Learn Texas Holdem

There's a new type of Texas Hold'em freeroll that's making the rounds online. It is popular because the action is fast and furious, and online poker players love a fast game. It's called the turbo freeroll, and it's sort of like a poker tournament on speed. Turbo freerolls are good for players who don't have eight hours to devote to trying to win a multi-table tournament, and for players who love the excitement of all-in action and building massive chip stacks.

In turbo Texas Hold'em freerolls, blinds go up every five minutes, and you have only fifteen seconds to act on your hand. This has a couple of implications. For one, luck is going to play a bigger factor, since the blinds are going to outstrip the average stack very quickly, necessitating many all-in moves much earlier than players normally would like. For another, you must play faster for the same reason.

When you are playing a turbo freeroll, typical notions about playing tight early that you may have learned from playing traditional tournaments go out the window. There's no time to slowly, methodically, build up a stack. In fact, it's probably not wrong to push all-in pre-flop as soon as you have a hand worth playing. You should expect to get called though, so make sure it's a hand that can win a heads-up confrontation.

If you can build a stack big enough to give yourself a few rounds of blinds worth of action, or if you have a much bigger stack than anyone else does at the table, you can afford to slow down a little bit, but not too much. Anytime you see a hand to the river you should probably be prepared to play for all your chips, or at least for all of your opponent's chips.

You should prepare yourself for a very annoying stalling tactic in these tournaments. Often in tournaments, as the money bubble approaches players, they will intentionally stall, trying to wait until others bust out before their blinds come. In a turbo Texas Hold'em freeroll, a player can only stall for fifteen seconds, but if a few players do this, it can be a big problem. In a normal tournament, this is merely irritating, but in a turbo tournament, even a minute wasted can make your stack insignificant due to a new blinds level.

Turbo freerolls are a good way to get some quick action, make a little money if you get very lucky and get in the practice of playing tournaments and making quick decisions. When you're ready for some more serious, skilful poker, however, you should probably make some time for a regular speed tournament. You may find when you do, that your practice in turbo events has made you a much sharper tournament player than you ever thought you'd be.