Rocking hammers to beat down cancer …

Having played more than my fair share of freeroll satellites lately (hey, they’re cheap - when a donkey makes a horrific call to crack my hand, I can’t complain much), I’ve made a few observations about them that may help you survive them.

1. Don’t play the early stages. The first few rounds bring nothing but misery. If you do play, understand that it will suck out if it can and your monster starting hand will likely get cracked. I’ll spare the gory details of bad beat stories, but I’ve had aces cracked by 7-6 off-suit hitting a full house and a big pre-flop bet called by 7-4 off-suit. I just pushed with A-J suited before the flop and was called by 8-2 off-suit which won when a deuce hit the river. That’s the level of donkery we’re talking about.

2. If you must play the early stages, understand that there really is no playing involved. Follow a straight push and pray mantra. If it’s good enough to play in those early to middle stages, it’s good enough to push with since you’ll be getting callers with any paint or ace-rag combination and possibly less. You might consider shading starting hand requirements down to the low end of what you’re comfortable with - suited J-9, J-Q, J-10 off-suit, 9-10 suited, etc. Your opponents will be playing any ace, any king and so forth. They will also be playing hands that are worse, believing that any two cards can win. As long as you’re comfortable with three and four-way action, feel free to roll the dice and hope your cards are live. If you happen to have ace-rag or king-rag, you’re likely to be dominated by someone.

3. Don’t think about your hand. Your decision is push or fold, at least until the field is drastically reduced. Don’t calculate pot odds, don’t calculate implied odds. If you call, someone will go all-in. If you bet, someone will go all-in. The action happens before the flop in all but the most extreme cases, removing all decisions and opportunity for mistakes. Your only thought should be about whether you think your cards are as good or better than what everyone else is holding.

4. Although this may sound contradictory and crazy, TRY to play dominated hands. In general, it means you’ll have at least one live card. It’s almost better if you play the off-suit gapped rags you wouldn’t touch at any other time because it will generally give you two live cards to everyone else’s paint-rag.

Freerolls can be fun as long as you don’t take them too seriously. My best freeroll performances have come when I’m multi-tabling and focusing on another game and only check the freeroll when I have to raise, call or fold. In my best performance, I had become the chip leader simply by pushing and folding and minimizing the window again. I honestly wasn’t paying attention. That says something about the quality of play, but there is also opportunity in freerolls - as long as you don’t mind bad beats. After all, you’re only getting what you pay for.