Day 2 of Freeroll Grinding – I Noticed Something Strange...

[ShadeTurn]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently on Day 2 of my journey grinding freeroll tournaments. I'm playing daily under the name ShadeTurn, starting from $0 and trying to build my bankroll by learning every day.

Today I started paying more attention to the remaining players and how many get paid — it helped me better understand bubble pressure and ICM.

But one thing really caught my eye:

There are so many sit-outs!
In some games, especially with large fields (like 1,000+ players), 5–7 players per table are AFK (away from keyboard). Some stay inactive for over an hour — and they still survive into the top 20% and sometimes even cash, just by folding automatically every hand.

🤔 Is this actually a low-risk “strategy” some people use to sneak into the money?

I'm not planning to go that route — I’d rather fight for my stack and improve — but it’s crazy to see so many passive players move up just because others bust first.

Curious how others handle this:

• Do you adjust your style when you’re surrounded by sit-outs?
• Do you tighten up and let them blind out, or push to collect dead chips?

Thanks for reading — onward to Day 3!

—ShadeTurn 🎯

 

[Pete_Stew]

"Do you adjust your style when you’re surrounded by sit-outs?"
Of course! U play much more lose, because it's like playing short handed.

"Do you...push to collect dead chips?'
Most of the time it's a good start to raise small, when u don't realy have a hand and only want to steal from the sitouts.

Imagine u are on the Button and hold 72o. The big blind is not there, but the small blind is. All the other players have folded or sit out. U would min raise preflop here, just to collect the dead money. If the small blind should defend or even rearaise, u can still fold and did not loose much.

 

[sandy358]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently on Day 2 of my journey grinding freeroll tournaments. I'm playing daily under the name ShadeTurn, starting from $0 and trying to build my bankroll by learning every day.

Today I started paying more attention to the remaining players and how many get paid — it helped me better understand bubble pressure and ICM.

But one thing really caught my eye:

There are so many sit-outs!
In some games, especially with large fields (like 1,000+ players), 5–7 players per table are AFK (away from keyboard). Some stay inactive for over an hour — and they still survive into the top 20% and sometimes even cash, just by folding automatically every hand.

🤔 Is this actually a low-risk “strategy” some people use to sneak into the money?

I'm not planning to go that route — I’d rather fight for my stack and improve — but it’s crazy to see so many passive players move up just because others bust first.

Curious how others handle this:

• Do you adjust your style when you’re surrounded by sit-outs?
• Do you tighten up and let them blind out, or push to collect dead chips?

Thanks for reading — onward to Day 3!

—ShadeTurn 🎯

sit-outs who survive are generally just lucky, and in general they are players who accumulated a decent stack before and just left. Even nitting is the better strategy than sitting out - at least you are not guaranteed to get your blinds stolen every time and still can play your best hands. If you are surrounded by sit ours - stealing is the only option, tightening up in that spots will be a bad strategy in any case: you have to at the very least ignore them when picking your preflop ranges, i.e. you should not play as UTG when you are UTG and everyone else except for the big blind sits out: you should play as BTN. And yeah, just steal the chips if the blinds are sit outs, though be cautious if there are active players to act after you.

 

[ShadeTurn]

Thanks for the replies!
I agree — when most players at the table are sitting out, it's a great chance to open up and steal more.
I’ll try to adjust better next time and not miss these easy chips!
Appreciate the insights 🙏