"It's easier now than ever to build a bankroll in freerolls" - chaparrito77

We chat to our coach who completed his recent Bankroll Challenge starting with no deposit at the freerolls.

Congrats on completing your Bankroll Challenge. What made you want to start at freerolls?

chaparrito77: I just wanted to prove to myself that it is still doable. I started off on a poker break and didn't want to stop playing, so I initiated the challenge to have some goals and to not only play for fun but also to make it enjoyable.

Did you start at freerolls when you first got started in poker?

chaparrito77: Yes, I started playing with play money many years ago and made a $50 deposit but lost it right away (I was a huge whale at the time). I promised myself never to deposit any more money until I learned how to play or developed a strategy to win at poker. That's when I found Poker Strategy and began to study, eventually doing well in play money games at PokerStars and in some freerolls. That's how I built my bankroll. This challenge is meaningful because it takes me back to my origins as a poker player.

"It's easier now than before to build a bankroll"

The thing that puts people off freerolls is how long it takes to win a small amount. How long did it take you to build a roll you could use?

chaparrito77: Since I found many freerolls on various sites, it's easier now than before to build a bankroll you can use, and this has been my journey. It took 16 days to get to $16, and 25 days to reach $30, which was the first goal and the point of no return. This is because if you are a winning player in Single Table Tournaments, the risk of ruin is about 10% with a 5% Return on Investment in a small sample size, so I just needed a little variance on my side. After that, it was all uphill.

What strategic adjustments did you make in freerolls?

chaparrito77: Since there are a lot of players who are just playing recklessly, I had to play more conservatively at the beginning of the multi-table tournaments and progressively loosen up as they progressed. Then, I would exploit the bubbles (in the money and final table bubbles) and play standard ICM to gain as much expected value as I could during deep runs.

How do you adapt when half the table is sat out, because they registered but never showed up?

chaparrito77: This is a very good question and the hardest to adjust to. You just have to pay attention to the players who are actually sitting down since you could find either very aggressive, reckless players or very tight players, or something in between. With patience, you can win a lot of chips at this stage because players don't know positional poker or are too aggressive, risking all their chips in one hand or registering for another freeroll. It depends on the freeroll and the prize pool. Sometimes players want to gamble right at the start of the tournament, while other times they want to just make it in the money, even if the first payouts are only $0.05. You just have to observe and adapt to each freeroll.

"You develop patience playing freerolls"

What sites were good for freerolls?

chaparrito77: The best sites I found were 888, Winamax, and ACR poker. Those were the sites where I could build a bankroll above $30 while I played the bankroll challenge. The freeroll offers were better there than on other sites, although I didn't try too many.

On a normal day, how many freerolls could you play in a session? Are there enough of them at all the sites?

chaparrito77: I think I was able to play at least eight very good freerolls where I could earn some money, and maybe another 12 or 15 more for satellites that were rebuy freerolls and very top-heavy, where I could never reach the payouts. If I were to try this challenge again, I would focus on the freerolls where I could earn some money and where the payout structures are not that top-heavy. This would save me energy and allow me to focus better on some multi-table tournaments.

What would you advise people who think freerolls are a waste of time?

chaparrito77: Generally speaking, people think freerolls are a waste of time because when you quantify the hours you invest in them to win at best $10, $20, or $30, it seems not worth the time. However, what you learn while playing these types of games is worth more than the time you invest. The patience you develop, the ability to identify different types of players you encounter, the motivation, the sense of achievement, and the boost in self-confidence and focus, among other benefits, are priceless.

What is the Bankroll Challenge?

In the Bankroll Challenge we encourage our members to get better by blogging about their poker journey and setting some ambitious goals.

Our members found that having a blog kept them accountable to their goals and it's a great way to help them get to know their fellow PokerStrategists. As the saying goes 'what gets measured, gets managed' and simply having a blog keeps you on your A-Game.

To help you on your journey and with a little bit of luck you can win $100 that we will raffle once a month among our active bloggers, regardless of where they play, accompanied by a special badge for their forum avatar for anyone succeeding in their first Bankroll Challenge.

How to join the Bankroll Challenge

The challenge is open to all PokerStrategists and you do not need to be tracked to us to participate. All you need to do is:

• Start a blog in our forum.
• State your starting bankroll, your regular stakes/games and your poker room in the first post.
• Set a long term bankroll goal of at least $500 and/or a minimum of five times your starting bankroll.
• Sign-up to the Bankroll Challenge in our registration thread, with a link to your personal blog, your initial bankroll and your goal.
• Post at least once a week in your blog.

Once a month we will raffle $100 among all eligble PokerStrategists participating in the Bankroll Challenge regardless of where you play.

Double Dip with the Blogger Raffle

After running our community raffle in familiar fashion for years, with one or two special editions sprinkled in, we're now switching things up permanently!

There are brand-new weekly prizes to be won that you can get your hands on and a whole range of new tasks that go along with the new Blogger Raffle.

As the name suggests, there are now way more ways available for active contributors in our forum to win one of the weekly prizes, alongside weekly StrategyPoints milestones and various other tasks. Commenting news, watching videos, or most of the other old website tasks won't result in weekly raffle tickets any longer, though.

We're also mixing things up when it comes to the weekly prizes, making sure all our weekly winners will be able to cash out their prize right away through our Tell-a-Friend account system, whichever way they prefer.

Check out the latest winners right away

There's a total prize pool of $375 up for grabs every single week, with the following tasks available for you to complete every week or once as a one-time boost in order to earn tickets for the new raffle.

After the official first run of the raffle, we've slightly adjusted the amount of tickets collectable through earning StrategyPoints or posting in a member's blog, with the former now bringing less and the latter more tickets than before.

Do you set big goals for yourself like Mantelo does? Let us know in the comments: