I play in a daily freeroll (noon London time) that is really of interest only to microstakes and recreational players - the top prize is $13. It's fun, though. I've won it once, made the final table a few times, and get past the bubble about once a week. It typically gets just over 400 entries.
What's slightly crazy about it is the blind structure - they go up every minute. Effectively, every hand.
This means there's very little 'normal' play, except maybe in the first few hands. It's pretty much all push-or-fold. Because when the blinds reach you the second time, or maybe even the first, you're going to be all-in anyway. If you're going to survive, you need to double up early.
So far so simple.
After a couple of orbits, though, slowplaying becomes directly linked to possible profit. Those blinds are knocking people out so fast that just hanging around makes money.
So, my question is - at what point do you switch, from fastplay to try to find a hand to double up with, to slowplay to try to outlast other people? A lot of the guys who've played this freeroll a lot seem to switch at about 200 players left (the bubble is usually at 50th). It seems to be about right but I wonder if anybody has any different opinion.
If you want to try this one, it's the PaddyPower FastFood Freeroll.
October 24 2008, 19:00:26 UTC 4 years ago
That said, if people are playing that weakly, once you get less than 10 big blinds, wouldn't hurt to stop looking at your cards and going all-in. At that point, it's all about first-in equity.
October 29 2008, 23:10:39 UTC 4 years ago Edited: October 29 2008, 23:12:25 UTC
Strategy for crazy freeroll
Best thing is to try and and see a couple of hands cheap or wait to make a shove with a good hand 1st player in. Avoid calling shoves unless your sure you have best hand or huge pot odds. Like he said, squeeking into the money is usually a bad idea, unless maybe you win into a tourney via satelite or unusually high in the money payouts.October 29 2008, 23:58:09 UTC 4 years ago Edited: October 29 2008, 23:59:55 UTC
Re: Strategy for crazy freeroll
But...The structure makes it a crapshoot. You /can't/ in any realistic way "play to win". The blinds knock people out so fast after the bubble that how much you end up with is effectively random, however many chips you had at the bubble. It doesn't get you into some bigger MTT, it's just $50 split 40 or 50 ways (depending on the number of entrants).
I don't think of it as poker, it's more like some weird form of bingo, or a lottery. You push or fold, all the way through, normally. That choice is simple. But when to switch from fast-to-get-cards-to-double-up-with to slow-to-outlast-others, that's a real choice in this set-up. The only real choice!
October 30 2008, 00:28:01 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Strategy for crazy freeroll
Many ultra turbo sitngoes play similarly. Especially in any loosely played or small pot freeroll players just shove and call anything. Typically you can just shove 88+, AJ+, and get called off by all sorts of bad hands and just pray. If you don't get one of those hands then just wait till the blinds get to 10x or less bb.