Free Poker Tournaments Pt. 1

The Problem with Free Poker

Part One

I play some of the free poker tournaments around town. I also tend to avoid others. What is my thinking and what are the criteria that frame my decision on where I play? And more importantly why I choose to play where I play? i will discuss these below.

My opinion is that there is no such thing as free poker so it is somewhat of a misnomer.  Why do I think this? There are a few reasons but in the simplest and most rudimentary sense there is the opportunity cost of such activities.   That is to say the time (sometimes 2-4 hours) spent is time unavailable to spend on other things. There is also the factor of expected outlay of money, usually called “venue support.”  And if you “support” the venue you can get extra chips for the tournament. If the venue support is not there then no extra chips.  So now we see that free poker is not necessarily on an even playing field.

There are three parts to this post.  The remainder of this part will provide some background history of several #FreePoker outfits and ending with the first problem with these particular groups.  Part two will be what I look for and what I tend to avoid when considering a “free poker” tournament to play. And the third part will be a partial list of some leagues with what I see as some of the pros and cons each.

PART ONE

One of the earliest purveyors of free poker was the Amateur Poker League or APL .  There are two groups that were started by former “hosts" of APL: Snowman Poker League and Big Slick Entertainment (AKA free poker in Houston). A third group is Big Stack Poker.  Big Stack is the newest member of this fraternity.  This league was founded by two former hosts of Snowman Poker League.

Big Stack has the advantage of being the new kid on the block.  They are (so far) more flexible and open to suggestion.  They also seem hungrier.  But none are without issues.  One of the biggest issues with these three is what I refer to as the #legacyeffect or the effect of blind traditions.  These go hand in hand with the view that “we never did it that way before.” This is sometimes referred to as the last 7 words of a dying organization. Don’t take my word for it, Google it. I didn’t make this up.

Let me illustrate.  I heard of a man walking through his kitchen one day as the preparations for a big Sunday family dinner was being carried out.  Just as he was passing through he noticed that his wife had cut the ends off of the ham and thrown the ends away before putting it in the oven.  He was shocked that this seemingly perfect food was just being wasted.  So he asked his wife why she had done this. Her explanation was that that was always the way her mother had done it. So he went into the other room where is mother-in-law was setting the table.  He asked if it was true that she would cut off and discard the ends of hams before cooking. She confirmed this and he asked her why. To which she replied that her mother had always done it that way.

So he goes into the living room where this sweet elderly woman was sitting.  He asked her about the ham and she said that, yes, she had thrown away the ends.  When he asked why she told him that Her oven was too small for the ham. Since there were no refrigerators for keeping uncooked items available in those days she had no choice but to discard the uncooked portion.

There are several things that these organizations do simply because that is what they witnessed in the leagues they descended from: APL . In the case of Big Stack they were descended from Snowman which descended from APL. No rhyme or reason for much of what they do other than tradition or legacy.

In PART TWO I cover some of the criteria that I look for in not only free poker tournaments but all tournaments including freerolls.