This isn't always true. The free market with infinite competition might settle on optimal solutions eventually, but there's almost always a gradient that appears due to time. It takes time for changes to propagate through a system and that can be taken advantage of. There's the quote by Keynes that underlines this: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

There is no free market in modern capitalism. Even Smith already warned of the dangers of accumulation of capital and the need for checks & balances to avoid oligopolies and monopolies. It's a winner take all approach (at least in the US and China) that nearly always those with the best headstart win.

Play iterated games.

Free market doesn't take time to turn into unfair markets when exploited by an anomaly. You can't have fairness with humans living in the same place as you.