Dissatisfied with GG weekly freerolls

[Sunz of Beaches]

It seems to me that when you go to GGPoker Spin-and-gold with the Freebie ticket, it gives you the lowest multiplier.

If you go with cash, it's fair spin.

Am I wrong? Just observing as a beginner GGPoker user.

Yes, wrong. Personal experience of low sample that lead to bias and wrong conclusions.

 

[GarotoMaroto]

....1 account per person is how all poker sites and affiliates work everywhere....

Great quote, but I was not trying to have a second account, just to use the first...

 

[GarotoMaroto]

If you wanted to play an affiliate freeroll, you would've needed to sign up through that affiliate's link to qualify for it. Pretty simple.

Sure, how about putting a password in the freeroll and let everyone who has it play?
Sounds a lot more simple.

 

[hjuosh]

Obviously it didn't work... you never deposited and instead have gone elsewhere and not depositing there either.

Did you stop to consider that perhaps Pokerstars marketing team decided after doing a lot of research, that it was no longer in THEIR best interest to give out freeroll cash to players who have no intention of depositing on the site.

I understand your point, and I agree that poker sites need players who deposit — that’s how the business works. But I’m convinced that if I want to take poker seriously, I’ll eventually need to make a deposit as an investment in a possible poker career.

However, the process I’ve set for myself doesn’t allow me to deposit unless I’ve reached a certain stage — either by finishing my study plan or proving that I’m a winning player. If I can’t build and maintain a decent bankroll starting from freerolls, then honestly… who would stake me? No one! And I wouldn’t stake myself either 😂

Right now, I’m making progress, but I’m only investing time — not money — until I’m convinced I can win consistently. Once I reach that point, I won’t just deposit; I’ll actively look for staking opportunities and show potential backers my game where is worth investing in.

And just for a moment — do you really think pokerstars looked at my specific account and decided that my practice wasn’t working for them, so they changed their strategy?

 

[hjuosh]

Just my 2 cc here. Even if a player does not deposit a penny, but keeps playing freerols, winning sometimes and playing for money won, as hjuosh did, this is profit for poker room - they earn rake from every game.

Exactly. Thanks for the reply Mario. Is so obvious that I forgot to mention. But. That's all. The rake is the total of the profit what they want for all of us. Depositors or not.

 

[hjuosh]

You're not describing me (& many others, although you wouldn't know it while visiting what this forum has turned into).
The very first day I played online poker I deposited on two sites, Pokerstars & Fulltilt, $150 & $175. I intuitively followed good bankroll management, rarely playing above $2 buyin for MTT &/or SnG's (until I could afford $5 & $10, etc.). I also played in some freerolls but back then the freerolls & promotional freerolls were very juicy (was normal to have multiple thousands in promotional freerolls, depositor freerolls, new depositor, etc. etc.). And there were dozens of great sites to play on... and so I deposited on many of them as well. These games weren't my main goals even then. I was more geared towards Private tournaments, leaderboard contests and trying to play above the micros where the games are better & more exciting albeit a bit tougher competition.

Life circumstances got in the way of myself pursuing things further and I actually had to steer almost completely away from playing Tournaments. Had things been different, I would've hoped I'd have been playing $33 to $109's+ today, instead of 25nl cash (& 10nl late at night if there's not enough traffic) with hopes of playing in MTT's above $11 to $33.

I would be playing on Pokerstars right now (22:30 where I live), if they weren't down for a 5 hour update. I can go on the site pretty much any hour of the day and play for as little or as long as I want and 4 out of 5 times I have a winning session (I can go on there and win a few dollars whenever I want). So for me, Pokerstars hasn't failed me at all. (although I do wish they hadn't made the huge blunders they did in the past when they got rid of the Supernova Rewards program as I believe that & some other similar decisions caused their site to go downhill (not the loss of freerolls).

I think many of you CC members who seem to be hooked on solely playing the freerolls, could take some more time to study and try to improve so that you could play the micros (& beyond) and enjoy playing poker anytime you want to, and even make some money while doing so (maybe even a lot of money... some dedicated folks are doing just that)

This is because, from the beginning, you’ve seen yourself as a good player — confident in your ability to win and make money. But for me, it’s very different. I’m not confident in my game yet, and I don’t have any consistency. I’ve just had some lucky moments here and there and won a bit of cash. That’s part of my process.

I remember hearing Phil Ivey say something like, “If you want to treat poker as a business, you’ll need to invest money.” That message stuck with me.

So I believe that if you want to start a business — any business — you need to be prepared. Otherwise, you’ll just go broke.

 

[Brigistul]

I logged into PokerStars two hours ago and checked how many players were online — around 20,200! Then I set the Buy-in filter to include everything and browsed the tournaments from top to bottom. Very few players, and lots of tournaments with no one registered! It's a shame about this site — I played here for many years...

 

[MK_]

Great quote, but I was not trying to have a second account, just to use the first...

..."the first" account.. that you deleted because you wanted to make a new

account to sign up to a different affiliate.... that would be more than 1 account,

that's not how it works with affiiiates...

 

[SpanRmonka]

-- for the freerolls i complained about , i had to play real money games to get these tickets .
-- I am over 50
-- I feel i have the right to be critical when they nerf this series of weekly freerolls during the event after one week without any info beforehand .

They didn't 100% guarantee the Weekly freeroll would be the same every week though did they? They may change it loads more times over the time that have this promotion.

You assumed, as probably most of us did, that it would stay the same. Maybe a future change may be better than the first ,who knows?

I think you do have a right to be critical, we mostly, have free speech. Unfortunately using the word scam in incorrect, as words have a meaning.

If you said I 'feel' scammed as I spent ages plaing 1000 hands, then OK fair enough, but still at no point, I don't think did GG say it will be 100k T$ every single week!!

 

[Poker Orifice]

Sure, how about putting a password in the freeroll and let everyone who has it play?
Sounds a lot more simple.

huh? Speaking of simple...

Why not just have the poker site transfer $50 to each of our bank accounts, and nobody even play the freeroll?

 

[Poker Orifice]

Well done, Mario7! You’re one of the players who truly understands what’s going on behind what we see! It’s an illusion that draws in many players...

This has got to be a troll.

If not... WHOA!

 

[Poker Orifice]

And just for a moment — do you really think PokerStars looked at my specific account and decided that my practice wasn’t working for them, so they changed their strategy?

Is this ^ how you interpreted my comment?

Do you think a company worth $5 BILLION just randomly decides what to do on the site?

 

[Poker Orifice]

This is because, from the beginning, you’ve seen yourself as a good player — confident in your ability to win and make money. But for me, it’s very different. I’m not confident in my game yet, and I don’t have any consistency. I’ve just had some lucky moments here and there and won a bit of cash. That’s part of my process.

I remember hearing Phil Ivey say something like, “If you want to treat poker as a business, you’ll need to invest money.” That message stuck with me.

So I believe that if you want to start a business — any business — you need to be prepared. Otherwise, you’ll just go broke.

You won't learn how to beat $10 mtt's by playing freerolls. Sometimes it costs money to get better at the game.
You can learn a bit playing in freerolls (a bit more in some vs. others)... although these days I don't think there are many (any?) where the general skill level could be considered 'good'.

In the beginning I didn't see myself as a 'good player'. I was new! But within a week of signing up I was finding forums (including this one) and asking members for resources that could help me get better at the game (back then it was books and training sites). So I did both. I read over 50 books my first year playing poker.
In short time I probably did think I was better than I actually was (< this is common for newer &/or novice players). I actually placed 2nd out of close to 1,000 entrants in the very first MTT I played online and yes this gave me a false sense of being better than I actually was. So I lost for the next 2 mos., at around roi -10% for Sng's and for MTT's I just didn't get a good cash again for awhile. But then I focused on SnG's for awhile, reading some good SNG Guides at the time and two books that were about sng's (one was written by the guy who did the CC 30-day course). And then sure enough, I was a winning player at micro stakes SNG's ($5 games). And then I branched out to multi-table sng's and small field Private league games (there were TONS of private leagues then... sometimes on a weekend I could find 25 MTT's to play that had leaderboards, Ca$h-Added prizepools & loads of prizes, across a couple dozen different sites. There were a couple hundred players playing in those tourneys so you'd get very familiar with each player and how they played... so I worked on making adjustments to each type of player and worked at exploiting them to the best of my ability).

So.... I didn't start out seeing myself as a good player BUT I was determined to be a good player (or good enough to win the games I was playing at the time).
Pretty much the only thing I wish I had done differently is >>> I wish I had taken more risk by attempting to move up in buy-ins sooner than I had.
Today my goals are much different with poker... but maybe they'll change again in the near future

 

[hjuosh]

You won't learn how to beat $10 mtt's by playing freerolls. Sometimes it costs money to get better at the game.
You can learn a bit playing in freerolls (a bit more in some vs. others)... although these days I don't think there are many (any?) where the general skill level could be considered 'good'.

In the beginning I didn't see myself as a 'good player'. I was new! But within a week of signing up I was finding forums (including this one) and asking members for resources that could help me get better at the game (back then it was books and training sites). So I did both. I read over 50 books my first year playing poker.
In short time I probably did think I was better than I actually was (< this is common for newer &/or novice players). I actually placed 2nd out of close to 1,000 entrants in the very first MTT I played online and yes this gave me a false sense of being better than I actually was. So I lost for the next 2 mos., at around roi -10% for Sng's and for MTT's I just didn't get a good cash again for awhile. But then I focused on SnG's for awhile, reading some good SNG Guides at the time and two books that were about sng's (one was written by the guy who did the CC 30-day course). And then sure enough, I was a winning player at micro stakes SNG's ($5 games). And then I branched out to multi-table sng's and small field Private league games (there were TONS of private leagues then... sometimes on a weekend I could find 25 MTT's to play that had leaderboards, Ca$h-Added prizepools & loads of prizes, across a couple dozen different sites. There were a couple hundred players playing in those tourneys so you'd get very familiar with each player and how they played... so I worked on making adjustments to each type of player and worked at exploiting them to the best of my ability).

So.... I didn't start out seeing myself as a good player BUT I was determined to be a good player (or good enough to win the games I was playing at the time).
Pretty much the only thing I wish I had done differently is >>> I wish I had taken more risk by attempting to move up in buy-ins sooner than I had.
Today my goals are much different with poker... but maybe they'll change again in the near future

I think your process sounds very interesting.

I’m not playing only freerolls — but I’m still not investing my own money to play.
In two years I won maybe on all platforms combined about 2k what I invest in back on same platforms. Playing and trying all kind of levels and buyins.
I’ve been trying out the $50 NLH cash games and a couple of $50 buy-in tournaments, just experimenting and exploring those fields.

I’ll make a deposit when I feel confident in my game — and maybe at that point, I won’t need to go back to freerolls anymore.

 

[Poker Orifice]

and maybe at that point, I won’t need to go back to freerolls anymore.

I still play a few. If I'm not playing a session of poker. If I'm doing other things on computer at same time. If I'm super tired but still feel like playing poker. These are times I'll fire up a CC partypoker freeroll.

 

[fundiver199]

I’m not playing only freerolls — but I’m still not investing my own money to play.
In two years I won maybe on all platforms combined about 2k what I invest in back on same platforms. Playing and trying all kind of levels and buyins.
I’ve been trying out the $50 NLH cash games and a couple of $50 buy-in tournaments, just experimenting and exploring those fields.

I’ll make a deposit when I feel confident in my game — and maybe at that point, I won’t need to go back to freerolls anymore.

When I started playing online poker I also had this idea, that it would be "irresponsible to gamble with real money", since I had family obligations. So I spend at least a year on a play money site, where I became one of the players with most fake chips. I also read free strategy articles and watched free training videos.

When I finally came to my senses, I deposited $100 on PokerStars and right out of the gate I was beating 2NL and 5NL cash games. I think, the most, I was ever down, was like $10 or so. So if you have been playing for 2 years already, I will highly encourage you to do something similar and get out of this "freeroll trap", where you win some money here, but lose them there, and play a little bit of everything.

If you can afford to spend money on an evening out with your friends or your girlfriend, then for sure you can also afford to invest $100 or even $50 in your hobby. If you dont want to go the cash game route, as I originally did, then PokerStars still have SnGs, that run 24 hours. As I wrote elsewhere, they recently simplified their multi table SnG offerings, so its now 8-32 mans all the way from $0.5 to $25.

$50 is more than enough to start grinding the $0.5 game, and if you want to skip that one, then $100 is enough to start griding the $1 game. And then as your bankroll grow, you can start to gradually add more MTTs for variation especially during weekends. As Poker Orifice say, you are not going to get good enough to beat $11 MTTs by playing freerolls. So if you want to make some money in online poker, you have to make a deposit and get into a grind.

 

[Sintubai]

I think that since it's a promotion with no extra cost to participate, in my case I play all 100 hands of cash games to get the ticket. Regarding the ticket prizes, I would also prefer cash prizes, but if something is being "offered" we should just be grateful for having another tournament to play, because it's also better to have these kinds of promotional tournaments than to have nothing interesting for free, as has been the case for some time on the GG platform. Since I play micro-stakes, winning any of the 100k free prizes is still worth it for me! lol GL!!

 

[Mario7]

Making it harder to qualify , its not nice , but understandable in a way .

But then change the prize pool and limit prizes the way they have , too me it feels like a scam .

This series of weekly freerolls i absolutely 1000% had to qualify for every week !! And now i just care a whole lot less .

Change from 4500 to 3000 payed prizes , and especially changing good cash money prizes in mostly lousy tickets for wsop express .
To get something really good now , you have to finish top 300 is top 1% of the field .
And then there are still ticket prizes i would like to avoid and get cash money.
While cashing 15 cash money for 4500 place was already nice in the first weekly freeroll .

If a series of weekly freeroll tournaments is anounced , you would expect all to be the same as week one right , or otherwise they might have given some info the first one is gonna be a lot better then the next ones .

I stop here as next would only be insults towards GG Poker .

And now back to the main topic
Even now, with 2000 tickets it is usually enough to enter the qualifier in the end of late reg and not to play a single hand to get into the 2000 and get a ticket. With 2500 the best tactic was not to play at all no matter when started. It is really not surprising they nerfed it.