Every day of the week, if you have Sky Poker Points available then you have access to a number of different freeroll events.
While the prizes for these events may not be megabucks, they are a way you can play for cash on the Sky Poker site without having to wager any of your stack.
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What freerolls are available each day and week on Sky Poker?
£20 Guaranteed Turbo Freerolls
Each day the site hosts a number (usually around three or four events spread across the day) or £20 Guaranteed Turbo Freeroll tournaments. These cost 10 Sky Poker Points to enter and there are usually three events each day at 10am GMT, 12pm GMT and 2pm GMT.
Occasionally, there is also one of these tournaments scheduled for around 2am GMT to cater for shift workers or those poker players who like to grind late into the evening.
In these events, each player starts with 2000 chips with unlimited rebuys available, for 50p, for the first 30 minutes, then you can purchase one 5000 chip add-on during the 3 minute break for 50p.
The £20 is divided up into cash prize awards depending on the number of players in the event. The higher the number of players the more cash prizes there will be, the lower the number, the fewer the cash prizes will be available.
The blinds increase quickly as this is a turbo event, meaning they go up every three minutes and this does have an impact on how passive you can be in these events.
Each tournament has a maximum of 2,000 players entered but usually there are around 150 to 250 players competing for the cash prizes in each tournament.
£600 Bounty Hunter Seat Freeroll
Each day at 4pm, Sky Poker also offer the chance for players to use some of their Sky Poker Points to try and gain themselves free entry to that evenings £600 Bounty Hunter event, which takes place at 7.45pm in the evening.
The usual buy in for this nightly event is £11, and the top five finishes in the freeroll event will earn themselves a free place at the table in that evenings event, cards in the air at 7.45pm.
Because the total prize award for this freeroll event is £55 (5 x £11 seats), the entry fee for this freeroll is 75 Sky Poker points.
There are unlimited rebuys available for the first hour of play and during the first 3 minute break, players can opt to purchase an additional 8,000 chips for 50p to bolster their reserves.
This isn’t a turbo event, so the blinds increase every five minutes and there is no cash award for the winners – the top five players all win the same prize of a free entry into that evenings 7.45pm £600 Bounty Hunter event.
Social media & sporting event freerolls
In an effort to encourage more Sky Poker customers to follow the site on Facebook and Twitter, users who do will find that on occasion throughout the week, or when a major sporting event is taking place, that they may be notified via the followed pages on social media of a new freeroll event.
These events often are not displayed on Sky Poker until they have been announced on social media first and to enter, you need to know a special password, which if you follow the site, will be included as part of the promotional message they send to you.
During February, for example, Sky Bet offered a Weekly Freeroll for Social Media followers on Twitter on Facebook.
Simply follow the site on these media and you could have gained free entry into any one of five Sky Bet Championship Freeroll events, held at 1pm each Saturday, where the top six finishers in the competition will each win a pair of tickets to any Sky Bet Championship match.
Often, these events are linked with other events that Sky are promoting, such as horse racing festivals, big soccer events or similar. Occasionally though, the site may just offer a freeroll event for followers via social media.
Entry is usually via password only, but on occasion competitors may be asked to spend some of their Sky Poker Points in order to enter.
As such, it is worth following Sky Poker on Twitter and/or Facebook to gain information about these freeroll events when they happen so you can confirm your entry.
Are the Sky Poker freerolls a profitable way to play?
The Sky Poker Freeroll events are a mixed bag and are not particularly easy to win, though not because of outstanding levels of play.
As we’ve mentioned previously, the level of play on Sky Poker isn’t too daunting for the typical player, but freerolls are a law unto themselves at times. Because people in them have not spent any money to join, many do tend to play loosely and aggressively.
This, combined with the fast-increasing blinds, means that if you tend to play a tight, aggressive game, you can find yourself short-stacked very quickly.
As such, I’d advise players in these games to play more aggressively, but be aware that players will call you, even if they hold cards that in almost every other version of the game they would fold.
It can be frustrating to play a hand particularly well and see your pair of kings or aces, lose out against 5-2 pocket cards, due to the fact the board flopped two pair for your opponent or trips.
Yet this is common because more players play a wider range of hands more often. Their mindset is that they have nothing to lose, so if they place a significant amount of chips into the pot, then you can bet that even if you re-raise, instead of instigating a fold, they’ll leave it down to chance to try and win the pot, even if your hand is the firm favourite to win.
Many players like to intimidate opponents early too by going all in during the first few hands in the hope of tempting others to follow them and they can double or treble through quickly. This is a risky strategy, but one which is frequently employed to give players a big stack at the start of the game.
With a poker strategy mindset, the freeroll events are not the easiest games to win cash in because there are usually too many variables even if you have a strong hand, however the deeper you get into a tournament, the more chance you’ll be able to let your poker talent shine through.
So my advice is to battle your way through the early stages and then go back to your tried and trusted game in order to give yourself the best chance of success, but don’t expect to win each time you play.
Looking for more tips for excelling at Sky Poker? Find out how you can improve your game with our guide to Sky Poker School and Sky Poker strategy videos.
