Tournament Strategy - Freeroll Strategy

The order of the day in the early stages of a freeroll strategy is to play tight. Most people are playing ultra loose - since they've got no money invested and they want to double up quickly. Basically a lot of these players are going to knock themselves out, you don't want to be among them. Only enter the pot with premium hands for large raises. This is advocating a fairly safe, semi-conservative strategy, but it does reduce your chances of an early exit by getting the money in with the best hand. Since the general standard of play at the beginning is a bit fishy, you may get sucked out on - that's just poker.

Keep your hands strong with playing A-K, A-Q, K-Q, and any pocket pair. With hands like these, you can hit either of your cards and you can feel very confident with the kicker. The blinds are very low at this point compared to the size of your stack, so you may feel you can play almost any hand and still have a lot of chips. This is a big mistake a lot of people make. Most times it'll cost you more than you think due to pairing up and being beaten by a higher kicker or someone hitting an overcard. You've got to keep in mind that it's the beginning and anyone can have anything. Not only that, they'll play at anything because a lot of players are inexperienced.

Maintain your patience and do not call all-ins without the nuts or a great hand (two pair or better) unless you know for sure you've got your opponent beat. The only times I call an all-in early on is when I've seen a player going all-in quite frequently with only top pair.

Don't get too tricky with your plays early on, remember no-one's invested any money or that much time at the moment and the standard of play is pretty poor. Therefore you'll get called more often that not when trying to bluff. Let your cards guide your play in the early stages of the tournament.