Poker Perambulation

I was, honestly, a bit dubious about the project. You can spend some boringly funny hours accomplishing very little playing freerolls. The rate of return isn’t as good as my first job and that took down a cool .50 per hour. Although, that’d get you 2 gallons of gas at the time. But, I’ll confess to a guilty pleasure of doing them on occasion; but as a project? Kinda iffy.

Well, Good Witch Glenda is the one that’s started off kicking butt and taking names. You can make money at freerolls but it used to be a lot easier. With the play on Stars and PokerStars attracting huge fields, you need the luck of Jamie Gold to make much. A dollar here or there, is as much in the realm of a tease as a success.

Glenda is following an approach that emphasises a solid game and it has worked with two small cashes. That gives here a leg up. Moving cash from a .01-.02 game to a table game where it isn’t all luck is a tough go. Putting it in play on a $1 SnG makes some sense if you’re willing to ignore the cash management.

I was totally PO’d at PokerRoom way back. (It changed hands since.) They had some great freerolls. There were a couple of $1000 ones each day. When I quit the site I still had Pokah Points and you need that to cash out of their freerolls. Come to find out they didn’t deduct the points when you won. So, I used those points over and over. It was fun to take some of their money. They’d screwed up games for me and didn’t care about what the crash did. So, it was very satisfactory pulling a Neteller transfer out of them each month. Nothing like revenge.

But, back to the ladies. The freeroll situation makes building a roll pretty grim. And, it isn’t like you can move the money from site to site to get to a better game like you can with the hard earned stuff. Bankroll management is difficult when you’re in the $1.98 crowd. A lot of sites don’t have a lot where superior play offers much help. In reviewing Chris’ spread sheet a while back, I noted that the growth was pretty gentle getting to a reasonable amount where his actual and conservative cash management gave him much flexibility. It was only toward the end where a heater kicked in to put him over the top.

So, what is the approach here and now? I took a quick look at Star’s freerolls. They tend to group several at certain times of day. Usually there are three in the span of an hour or less. Even if playing multi-table isn’t your forte, I think you’d want in all you can register for. My approach would be monkey poker to try to build a stack. Even if one is PLO and you’ve never played it much, you enter and pray. The idea is one of three is likely to give you a playable early stack. The one’s you bust out of didn’t take a time investment. The one that does click gives you better odds for lasting.

I’d think I’d try for an aggressive post bubble game. I’d suggest reviewing TonyG’s idea of how to play late. If you don’t have a big stack, build it or parish. If you do, be a table captain. These freerolls are deep pay events. The difference between a low payout and getting to the middle of the payouts doesn’t get you a lot more $$$. After the bubble, I’d have one goal – final table. That is the only finish that’d give you a roll that you’d be able to do actual bankroll management with – even at mid-micro table levels. Usually the bubble bursts early 3^rd hour as I recall. I also recall 5 hour marathons to completion. It doesn’t make sense to play another two hours without the final table the goal.

I’ve have been more impressed with the new blog than I thought I’d be. There is already some nice hand discussion and approach considerations happening. There is even some nice stuff about Stud8B that isn’t my favorite stud game but does explain the typical mistake many make in that game.

So, stop by Chris Ferguson’s Harem. Darn nice read. And a darn nicer harem than the folliclely challenged religious icon deserves.

ADDENDUM:

Did you see the recent silliness pulled off by our fine elected officials, various policy wonks, and the GAO? They penetrated airport security with liquid explosives and detonators. Then, they went out in a field and used those components to blow up a car. A while back they were all irate about Internet sites that talked about bomb making. They said it was a classroom for terrorists. So, what did these bright fellows do? They moved it from the Internet to the 6 o’clock news. The idea here sports fans is to keep the populace nervous so we stampede in their direction with our concerns for ‘homeland security’ outweighing the securtiy of the nation and world. Let’s not knee jerk to their tune!

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I did play at a table with Chris during his early period. It was a $5 RAZZ table and he lost a buyin. Very gracious and totally nice guy. I was play some RAZZ at the time and when I logged on was surprised to see that one of the low end tables was red – indicating a FullTilt Pro in residence. It was Chris and a seat was open. He didn’t play RAZZ particularly well; but, nobody plays RAZZ particularly well. The chat was as outrageous as it gets when some of the pros are playing. But, he was gracious throughout.

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Well, I’ve managed to blow my profit at the FT stud tables and then some. Not far off my low again. I moved up a level to try to clear a bit more bonus before that expires at the end of the month – not the best idea it seems. You almost think the heater/cooler mode the RNG there exhibits was written with a sense of humor. Meanwhile, Stars is being very kind to me. Have done very limited play at Bodog with very minor success. But, minor success don’t really trump my FT fall.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 9:45 am and is filed under Journal, Poker Thoughts. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.