2006 World Series of Poker
Step 3, Keep Building
Step 1 | Step 2 | Step 3 | Step 4
August 5, 2005-- by Paul Svelmoe
This is the 3rd of about 7 articles about how you can make it into next year's World Series of Poker main event for little or no investment. In Step 1 and Step 2 we looked at several online poker sites that offer real poker playing value for a cost of $0.00. The freeroll tournaments offered at Dream Poker, Titan Poker, Bet365 Poker, and Absolute Poker are excellent springboards from which you can build up a nice bankroll. This money can then be used for buy-ins at other tournaments. The formula I want you to use is called the 25% rule. Never buy into a tournament that costs you more than 25% of your bankroll that you've built up at any particular poker site. Like I've said before, Step 1 and 2 are the most time-consuming steps out of the whole process of getting to next year's World Series of Poker. Because of that, you shouldn't risk too much of the bankroll it took you a relatively long time to build up. If you haven't built up even a small bankroll yet, you needn't worry. The freerolls draw hundreds and sometimes thousands of players. You may not be ready for step 3 yet and if not, that's fine, take your time, have fun, keep learning, and play tight. If you're busting out often before half the field has busted out, you're playing far too loose or aggressively. Settle down, use patience and common sense, and before you know it, you'll have a surprisingly high up finish against a large field. The payoff may not be all that terrific unless you finish 1st or very close to 1st, but a little bit of money, even just a couple dollars can go a long way as you parlay it into what could be a fortune!
You are ready for Step 3 if you have won money from Dream Poker, Titan Poker, Bet365 Poker, and/or Absolute Poker. A couple dollars at some sites, $5.00 at others is just fine. At Titan Poker, your goal should be to find tournaments that cost a dollar or two with the entry fee no more than 10% of the buy-in. The ones that are $1.00 + .10 and $2.00 + .20 are fine.
You're going to find that the early stages of these real money buy-in events are going to play a little different than the freerolls you've been getting used to. Suddenly, you won't see as many all-ins during the first few hands. You'll actually think that these players are better than the ones you battled with at the freerolls during Steps 1 and 2. For awhile, they'll seem like they're just as patient and tight as you are. But, the wonderful truth is, the players at this level are mostly terrible players!!. At the first sign of trouble, they'll go all-in with their 10, deuce offsuit because they simply can't help themselves. They know better, but they just can't or won't use restraint and common sense. I'm now going to give you some information that I want you to remember forever. Blinds and antes don't go up as fast as they seem like they do! You can last way longer in a no limit Texas Hold'em tournament than you'd ever imagine by simply folding hand after hand after hand until you've got something decent. Then when you finally do get something decent, there's a great chance you're going to win with it and it's also highly likely that you're going to get enough action to make up for the fact that you're kind of low on chips. You can last well into the latter stages of a tournament just by waiting and then striking when you finally catch a good starting hand.
BetFred
The major move you should make now is to join BetFred, another online poker site that shares the same membership of players as Titan Poker. However, you're going to find that BetFred has an additional freeroll tournament schedule over and above what Titan offers. BetFred is a popular online poker site in Europe, which is a bonus if you are from the U.S. or anywhere in the same time zones as the U.S. In fact, if you work during the day and have time for online poker in the evenings, you will really find tournament bargains at BetFred because they don't fill up with the maximum number of players like the prime-time or morning/early afternoon freerolls at Titan Poker. This is because when it is prime time evening hours where you live, it is the wee hours of the morning in Europe. Also, if you're in a U.S. time zone and you can play in the late morning or early afternoon, you'll find bargains during those hours too, because although the tournaments do fill up, the Europeans are experiencing their prime-time hours and that is when BetFred offers the biggest paying freerolls which as I've mentioned are not available on Titan Poker. Once again, do not make a deposit at BetFred yet. The time for that will be during Step 4 or Step 5 when you've built up a big enough bankroll at either Bugsys Club, Titan Poker, or BetFred. Your goal at BetFred is to play in their outstanding freerolls ($1,000 on Sunday and $250 & $500 daily guaranteed prize pools just to give a couple examples), and when you have a little bit of a bankroll from your winnings, to start playing in small buy-in events that don't break the 25% rule.
As soon as your bankroll climbs to over $50.00 at either Dream Poker, Titan Poker, Bet365 Poker, Absolute Poker, or BetFred, it's time to cash out to a Neteller account and move on to Step 4. With Neteller, you can move money from one poker site to another fast, free and very easily. Neteller is an online bank and it is the #1 preferred method of depositing into and cashing out of online poker rooms by both the poker sites and the players. Go to the Neteller website.
There are some very exciting opportunities available to you and all you've got to do is pursue them. There is free money out there for you to help you boost your swelling bankroll and I'm going to show you the very best way to proceed in that pursuit! Are you ready for Step 4? Let me know how you're doing by emailing me at paul@vegastexasholdem.net.