How to Play Freerolls, Part Five
This was published 04-09-2010This article is a follow up on the articles How to Play Freerolls, Parts One, Two, Three, and Four which you will also find in the poker strategy section.
If you’ve reached a very late table in a freeroll tournament, chances are that you’re an excellent player and that you’re playing against some high level players. At the later stages, you’ll need to really consider your strategy carefully. If you play very tightly, you’ll be able to stay in, but your chip stack will dwindle, and you won’t be able to continue to place the blinds as you go on. You’ll need to play loosely enough to take some pots even if you’re not holding pocket aces or ace-king suited.
On the other hand, if you play too loosely, you can easily lose your stack to another player who holds trips to your high pair. You’ll have to strike a careful balance there. At this point in the tournament, you’ll be playing against the same opponents for longer stretches, so you’ll need to vary your style of play more in order to keep them guessing. On the other hand, you should keep watch on your opponents’ styles as much as possible. If an opponent has been playing fairly tightly and they make a modest raise, be aware that they may have a better hand than that raise lets on.
On the other hand, if an opponent has been calling almost every bet, then their continued calling shouldn’t trouble you too much.
When you get to the final table, you’ll have to play somewhat aggressively. At the final table, your goal is no longer to stay in or to amass chips. At this point, your goal is to knock out other players. While you can be passive and try to amass chips and stay in the game up until the final table, it simply doesn’t work at that point. You still need to avoid going all-in with a less than optimum hand, and you’ll want to drop any poor pocket cards before the flop if you’re not on the blinds. If you can see the flop without paying, you should always take it, of course.
When you’re down to only one other player, then you’ll have to play heads up, and that presents a whole different set of challenges.
