Poker Freeroll

Freeroll is a wonderful poker term that actually has two different meanings. Primarily, it designates a tournament in which you can win money without depositing. The stakes are generally low and the amount of money that you can win is correspondingly low. Poker sites discovered that new players needed time to get comfortable with playing poker online. They also realized that players stayed on site if they were enrolled in a competition. So some poker rooms began promoting free entry into special tournaments. It may only be an urban legend, but an online poker player is said to have begun playing in a freeroll tournament, won a few dollars, and parlayed those dollars into a substantial bankroll.

Freeroll tournaments probably started as a promotion by a single casino and caught on quickly. Now there are dozens of freeroll tournaments every day across the web. As stated above, the amounts that can be won are generally small but they offer new players a great chance to improve their skill against real opponents.

Even experienced players enroll in freerolls. Because of the proliferation of poker variations, experienced players may enroll in a freeroll of a newfangled variety of poker, just to get a feel for the game.

Freeroll has also come to mean a chance to improve your hand at no cost. This occurs when two players have the same hand. If neither improves his hand they will split the pot. But if one player can improve his hand s/he is said to be on a freeroll. The opponent who cannot improve is on a "negative freeroll".

This understanding of the term freeroll points to one of the most important aspects of poker: being able to read your opponents. The very best players can guess very accurately much of the time what their opponents are holding. If a seasoned player senses that s/he is on a freeroll, s/he will bet the limit. S/he can't lose, so betting the limit is the obvious play.