I decided to not post this in soupie's because this is my own experience and my own expression of strategy that I just felt like deserved its own standalone recognition.

After around 30 or so tries, I finally (!) placed very high in a Freeroll MTT last night. I finished 2nd in a $500 Dollar Freeroll on Interpoker with 750 entrants. Top 80 paid and my 2nd place finish got me $60.

These freeroll MTTs generally have 300-6000 players, and it's pretty much a lottery, you NEED to get lucky to win, but without proper play and excellent decision making even with luck you're not going to win. The reason I play freerolls is because I don't have money (duh) but I think I have enough experience playing these crapshoots to know what strategies work.

1. Be well rested. Everytime I've finished in the money, which is 6 or 7 times, I took a nap before the tourney started or played in the early afternoon after waking up. The mental processes are NOTICEABLY improved, and you'll make fewer mistakes, and even your instincts will be sharper. Maybe Phil Hellmuth and John Murphy were onto something!

Don't play with a headache, after a long days work, distracted, or in any state other than being well rested. Playing in a non-rested state will lower your play to almost fish status, so you might as well be playing like a fish. Take a power 10-20 minute nap if you can't get more than that. Just remember to set the alarm clock so you don't miss too much time from the start like Hellmuth and Murphy did.

2. Be Aggressive. This is good in general, but even more so in a very deep fielded tournament and blinds and antes that will eventually be a big part of everyone's stack, even the chip leaders'. But the next part is the one that not everyone knows about:

When stealing blinds, don't steal with cards that your opponent would likely call your raise with, or cards that by hitting the flop will probably also give your opponent a piece of the flop. Unless they are aware of this strategy, your opponents will not call your raises with 64o and 85o. Use that to your advantage. I don't steal with JTo or A5o because people who defend their blinds would do it with hands that will either share cards with me or will share flops with me. I don't want that. I love stealing with LOW suited connectors and other low cards (but not total crap like 32 or 52) and then busting people with them.

Don't forget that heads up against any non dominating/destructing hand your LOW suited connectors are only a 60-40 underdog, which is pretty good considering the possibility of stealing the large blinds/ante OR then doubling up on a beautiful flop OR repping your preflop strength against a weak player and stealing the pot on the F with a high card that missed your opponent.

If you lose you'll still have enough chips to adjust your strategy. If you win you can keep doing it and place in the money, barring the ubiquitous bad beat.

3. Call preflop raises with LOW cards. For the same reasons as in 2, you can call preflop raises with these gems as well. Your opponent will not expect you to call with 95o. So if you hit the flop, you will make some money off an Aggressive opponent. If you miss the flop, you can make some money off a weak opponent, especially if you ACT FIRST. You can do a stop-and-go without being in an all-in situation simply by calling a preflop raise in early position and then betting pot on the turn against a weak player. They will fold enough times to make this play profitable.

4. Early Aggression against tight opponents. Don't wait until the blinds are high to start making preflop raises. Against opponents who do not exhibit maniacal tendencies you can start raising them preflop with low suited connectors or things of that ilk even with small blinds. The point is to outplay the few opponents you'll have postflop and take down the pot. Once in a while these cards that you'll normally fold will give you a great flop and make you alot of money. If you have to fold it to someone else's strength then do so, but make sure you think they have the goods, and not just fold to something like a Maniac's minimum bet.

5. Try to stay as a chip leader from the beginning to the end. Don't let up on your Aggression. I mean you can't raise preflop every single hand, but don't sit on your laurels and try to post and fold your way into the money. If you do that other people will overtake you and increase their chances of winning 1st (most MTTs are top heavy and your goal is to win, not finish in the money). Try to set for yourself the intermediate goal of being the chip leader as much as possible. That way you won't be satisfied with a good stack and play too Passive so that you no longer have the ability to bully people with a big stack.

6. Don't wait for great cards to come. It's a great way to play if you only want to finish in the money. I used to play that way, until I played against this guy who was playing the way I'm outlining in this post. At first I thought he was a maniac. But then I realized that the aggregate effect of his stealing pots and then getting lucky with his raising hands led to him being one of the biggest stacks in the tournament. And then I looked at my Tight self and see a fourth of his stack in chips. The point is, at that point in the tournament when I had my epiphany he was going to win more than 4 times the money I would win. And that's what counts.

Consider this suggestion from another perspective. Every player will be dealt different hands over the course of a MTT. For the sake of argument each will get a great hand 10% of the time. Another 10% of the time they will get crap. The other 80% is the difference between Tight players and Loose players. If you pick the right hands to raise with out of that 80%, and you have the requisite postflop skills, you will win about another 10% of the hands you're dealt. So thus not only will you win 20% of the hands you're dealt instead of the customary (read:Tight) 10%, but you'll likely get paid off more when you do have a great hand because you'll be showing down cards people usually wouldn't raise preflop with. So you'll be winning more than double the chips you would have won had you played Tight. Remember that in a MTT the money's at the top, so play to win, because by winning double the chips you usually would win would actually get you more than 2x the $ you would usually win.

7. Change your strategy if need be. You can't just follow each of my suggestions if the table doesn't warrant it. If every single player is a Maniac, don't EVER bluff them, not even once. If a total Maniac is sitting on your left, don't EVER bluff them, not even once, pre or postflop (I had to learn this the hard way and lose a quarter of my stack last night). If a bad player has been going all in preflop their last two hands, and they do it again this time and everyone folds to you acting last, and you have a decent hand, consider calling it with regards to your chances of WINNING the tournament.