You’ve heard the saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” but a lot of us probably lose the inherent lesson offered by this time-honored cliché because we tend to be unable to get past our time-honored fixation with the word “free.”

Keep on rocking in the free world. We live in a free country -- the land of the free. Everyone wants to be … closer to free. Buy one, get one FREE. If it’s free, it’s me. The party was a free for all.

Free! It just sounds like fun.

But there’s something to be said for the old free-lunch cliché; because the fact remains that someone, somewhere, is paying for it. Ultimately, it’s probably you.

The same concept applies to freeroll poker tournaments and free online play; before you get seduced by the word “free,” ask yourself one important question: Just how free is it?

The answer might vary, depending on which online site you fancy or which brick-and-mortar casino you frequent. There is one constant, though; no matter how alluring an offer might sound, you will pay. Whether it’s an equitable deal depends a lot on your definition of free, and whether there’s a positive long-term expected value in pursuit of the freebie.

Here’s one example: a Reno casino that I frequent held a promotion last year in which regular players were invited to a December freeroll called the “Tournament of Champions” given that they met the criteria to be invited.

The casino held daily no-limit tournaments, and players were given points based on their results; the top five usually received points ranging from 30 for first place to five for fifth place. At the end of the year, the top 20 percent of point recipients earned a seat in the freeroll, with a guaranteed $20,000 prize pool and a WPT seat valued at $5,000 for the winner.

They covered the prize pool by taking a $5 juice from every entry fee received from the daily tournaments; in other words, if the buy-in was $50, 10 percent of your money went toward the freeroll prize pool and the rest for that day’s prize pool.

This didn’t bother me at all; I was a regular player there anyway, and I figured my results would be good enough to earn me a spot in the big December freeroll. And if I did so, then I’ve probably cashed often enough to show a profit for the year and cover the juice I’ve paid to the casino’s coffers for the freeroll event.

What’s more, there was a natural sense of competition among the regulars there, and thus an unspoken race for points as a measuring stick for how we stood up against each other. Everyone wants to prove they’re the best.

This is fine, but there was one inherent flaw with the concept; that is, until the final month or so, nobody knew how many points it would take to qualify. I was the leader with about 100 points after the first two months, and I figured it might take in the neighborhood of 250-300 points to make the freeroll.

So I kept playing, kept donating to the prize pool and, naturally, I ran cold, real cold, for about the next four months. As it turns out, it didn’t matter. The tournament took the top 20 percent of all point recipients, not just the top 20 overall. In a sense, this diminished the overall endeavor of determination, time and money that a lot of us spent trying to get secure a spot in the year-end tournament.

Here’s why: if a tourist came in and scored 10 points for a third-place finish, he was then added to the list of potential qualifiers for the freeroll. So every time a new name appeared, it lowered the bar for how many points you would need to hit the top 20 percentile.

The bottom line is this: the cutoff ended up being 40 points for making the freeroll, for which everyone was guaranteed a prize of at least $100. I finished the year with 150 points, about fifth overall, and the leader ended up with 200 points.

For those of us with 100 points or more – which directly attests to our quality finishes and time dedicated to the cause – this created a bit of a fundamental problem. In other words, what was our reward for working so hard, when those who just managed a few cash finishes ended up with the same “free” opportunity for the big prize? Something about this seemed inherently unfair.

The good news is, the casino agreed. A similar promotion has started this year, but with a slightly different format; there will be cash bonuses awarded to the top five point recipients throughout the year.

For me, the bitterness factor was minimal. Yes, I would have like to have known that after the first two months of the promotion, my seat at the Tournament of Champions was reserved. But even had I known this, it wouldn’t have mattered much. I love to play and love to get as much experience as possible, the tournaments are fun and it’s a great place to play.

The good news is, I showed a profit. I estimated that I had probably contributed roughly $300 in juice to the prize pool; I ended up seventh in the freeroll, which covered what I had donated to the prize pool with plenty to spare.

In the end, though, there was nothing free about it. We all paid as we went, sweating the cards and the highs and lows of the game, and not knowing what it would take to make the big freeroll.

So just keep a basic risk-reward ratio in mind if it’s your goal to make a freeroll tournament. It’s akin to great advice I was once given in general regarding casino comps; you should count them as part of your profit toward your won/loss records for any session, but you shouldn’t play just in order to get them.

In other words, you should be happy if you’re comped a $10 buffet for your regular play in a casino. However, you should not be happy if you had to drop $100 at the blackjack table to receive one. You’ll leave the casino with a full stomach, but your wallet will be $90 worse for the wear.

And if you do the math, you might get sick to your stomach when you realize just how un-free your dining experience was after all.

So feel “free” to pursue all those glorious freebies … just make sure you know how much you are paying.