Getting Started Online - For Free

If you think you need to deposit money onto an online poker site to start your career as a poker professional then you’ve obviously never heard of Annette_15. Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, a Norwegian girl who was 18 years old when she started playing online poker, has a six-figure bankroll (in real money, not play money) and has never deposited a dime on any poker site – ever. Well, unless you count depositing on a new site with her winnings from a different site.

By the way, at the time this was written, Obrestad was still 18 (only old enough to play poker in some countries), meaning she built her poker empire up from literally nothing in less than a year.  How’d she manage to do it?  One word: “freerolls.”

For some, the decision to not get started playing online poker is a simple matter of money; they don’t have it or, in the very least, they can’t afford to lose it. For others, it’s a matter of preference; they know they’d have the most fun if there was both nothing at stake and yet still a prize to be won. For either camp, plus many others, freeroll tournaments are the way to go.

What is a Freeroll?

A freeroll is a tournament that either has no buy-in or a buy-in of a non-monetary value (player points, for instance). The tournament also offers prize, but often a small one. Typical prizes are things like a $100 prize pool, provided by the poker site, or entry into a real-money tournament. And players will have to be able to best thousands of other players (albeit typically poor ones) to get a piece of the prize.

Can a Player Really Get Started With Freerolls?

Make no illusions about the rise from freerolls to high-stakes poker, it can be slow going and it will likely take a lot of commitment. The key here is bankroll management. If you win a small cash prize, don’t go and waste it in too-high stakes or one sit-and-go. Progress up the stakes slowly, naturally, and intelligently, just like you would if the money in your bankroll were much greater and more significant to you. While Obrestad's rise was atypically quick, the path she took to get to the top was sensible.

How to Take Advantage of Freerolls

Almost every major site offers freerolls of one kind or another. Here is a quick guide to the five biggest sites and how to get started on them.


Bodog

To find the freeroll tournaments on Bodog, follow the steps below:

1. Download the Bodog software and sign up for an account by clicking here.
2. Install the software.
3. Open the software and sign in.
4. Click on the “Multi-Table Tournaments” tab, click on the “Daily” tab, and then click on the “Freeroll and PTS” radio button. Click on “Buy in” to sort the freerolls into those that are completely free and those that require poker points.
5. There are three different kinds of freerolls here: those you earn entry into through real-money play (by earning poker points), those you are invited into through membership in or association with an organization, and those that are straight up free, with no restrictions. The latter are the ones you can play in immediately and at Bodog they offer fairly substantial cash prize pools.
6. If you wish to play in the invitational freerolls, you simply need to look at which sites/organizations are offering them and then and then research what it takes to sign up with these organizations to play in their freeroll. These sites are usually free to join and simply use the freeroll as an incentive for signups, so there is typically no risk to signing up for the sole purpose of playing in their sponsored freeroll.
   

Absolute Poker

To find the freeroll tournaments on Absolute Poker, follow the steps below:

1. Download the Absolute Poker software and sign up for an account by clicking here.
2. Install the software.
3. Open the software and sign in.
4. Click on the “Tourneys” tab and then click on the “Freeroll” tab.
5. There are a few different kinds of freerolls here: those you are invited into through membership in or association with an organization, and those that are straight up free, with no restrictions. The latter are the ones you can play in immediately. Some offer both cash prizes and entry into larger freerolls (top-50 finishers get a piece of a $50 prize pool and top 5 are entered into a $1,000 freeroll on Sundays) and others offer entry into the prize-package tournaments (for instance, the Absolute Dream qualifier).
6. If you wish to play in the invitational freerolls, you simply need to look at which sites/organizations are offering them and then and then research what it takes to sign up with these organizations to play in their freeroll. These sites are usually free to join and simply use the freeroll as an incentive for signups, so there is typically no risk to signing up for the sole purpose of playing in their sponsored freeroll.
   

Full Tilt Poker

To find the freeroll tournaments on Full Tilt, follow the steps below:

1. Download the Full Tilt software and sign up for an account by clicking here.
2. Install the software.
3. Open the software and sign in.
4. Click on the “Tournaments” tab and then click on the “All” tab.
5. Click “Buyin” to sort the tournaments by buy-in and then scroll down to the freeroll tournaments, which should now be grouped together.
6. There are three different kinds of freerolls here: those you earn entry into through real-money play, those you are invited into through membership in or association with an organization, and those that are straight up free, with no restrictions. The latter are the ones you can play in immediately.
7. If you wish to play in the invitational freerolls, you simply need to look at which sites/organizations are offering them and then and then research what it takes to sign up with these organizations to play in their freeroll. These sites are usually free to join and simply use the freeroll as an incentive for signups, so there is typically no risk to signing up for the sole purpose of playing in their sponsored freeroll.
   

PokerStars

To find the freeroll tournaments on PokerStars, follow the steps below:

1. Download the PokerStars software and sign up for an account by clicking here.
2. Install the software.
3. Open the software and sign in.
4. Click on the “Tourney” tab and then click on the “Freeroll” tab.
5. There are three different kinds of freerolls here: those you earn entry into through real-money play (by earning players’ points), those you are invited into through membership in or association with an organization, and those that are straight up free, with no restrictions. The latter are the ones you can play in immediately, but they do not offer a cash prize. They offer a tournament entry ticket into a $1,000 freeroll tournament for the top-24 players.
6. If you wish to play in the invitational freerolls, you simply need to look at which sites/organizations are offering them and then and then research what it takes to sign up with these organizations to play in their freeroll. These sites are usually free to join and simply use the freeroll as an incentive for signups, so there is typically no risk to signing up for the sole purpose of playing in their sponsored freeroll.
   

UltimateBet

To find the freeroll tournaments on UltimateBet, follow the steps below:

1. Download the UltimateBet software and sign up for an account by clicking here.
2. Install the software.
3. Open the software and sign in.
4. Click on the “Scheduled Tournaments” tab and then click on the “Freerolls” tab.
5. There are a few different kinds of freerolls here: those you are invited into through membership in or association with an organization and those that are straight up free, with no restrictions. The latter are the ones you can play in immediately, but they do not offer a cash prize. They offer tournament entry chips (TECs), tournament entry tickets for promotional tournaments (like the Be a Pro Freeroll), UltimateBet Points, and bonus dollars (which can be converted into cash through real-money play).
6. If you wish to play in the invitational freerolls, you simply need to look at which sites/organizations are offering them and then and then research what it takes to sign up with these organizations to play in their freeroll. These sites are usually free to join and simply use the freeroll as an incentive for signups, so there is typically no risk to signing up for the sole purpose of playing in their sponsored freeroll.