monster of a tournament and try to win a place to the final itself. There are two qualifying freerolls a day to the tourney and the top 10 finishers in each move forward to the grand final itself. As well as these freerolls, there are a few other ways you can make it to the final on May 31st:-

Gold Chip Qualifier: There's a qualifier where you need 10 Gold Chips to buy-in every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. The top 20 from each of these go on to the final.

Direct Buy-In: You can buy straight into the final for $50. Not too shabby for a straight shot at a $75K top prize.

Satellite Qualifier (Cash Buy-In): Buy in to these qualifiers Every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday from as little as $2.00. One seat to the final gets awarded for every $50 in buy-ins.

Deposit Bonus Seat Lottery: If you deposit a minimum of $100 using the code you will be entered into a lottery where 25 names get selected at random and get a final seat.

The prize money in the final of the Players Only Poker $100,000 tournament has an unusual split, being heavily weighted in favor of the winner who takes home a massive $75,000. The runner up gets $10K and the smaller prizes cascade down from there.

What it does mean of course is the most high-pressure heads up game ever in a freeroll! Imagine for a minute you're lucky enough to get down to the last two in the final, you are now effectively playing a game of heads-up poker for $65,000 - which is the difference between winning and losing.

Can you handle the pressure? I'm sure you don't know for certain but I'm just as sure you'd love to find out!

The next qualifier takes place in just over 10 hours at 7:15 EST 12:15 UK time.

P.S. Don't worry if you can't make this one, there's another next month on Saturday, June 28th.

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Poker Room lost it's American market due to the change in regulations but for those of you who can still play there, there are running a great freeroll to win a trip to see the famous Real Madrid. First prize is an all-expenses paid weekend trip to Madrid, climaxing with a visit to the Bernabeu Stadium to watch the match.

There is a nice list of consolation cash prizes from second place all the way down to number 860, just about the most prizes I've seen in a freeroll.

The tournament takes place on May 13, 19:00 CET

Intertops have a $1000 freeroll to celebrate their new table design. Why not pop over and take a look and while you're there, register for the $1000 freeroll.

Poker Freeroll Update Archives

Our archived newsletters are still there for every single month all the way back to September 2005. They contain loads of great freeroll information. Check the listings below to find particular poker sites you are interested in - or simply just browse through them.

You can still access all the previous back issue information using the links below:

April 2008: Poker Stars, No Pay Poker, Poker Room, Poker Host, Lucky Ace, Tower Poker, 32Red, Poker Nordica
March 2008: 32Red Poker, WSOP 2008:- Hollywood Poker Poker Room Poker4Ever, Unibet, Carbon Poker, Poker Time, Winning at Poker Stars
February 2008: Poker4ever, Poker Host, Omaha Hi freeroll at Poker Stars, Simple Freeroll System Part 1, VC Poker, Carbon Poker
January 2008: Pitbull Poker, Mansion Poker, Hollywood Poker, Poker4ever, Love-Texas-Holdem private members-only freeroll, Cake Poker, Poker Host, Poker Stars
December 2007: Carbon Poker, Betfred, Battlefield Poker, Poker Room, Wingows Poker, Poker Host, VC Poker, Intertops, Love-Texas-Holdem private freeroll, No Pay Poker, Absolute Poker
November 2007: Poker4ever, Poker Heaven, Ladbrokes new player freeroll, Roxy Poker, Sportsbook.com, member's success story, Pitbull Poker
October 2007: Carbon Poker, The Poker Players Alliance, 5000 Euro freeroll, Poker Host, Poker Stars, Poker Nordica, Sportsbook.com Poker
September 2007: Newsletter Survey, Ladbrokes Poker, Fair Poker, Poker Heaven, Tower Gaming, Poker Host, Bugsy's Club Poker, VC Poker
August 2007: Full Tilt Poker, Tropical Poker, Carbon Poker, CanBet Poker, Bet365, Free Chip Trick guide
July 2007: Poker Share, List of the best poker sites featured, Bodog Poker, Vegas Poker 247, Absolute Poker, VC Poker, Carbon Poker, Full Tilt Poker
June 2007: Bugsy's Club, Absolute Poker, Bet US, VC Poker, Wingows, Poker Loco
May 2007: Intertops Poker, Players Only Poker, CD Poker, The3DPoker, Carbon Poker
April 2007: Tony G Poker, Poker Stars, Poker.com, Poker Time, Canbet, Sun Poker
March 2007: Love-Texas-Holdem.com Private Freeroll, Superior Poker, Pitbull Poker, GNUF Poker, 32Red Poker
February 2007: Action Poker, The Poker Club, UltimateBet, No Pay Poker
January 2007: UltimateBet, US Poker Players Hit Again!, Huge Bonuses from real-money games, Vegas Poker 247, Roxy Poker, Mansion Poker
December 2006: $5000 New Year's Freeroll, VIP Poker, Tower Poker, Sites where USA players can play poker, Poker Heaven
November 2006: Love-Texas-Holdem Private Freeroll, Poker.com, US Online Poker Legislation, US Online Poker Legislation Part 2, Live Poker
October 2006: Hollywood Poker, Bet Direct Poker, Full Tilt Poker, The Gaming Club , Poker Vida Loca
September 2006: Tropical Poker, Cake Poker, Poker Hour, Wingows Poker, Bugsy's Club, PokerSchool Online
August 2006: Victor Chandler Poker, Ultimate Bet, Royal Vegas Poker, PokerChamps
July 2006: 32Red Poker, CD Poker, Bet Fred Poker, Games Grid Poker, Bad Poker Sites
June 2006: Absolute Poker, Poker Ocean, College Poker, Royal Vegas Poker, Titan Poker
May 2006: 24hPoker, Hollywood Poker, Poker Heaven, 32Red Poker
April 2006: Absolute Poker, Mermaid Poker, Poker 333 and Canbet
March 2006: Ladbrokes, Noble Poker, Spin Palace Poker, Poker.com
February 2006: Planet Poker, Holdem Poker, Poker Heaven, Poker Champs
January 2006: Alamo Poker, Royal Vegas Poker, Purple Lounge, Noble Poker, 32Red Poker, Inter Poker, JetsetPoker
December 2005: Hollywood Poker, 32Red Poker, Canbet, Kiwi Poker, Multi Poker, Poker Room Lucky Dollar
November 2005: Caribbean Sun Poker / Sun Poker, BetFred, 7 Sultans Poker, Bet365
October 2005: Virgin Games, Inter Poker, 247Poker, 32Red Poker
September 2005: Fair Poker, Hollywood Poker, Poker.com, Everest Poker

The freeroll timetable has now been moved to a separate page to make it quicker to load. I've also split it up into time zones. You can get to it by clicking the link below.