Lessons from a week of freerolling

So I've been trying to find time to post a wrap-up of my freerolling adventure, but with the departure of Pinnacle Sports from the U.S. market and the NETeller debacle, I've been doing a lot of other research and writing lately.

Today, thanks to a lack of breaking news in the Internet gambling world, I get to concentrate on the fun stuff.

After spending the better part of seven days playing Internet poker on several sites without making one deposit, I won $15.40. Thirteen dollars came in freeroll tournaments, while I won the other $2.40 in cash games played with the money won in those freerolls.

I played in 32 multi-table freerolls, cashed in three of them and made the final table in two. I put in 28 actual hours of freeroll tournament play, or 40 "table hours" which account for multi-tabling.

If you add in the hours I spent trying (unsuccessfully) to win a dollar from Poker.com's Fun Steps plus the time I spent playing cash games with my freeroll winnings, I totaled 55 table hours of Internet poker last week, meaning I won an average of 28 cents an hour.

Here's what I learned in those 55 hours …

1. The quality of play in freerolls is very fast and loose in the first hour. Most people are trying to build a big stack early in an attempt to coast to the money. I did not employ this strategy, instead playing my best to advance as far in each tournament as I could.
   
2. I am much better at limit games than I am at No Limit Hold'em. This came as no surprise to me, as the bulk of my playing experience is in limit games. My best finish in a No Limit Hold'em tournament was a 116th finish in the AP Challenge, a $1000 prize pool freeroll that had 743 entries.
   
3. Playing three tournaments on three different platforms is hard. It's even harder when two of them are Pot Limit Omaha.
   
4. The freerolls I wanted to play most (Razz, H.O.R.S.E., Seven Stud Hi/Lo) are scheduled at the worst time of day for me, so I never got to play them.

I also learned that it would be nearly impossible to start from scratch to build an online bankroll. I played in nine tournaments on Full Tilt and won $2. With that tiny sum, I could sit down at Full Tilt's $.05/$.10 pot limit or no limit cash games, which carry a $2 minimum, or I could use the money to buy into a $1 + $0.25 tournament.

I chose the cash game route, and I actually built my balance up to $6.75. Unfortunately, it fell back down to $2.35 when my 20-1 odds were busted and my opponent caught a runner-runner straight in a PL Omaha game.

Normally, that wouldn't faze me. Bad beats happen to everybody, but when they wipe out half of your account balance, they're a little tougher to stomach, especially when you've spent so much time trying to build that pittance out of nothing.

Basically, I'm bound to go broke on Full Tilt. My freerolling built such a small amount that I would have to be right every time I play AND avoid bad luck. That's just not going to happen.

On Absolute Poker, I actually have enough money that I could avoid going broke. I've won about three big bets an hour on their $.02/$.04 six handed Limit Hold'em games, and with more than $12 in the account, I have more than the recommended 300 big bets to play at that limit.

Thing is, it's $.02/$.04. Seriously, if I continued to win at that rate, which is unlikely, it would take me 400 hours to build up enough money to play $.10/$.20, which is the next step up on Absolute Poker.

By now, I'm sure you've figured out that I'm not a high roller. But I'm also not a mini-roller. I play $4/$8 at casinos because I don't think anyone can overcome the rake at $2/$4, and our home game plays for dollar stakes instead of quarters.

This freeroll thing was fun, and while I was risking absolutely nothing, I won next to nothing. Unless you're on a very tight budget, the only way to have enough money in your account to play at a reasonable level is to make a deposit.