Much better in my opinion is to invest just ONE DOLLAR (+$0.10) in the Tower Poker Turbo No-Limit games. I played one last night and there were 1201 players in for a very good prize pot of $1200+.

Freeroll News 25th May 2008: 

The Billionth hand is always a very special occasion for an online poker room (I wonder if any offline casinos have ever got close to having played a billion hands!) and at Bet365 they are celebrating the upcoming event.

To help them spread the cheer they are holding a series of events, including their "Bubble Hands Freeroll". All the players who take part in hands 999,999,901 thru' 1,000,000,000 (that's a total of 100 hands) will be eligible to play in the $10,000 pot freeroll and at least 20% of the participants will get a share of the prize money.

Not only that, but there is an extra $2,500 bounty available to the player in the freeroll who takes out the winner of the billionth hand. 

There are a lot more payouts leading up to the event, as of yesterday they had paid out over $36,000 on billionth hand events, so it is one to really keep an eye on for a while at least. Maybe you could change over to Bet365 for your regular poker game online - at least until the billionth hand has been won.

Click here for more details of the billionth hand promotion at Bet365.

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If you are a player at Poker Room, you probably will have received a free ticket to the VIP Race Trophy tournament. Top prize for this is a fantastic trip to Brno for the semi-final of the Race Trophy - all expenses paid.

If you don't have an account yet, I strongly suggest you Click Here and join up at the site, Brno could be just around the corner for you!

Freeroll News 18th May 2008: 

Sometimes poker players just baffle me. Or should I say, sometimes freeroll poker players baffle me. Some of the things they do just defy logic, I'll give you an example. 

Today I played a freeroll at Full Tilt Poker.

There were 2666 players registered to play out of a maximum of 2700 so it was all but full. That in itself isn't all that remarkable, there are freerolls with more players than that registered.

No, the thing that floored me was the prizes on offer. Or should I say prize. That's right, there was only ONE prize between 2666 players. And the prize? A DVD! 

So 2666 poker players were prepared to sit and play for upwards of four hours for the chance of winning a poker DVD - value less than £20. Now don't get me wrong Full Tilt Poker is a great place to play poker and I don't have a problem with it at all. What I do have a bit of a problem with though is people willing to waste their time like this.

Look, the bottom line in poker is money. It is that simple. We all enjoy playing poker but we all want to see our bank balance heading north at the end of each game. Freerolls represent a good opportunity to increase your balance, but ONLY if you have little or no money to spare.

If you seriously cannot afford to risk ANY money of your own at all, then poker freerolls are the way to go. You get to play competitive poker and you get the chance to win some money. On the face of it, the best of both worlds.

But let's get real for a moment. Who in their right mind would play a freeroll where the only prize is a single DVD? You are WORTH MORE! Your time is more valuable than that so here's what I would suggest you do:

Option 1.
Play better freerolls. There are loads of poker freerolls around, choose one with a smaller field of competitors and also a better range of prizes. There are still some good freerolls out there so shop around and find a good one.

You can check out a list of freerolls on Love-Texas-Holdem's freeroll timetable page.

Option 2.
Play real money tables. For me this is by far the better way to go. Even a minimum deposit on one of the larger poker sites opens up a whole new world of possibilities. If you don't want to risk a lot of your money then there are $0.10 and $0.25 tournaments available. 

The difference is that 2000 players in a $0.25 tournament adds up to a prize pot of $500! And believe me the standard of poker play at that level isn't any better than the freerolls so you should be in with a good chance of getting amongst the prizes if you stick to the basics.

One of the best, and the biggest sites online to play poker at is Poker Stars. The minimum deposit is only $25, easily affordable to most people. That's nearly 100 $0.25 tournament buy-ins! (after site fees). And you can choose the size of tournament you want to play in, anything from heads-up 2 player games upwards.

Click here to find out more about real money games at Poker Stars

P.S. I didn't hang around long in the DVD freeroll, I just stayed for about 15 minutes to get the feel for what it was like. But I kept an eye on the tournament for a while and after an hour there were less than 300 players left. Not a great standard.

Freeroll News 11th May 2008: 

If you haven't been to Betfair yet, you've missed out on a real treat! Betfair is the UK's biggest betting exchange, where people bet against each other rather than against a bookmaker. People are making SERIOUS money off this site due to the fact that you can bet against an event happening as well as for it.

Without getting into too much detail here, say for example you bet a team on Betfair at even money NOT to win. Now all you need to do is get a price of better than even money for them to win and you will have guaranteed that you will get a return no matter what the outcome of the event is.

There is also the opportunity to use "hedging" tactics like the stock market where you bet on an event at a high price and close out your position by betting against it when the price drops. This is typically available for live sports events where the expected outcome is changing by the minute as the game is unfolding.

Betfair also do poker, and one account lets you into both the poker and betting sections of the site. And the good news is that there are a lot of freerolls for you to get stuck into.

Here's the details of some of the freerolls:

The $1,000 Weekly Welcome Freeroll is open to all new customers, takes place Every Saturday. Prize pot made up of a $550 value WSOPE Qualifier seat for first place and a $500 prize pool shared between the next 29 players.

The Daily freeroll for a place in the Weekly $100,000 guaranteed tournament takes place three times a day. The winner gets a pass to the $100K game worth $550 while the 4th to 9th places get a share of $200.

On Tuesdays there's a chance to win a place in the $30,000 guaranteed Imper1um Special tournament worth $420. 

On Fridays there's a chance to win a place in the $20,000 guaranteed Annette tournament worth $212. 

Each day you can win a place in the $16,000 guaranteed tournament worth $109. The $16K tourney runs on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays,
Saturdays and Sundays. If you win a place you will be entered for the next final.

Click here to get all the gen at Betfair

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Did You Know?

There's a simple way that you can calculate the odds of winning a hand. Now this method is quick and rough but is fairly accurate and is more than adequate for most players.

All you need to do is work out how many outs you have and your odds of winning are - 

Percentage chance of winning = Outs x 2 + 2 

To take a simple example, if you are chasing a straight and need a King, you only have 4 Outs - the 4 kings. So your chances of winning the hand are:

4 x 2 + 2 = 10%

This assumes of course that your straight will win the hand but you should be able to tell from the communal cards whether you can be beaten or not.

Freeroll News 4th May 2008: 

Players Only Poker are running a great series of $100,000 freerolls, the latest one of which takes place on 31st May 2008.

Now to be honest, when I feature a big freeroll poker competition like this in the newsletter there is usually a bit of a catch of some sort. Let's face it, the poker room running the game has to make money so sometimes they require you to have deposited something before they let you play in these freerolls. Or sometimes there is a restriction to players from certain countries, like the US, which means they can't take part.

Well the good news is you can go straight into the qualifiers for this monster of a tournament and try to win a place to the final itself. There are two qualifying freerolls a day to the tourney and the top 10 finishers in each move forward to the grand final itself. As well as these freerolls, there are a few other ways you can make it to the final on May 31st:-

Gold Chip Qualifier: There's a qualifier where you need 10 Gold Chips to buy-in every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. The top 20 from each of these go on to the final. 

Direct Buy-In: You can buy straight into the final for $50. Not too shabby for a straight shot at a $75K top prize.

Satellite Qualifier (Cash Buy-In): Buy in to these qualifiers Every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday from as little as $2.00. One seat to the final gets awarded for every $50 in buy-ins. 

Deposit Bonus Seat Lottery: If you deposit a minimum of $100 using the code you will be entered into a lottery where 25 names get selected at random and get a final seat.

The prize money in the final of the Players Only Poker $100,000 tournament has an unusual split, being heavily weighted in favor of the winner who takes home a massive $75,000. The runner up gets $10K and the smaller prizes cascade down from there.

What it does mean of course is the most high-pressure heads up game ever in a freeroll! Imagine for a minute you're lucky enough to get down to the last two in the final, you are now effectively playing a game of heads-up poker for $65,000 - which is the difference between winning and losing.

Can you handle the pressure? I'm sure you don't know for certain but I'm just as sure you'd love to find out!

The next qualifier takes place in just over 10 hours at 7:15 EST 12:15 UK time. 

P.S. Don't worry if you can't make this one, there's another next month on Saturday, June 28th. 

Click Here to Register for the $100,000 freeroll at Players Only Poker

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The Spanish Football Freerolls

Poker Room lost it's American market due to the change in regulations but for those of you who can still play there, there are running a great freeroll to win a trip to see the famous Real Madrid. First prize is an all-expenses paid weekend trip to Madrid, climaxing with a visit to the Bernabeu Stadium to watch the match.

There is a nice list of consolation cash prizes from second place all the way down to number 860, just about the most prizes I've seen in a freeroll.

The tournament takes place on May 13, 19:00 CET

Click Here to play freerolls at Poker Room

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Intertops have a $1000 freeroll to celebrate their new table design. Why not pop over and take a look and while you're there, register for the $1000 freeroll.

Freeroll News 27th April 2008: 

Poker Stars has a great series of free-to-enter qualifiers where you can win a $12,5000 package to the WSOP in Vegas, every day until June 27, 2008 

The entry numbers are huge as you'd expect from the biggest poker room on the internet but the freerolls run every hour so there's always another one coming right along.

Best of all these freerolls are open to all players and there are no strings attached.

Click here for the WSOP freerolls at Poker Stars.

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NoPayPOKER has a massive $50,000 freeroll tournament coming up on April 30th. Caution - you will need an account and $50 FreeD NoPayPOKER points to get a ticket but that's relatively easy to do and well worth it for such a great freeroll.

If you don't have an account yet, Click Here to get one. Once you have signed up and collected your $50 in FreeD you will be issued with a ticket for the big game.

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If you have a real money account at PokerRoom.com make sure you check it! I just got a free ticket to their VIP Race Trophy poker tournament where the first prize is an amazing all-expenses trip to the Race Trophy tournament semi-final in Spain.

Even better, the first prize in Spain is a seat at the Race Trophy final table itself, which is a short handed 6 player event where the 6 will share a guaranteed $500,000.

So Click Here an make sure you check your PokerRoom.com account now!

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A reminder about Poker Host, if you register and deposit a minimum of $50 you can play in their exclusive first depositors $500 Freeroll.

It's a decent pot and as I always say the $50 you pay in stays yours to do what you want with.

Freeroll News 20th April 2008: 

It's freerolls galore at LuckyAce Poker!

There are several $50 and $100 freeroll tournaments taking place every day of the week. Not only that, but by signing up and making a minimum deposit, you are entitled to play their excellent $500 freeroll games for a whole week.

That's seven full days of $500 freerolls for you to play with a combined prize pot of a very tasty $3500.

And there's more!

If only 25 of the players sign up for a REAL money account at Lucky Ace, I have negotiated a members exclusive $500 freeroll just for subscribers to the newsletter. You will get a very attractive instant 100% bonus, up to $400, for making the first deposit.

Click Here to get over now to LuckyAce Poker!

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If you are a registered player at Tower Poker, there's some great news for you this month! Due to a technical problem Tower customers lost contact with the site for a 12 hour spell on 17th April and to make up for this, TowerPoker have raised the prize pool for their monthly freeroll from $5000 to a fantastic $20,000.

The competition is called "Tower of Freerolls" and it takes place every month on the site. 

By the way any players who have lost money due to the lost connection will be refunded in full.

Not yet registered for Tower Poker? Click here to get a piece of the action!

Freeroll News 13th April 2008: 

This week for a change I won't be promoting any poker sites in the newsletter, there is already LOADS of poker freeroll information on this page so it will give you a chance for a final recap before I take it down next week!

Instead, I'm going to concentrate on how you can improve your chances of WINNING at the freerolls. After all there's not much point in playing for hours on end with no prospect of a profit at the end.

So firstly, let's talk about making more money by LOSING LESS. Now this might seem like a silly over-simplification but let me tell you what I mean. There are a few simple steps that you can take when playing in the freerolls that will greatly increase your chances of taking down a prize, and most of them involve losing less.

By adopting a more defensive attitude, you will hold on to more of what you have and stay in the games for longer. 

So, what you should do could be summarized in these "rules":

1. Play fewer hands
By only playing premium starting hands you stop money dribbling out of your stack. Many little calls add up to you losing a lot of money and finding yourself with a short stack.

2. Stay out of the small pots
Following on from the first "rule", you should stay out of the early small pots as much as possible. There's an old adage that these give you a chance to win a little or lose a lot, and like most old sayings there's a strong element of truth in it.

3. Don't go all-in unless it's absolutely necessary
When you go all-in it is do or die. Survive the hand or you are ut of the game altogether, no second chances. You should only use all-in as a deterrent if you know your opponent will fold, or if you are absolutely sure that you have the best hand.

4. Don't feel you MUST defend your blinds
Look, we all hate putting up blinds and not even getting a run for our money, but if the pot has had a raise and a couple of callers, and you've got 4 7 offsuit, walk away!

Remember that the longer you stay in the game the more chance you will have of winning money. Statistically you will always get premium starting hands dealt to you in a tournament, when you do bet them aggressively and take down the pot. The longer you survive the more top hands you'll get.

It's your number one job to make your freeroll worth your while playing so STAY ALIVE! 

Freeroll News 6th April 2008: 

As part of 32Red Poker's month of freerolls and special tournaments, there's a $1000 freeroll which you can register for right now. It's on the 32RedPoker poker client under the Scheduled Tournaments tab.

The game takes place in 9 days on the 15th of April at 21:00 and there are NO entry requirements.

As well as these specials, 32 Red Poker have some great regular freerolls going on too throughout the year. The best of these is a $500 freeroll tournament on a Friday, as well as their massive $5,000 Monthly Freeroll.

At the moment for a limited time, there's a $500 Welcome Bonus for players depositing real money. Making your first cash deposit also gets you entry to the exclusive 32Red New Player Freeroll, which has a bumper prize pool of $2,000. 

Click here to go straight to 32RedPoker

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PokerNordica has some huge freerolls you might be interested in.

Each Sunday except the last Sunday of the month, there's a $10,000 freeroll open to all players who have earned 2500 comp points in the previous week. 

On the last Sunday, the stakes are raised and the prize pool goes up to a fantastic $50,000. You need to have reached 5000 comp points to qualify for this one.

I know this kind of freeroll isn't everyone's cup of tea due to the entry requirements, but it is a lot of money to pay out so there needs to be some sort of balance and therefore it is only available to real money players. In other words, they need to get their money back somehow!

One unusual feature of the Poker Nordica client is that they have incorporated a Deal It Twice feature. This has become popular on some TV poker shows and features in the high stakes games. It gives two players who are all-in - and who both agree to use it - the chance to deal the turn and river cards twice.

If you haven't seen Deal-It -Twice in action why not take a look a PokerNordica  and find out what it's al about.

Click here for the freeroll and Deal-It -Twice action at Poker Nordica