Freeroll analysis...

Pysterman

I sometimes play the 10:30pm freeroll and was looking for some advice. I know that a lot of you regard them as a pointless waste of time (2 hours' work to cash for 55p!) but I see them as a bit of fun and practice where I can't lose any money and may occasionally pick up a few quid.

This is how the tournaments play out most often for me...

There are usually around 500-600 runners, starting chips 3000.

For the first hour, I try to play a fairly solid TAG style. Given the loose nature of a lot of the players, I am willing to go all in with a premium hand, or if I flop a big made hand. However, for the most part, I find myself treading water. I usually stay around the middle of the field, which diminishes pretty rapidly.

I often make it to the first break, where the blinds are up to 300/600 (I think).  However, most of the time, by this point, I still have less than 6000 chips.

After the break, it is then a case of "pick a hand and shove", looking for double up or two. Most often, it's just a matter of time before I get unlucky, crashing out around 100-150th.

In a Nutshell
I am quite good at 'surviving' into the top third or quarter of the field, but by this point I rarely have a big stack and in order to cash I have to rely on a few lucky double-ups. I am virtually never one of the front-runners early on, or if I do get an early double-up I rarely push on much and still usually find myself fairly short at the break.

Stats
I have played 58 of these Freerolls, and cashed in 11, including 3 final tables, earning a total £23.23 for my troubles. Average position - mean 64th percentile (i.e. like coming 36th out of 100), median 67th percentile (i.e. 33rd out of 100).

Questions
Are my results any good?
Is my strategy OK, or should I be playing more loose-aggressively to try to get in front earlier?
If my initial, tight strategy is OK, then is the reason that I am usually short-stacked if I survive to the break due my not 'changing gears' at the right time? If so, how/when should I change my play?

Note - I'm not usually an MTT player (I play mostly cash and DYM) so my shortcomings may be due to my lack of know-how at general tournament play - not specifically freeroll.

Any advice or nuggets of wisdom would be appreciated. Thanks.

Batkin88

Your results are very good considering every penny is profit.
I am 100% MTT player i do like cash but thats a work in progress.
Your strategy is good for a normal MTT but freerolls increase in blinds quickly and are more turbo than standard MTT. I would say stick with what your doing with the aggro part but maybe play a few more hands in and around posistion whilst the blinds are low, eg your suited connectors or suited gap connectors or low pocket pairs. I find hands like QJ JT are more valuable as drawing hands so flat calling a 3 or 4 way pot but only playing if you hit your draw not top pair as so many players will be playing completely random hands regardless of pre flop aggression. Always bet strong if you hit regardless of how wet the board is until very deep in the tournament.
If your chasing a flush in a freeroll or even a straight and your first to act wether your the preflop aggressor or not bet out less than half the pot so often players will call with really strong hands and dont realise as your not check calling that your after a cheap flush whilst potentially building a decent pot.
Finally the most valuable tip i was ever given is pick on certain players, within a few orbits you will see the players weaker than you, try and get in the hands there in and then bully them consistently.

percival09

In Response to Re: Freeroll analysis...:

Your results are very good considering every penny is profit. I am 100% MTT player i do like cash but thats a work in progress. Your strategy is good for a normal MTT but freerolls increase in blinds quickly and are more turbo than standard MTT. I would say stick with what your doing with the aggro part but maybe play a few more hands in and around posistion whilst the blinds are low, eg your suited connectors or suited gap connectors or low pocket pairs. I find hands like QJ JT are more valuable as drawing hands so flat calling a 3 or 4 way pot but only playing if you hit your draw not top pair as so many players will be playing completely random hands regardless of pre flop aggression. Always bet strong if you hit regardless of how wet the board is until very deep in the tournament. If your chasing a flush in a freeroll or even a straight and your first to act wether your the preflop aggressor or not bet out less than half the pot so often players will call with really strong hands and dont realise as your not check calling that your after a cheap flush whilst potentially building a decent pot. Finally the most valuable tip i was ever given is pick on certain players, within a few orbits you will see the players weaker than you, try and get in the hands there in and then bully them consistently.
Posted by Batkin88

Knowing that your villains are playing completely random hands is surely a good thing when you hit top pair, bet and get as much value as possible!

You can't have a specific strategy for each time you're in a scenario where you have some sort of draw, if you donk bet less than half pot each time god you'd be easy to read, plus it's probably not profitable to think about hands like that, go with as it goes ... you don't really want to be too aggressive in a multi way pot vs donks knowing they'll call you down with 14th pair.. UNLESS YOU HAVE IT!

Your results look good, you've grinded out a good profit from nothing at all!

If I were playing a freeroll, I'd just play tight througout the beginning of the tournament, basically just looking to get value with good hands etc vs weaker players ... be sure you know when to be aggressive though, like I said earlier, don't be over aggressive with nothing because more times than not it wont work. 

The thing you're maybe missing out on is in the later stages, whilst still playing tight because I doubt you'll have many chips for any fancy play giving it's a freeroll and the structure is probably terrible, you maybe need to open up slightly more, e.g. stealing blinds against tight opponents, raising your btn vs weak blinds, isolating weak players in position.

But the main thing I can suggest is carry on doing what you're doing, maybe just by making a few tweeks in the latter stages is all you need and then you could make even more profit.

Dudeskin8

I often play these and like you say just play tight aggresive and you'll get paid very well. 

In terms of being short as the tourney progresses that's bound to happen as the blinds increase every 5 minutes so mean you have to gamble more and more to stay in the chasing pack which obviously leads to more variance.

My tip would be the same as in all MTT's just try to stay above the 10bb mark at all times, even if it means shoving light, but always do so in good spots, CO/Btn/SB. 

Also you probably do this already but if you have AA/KK VERY late on ALWAYS min raise pre as you'll get tons of callers who don't understand you can only do that with 2 hands.

Batkin88

Percival09 your not reading any of what i said correctly you have clearly picked little things out and disected it to how you want it to be read. I am reffering to freeroll play and the types of players you get in them tournaments tables change every 5 seconds noone is going to have reads on you.
And the reason regarding not going nuts with top pair is because your going to have 3, 4 or even 5 other players in the pot with you with completely random hands which would be hard to define with any pre flop play because of the standard of the tournament your in

percival09

There's no need to get defensive, I'm just saying if you hit top pair with a drawing hand you shouldn't just give up with it, you'll lose so much value regardless of who you're playing against