Poker4ever has a few great freerolls, as well as a chance to go to the WSOP for 1 cent. Yes that's right, you can go to the 2008 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas by qualifying through a one cent satellite at Poker 4 Ever.
The prize value of the seat is $10,000 - and you also win $5000 in cash, just in case you don't win the main event!
Here's how to register for the satellites:-
Download the poker client if you don't already have it installed.
Check in the Lobby for WSOP satellites
Then look for Tournaments -> Regular & Lobby -> Satellites -> Sit'n'Go's
See you on the TV!
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If you are playing for real money at Poker 4 Ever, you have the option of using Webmoney for depositing and cashing out. Don't miss their Happy Hour each Wednesday and Saturday between 14:00 & 17:00. Use the bonus code "HAPPYHOUR" and you'll get a bonus of up to $100 when you make a deposit.
Another nice little feature of Poker4ever is their Random gift generator on a Monday and Thursday. I've been tipped off that the best tables to sit at to get a chance of one of the random gifts on offer are PALM BEACH or VALENCE.
I don't know how often the gifts are paid out or anything else but that info comes straight from the affiliate manager of the site so the info should be good.
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Still on the subject of the WSOP, Poker Host has freerolls running twice a day for the big event throughout February. These games have absolutely NO restrictions at all - just sign up and play the freerolls.
Poker host have also changed their bonus structure - if you are a real money player you will be delighted to hear that they now give you the same bonus for a reload as an initial signup. I've never understood why they all don't do this but believe me they don't. Pokerhost do though!.
I played an Omaha Hi freeroll at Poker Stars last night for a bit of a change. this is a very popular form of poker, probably due to it's simplicity and similarity to Texas Holdem and the freeroll had an entry of 8890 out of a maximum 10000.
If you haven't played Omaha Hi, here's a brief run down. You are dealt four hole cards face down at the start of the game in the same way that you get two cards in Holdem. The game then proceeds in exactly the same way as Texas Holdem, three card flop then the turn and the river with betting at each stage.
You then make the best hand possible with any two of your four hole cards.
So as you can see it is almost the same as Holdem other than you have four cards in your hand instead of the normal two.
The fact that there are four cards though totally changes the game. On average it takes a MUCH better hand to win a pot than Holdem, you will hardly ever win with a high card. The fact that everybody starts with four cards means that there's a much better chance of getting a pair or another premium starting hand.
I'm a bit of a novice at Omaha so I found myself calling a lot more bets than normal as I seemed to nearly always have a playable starting hand that I could get from my four cards. Remember you don't need to decide what two cards to use until it comes down to a showdown, so you could be chasing a straight, flush and full house all at the same time!
One hand I got triple 6s, but after my initial excitement I realised it is actually a BAD hand as I could only use two of them and it meant there was only one 6 left in the pack.
It really is a great alternative to Texas Holdem and I would really recommend playing a few Omaha tournaments if you want to stretch your mind just a little bit further.
While I am on the subject of Poker Stars, last night I played a $0.50 tournament which turned out to have a GREAT prize pool. There were 3600+ entries and the prize money got up to over $1800, with the 1st prize being $236.
Now if you are a freeroll fan this must be worth considering. A mere 50 cents gets you into a tourney with a far bigger prize pool than almost any regular freeroll on the circuit. Also, there are hundreds of prize places in these games so if you are any good at all you will at least get your money back barring bad beats.
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Last week I told you of my simple system to win regularly in the money games on Poker Stars. OK, here's Part 1 of the rundown of what I do.
First thing first, the aim is to get into the money. If you lose all your chips you are out and you're not in the money. Sounds simple - it is. So, only play the best hands and only play in good position. I'm talking AA, KK QQ, AK are the ONLY hands I am guaranteed to play.
I will even throw away QQ if there is a raise and caller before me on the table. JJ - I hate it and will only limp in, same with other pairs down to 88. Any pairs less than that I will fold unless there is only one or two callers.
So you can see my approach is ultra cautious. I want to get in the money so I need to stay in the game.
Part 2 next week.
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VC Poker has a very impressive $12,500 freeroll where the main prize includes a $7500 package to the Irish Open event itself. This will not please all of you as US players aren't allowed and there's a very small real money raked hand requirement. You can get it from playing just ONE hand but if you're a freeroll purist it might not be for you.
Freeroll News 10th February 2008:
Poker freeroll tournaments are great and we all love the idea of a bit of extra cash for no outlay. They appeal to the basic principal that we all love - getting something for nothing! But are your freerolls really FREE?
Let's take an example of two poker tournaments I played in during the last week and we'll examine whether freerolls are all that you think they are.
First I played a freeroll at Carbon Poker as part of my continuous research for the newsletter. Now Carbon is a great site and great too for freerolls, they pay out a fantastic $120,000 every month in prize funds. There's also an excellent new-depositor freeroll you are eligible to play in for 14 days after making a deposit.
In the freeroll, I did quite well. Some of the competition was fairly limp and I managed to progress to the late stages before my luck ran out although I had the best hand - AA against J10. Still it happens.
So Result for Carbon Poker Freeroll:
Time spent - over 2 hours
Profit - Nil
So last night I decided to give PokerStars another chance despite my misgivings about the hands I'd been getting recently. I played a $6, 45 player turbo game which is the one I like at Stars for a few reasons. It seems to get a slightly better grade of player without being a feeding ground for sharks.
( The good thing about playing a better grade of player is that they are less likely to do crazy things and get lucky - basically they are more predictable. If they go all in they will nearly always have a good hand whereas in the freerolls you can get maniacs going all in with for example Q 9 in early position).
So how did I do in the Poker Stars Turbo event? Well I won despite the fact that to be absolutely honest I'm not the greatest poker player in the world. I just play to a simple system that works well for me, and I know that I will almost always finish in the top half and more often than not I'll be at the final table. (7th place gets you $12 so getting to the final table means you only need to get two players knocked out and you are in the money).
Here's my results email:
As you can see, I got the email an hour and six minutes after the tournament started.
So Result for PokerStars Turbo $6 tournament:
Time spent - just over 1 hour
Profit - $77.50
Now I believe that to be a better return for my efforts than to spend over two hours with a crowd of random players of varying abilities and ending up with nothing. OK I had to spend $6.50 to get into the game but I more than made up for it with my winnings.
Bottom line is this - how much do you value your time? If you are prepared to spend hours and hours chasing small prizes that have conditions attached then stick with the freerolls. However if your time is more valuable to you get on to the PokerStars low buy-in tournaments. You can win the way I do, the competition isn't that great.
By the way next week I'll share some of the methods I use to win the low buy-in tournaments at Poker Stars so sign up now for an account if you don't already have one and stay tuned!
Freeroll News 3rd February 2008:
This week I've got another bit of good news, there's a new subscriber only poker freeroll coming up this month. Now normally what happens is that I get contacted by an affiliate manager who asks me if I'm interested in running a freeroll, I say OK and he asks me what date and time I want it for.
So I pick what I think would be the time that suits most people, given that there are subscribers from almost all time zones in the world.
This time though I'm going to get all democratic and hand the decision over to you. So if you have a preference as to day and time of the freeroll can you please reply to this email . Just simply state your preference like this: Sunday, 3:00pm EST
If you don't know what time it is in EST, just tell me your country or state and I'll work it out. I'll take the majority decision on this one so if you are interested, cast your vote now!
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Here's an update to my recent whine about PokerStars and the fact that I had a statistically near impossible run of rubbish hands over a long period.
I realized I had quite a bit of money lying in my player account and wondered if that might have any effect on my luck. So what I did was to remove all of the money from my account, except for a bit of working cash to enter the tournaments I play in. I figured I should win enough to get my balance back up before I ran out of money.
Well lo and behold, my luck suddenly changed overnight. The very next time I played I was getting AK, high pairs and even Aces regularly. The transformation in my fortunes was quite remarkable and I started winning again.
I don't draw any conclusions from these events at all. I am just relating an account of what happened to me, whether it is a pure coincidence or something else I have no way of knowing.
But if something similar happens to you at Stars or indeed any other site it might be worth trying the same if you have money in your account.
