Poker

[walrus]

Anyone on here still play online poker?  Play a lot on skybet but have run out of points for the freeroll, and using real money seems to make me into an even worse player...  where does everyone play?  What tactics do you use for the freeroll?  I seem to be too cautious and my chips just dwindle to nothing...

Planning on winning big soon or I'm well and truly broke!  That's what comes from being on the dole... 

[Rossi]

I play quite a bit on PKR.  I have just been working my way up to playing with real money - just pottering around with play money at the moment.  Have finished in the top 10 in a couple of tournies with 300+ people, but you do tend to get a few spacks, and I imagine that the players are generally a bit better and take it more seriously.
I used to play very cautiously and only really play when I had a half decent hand, but recently I've been a lot more aggressive and found that it definitely pays off as people aren't sure when you're bluffing

[Dazzza]

Freerolls are tough simply due to the number of players who will chuck all-in on shit hands.  I’ve won a couple with 800+ players and usually make the money but for such a long period of play unless you hit the top few spots the returns are usually fairly crap and not worth the hassle.

Best advice for a freeroll is to simply sit tight for the first couple of hours while the fools chuck their cash about only play solid high hands.  Once people start to settle in then is the time to start playing a little more aggressively and building a good stack.

I can go at least an hour at the start of a freeroll before actually playing a hand.

Good article here, which is worth a read but at the end of the day develop your own style and make sure you can adjust to the table your at:

http://www.totalgambler.com/poker/strategy/5394/poker_stack_management.html

[Ben Wah Balls]

I've not played any freerolls for years but you want to take advantage of people calling raises far too much and limping far too much. I would tend to probably just go all in preflop with any pair higher than tens (if you're not to bothered about going out early you could also do this with hands like 88, 99 and AJ) and AQ and AK  in the early stages, you'll get called by loads of worse hands and be a huge favourite to double or triple up. Normal strategy would be to raise them all 3x the big blind plus one big blind per limper and play them aggressively post flop. Aside from those hands it's really best to fold most hands early in this type of tournament except mid pairs which you can raise or limp. I generally much prefer raising because it's more fun. If anyone was actually paying attention you wouldn't want to vary your raise based on the strength of your hand but they won't be. Then later on get more aggressive and don't let your stack dwindle. Any time you have less than 10 times the big blind you need to be looking for good spots to go all in preflop, any time it's folded around to you you in late position can do this with anything vaguely decent and the more shortstacked you are the more hands you should be doing it with. (Though you need a much better hand to call an all in than to go all in yourself unless you're big blind and the blind is more than 1/3 of your stack.)

The most common mistakes of bad players are limping far too much preflop (as in just calling the big blind), being too passive and bad bet sizing. If you just make sure most of your post flop bets are between 1/2 the pot to the full pot (and closer to pot the more draws there are to protect against) then that alone will give you a huge advantage over most of them. I would play anything better than top pair top kicker post flop aggressively, most people don't know how to bet so you have to do it for them.

The play at sky bet is really terrible, I haven't seen anyone in less than a £5 tournament or £20 buyin cash game who really had much of a clue which is a good thing but unfortunately the software is equally as bad. I think Pokerstars is by far the best site for tournaments, I don't know what their freerolls are like but they have tournaments with buyins as low as 10c pretty often.

[suttonred]

 I play the freerolls on Betfair, and normally play as per Dazza, unless i pull one of the top 4 or 5 hands  in the first 1 or 2 rounds , then its all in and hope for callers firstly then hope for the best. It may also be that your style is suited to cash games. I'm pretty good in tourneys, but rubbish in cash games. You might be the reverse?