Two more freeroll success stories

I made the final table in two Intertops Poker Freeroll tourneys in the last week.

I finished first in the No-Limit $250 freeroll tournament on Thursday night. It started at 8:00 PM and finished up around 12:40AM. Good thing there were team meetings at work the next day and I could show up a half-hour later than normal. It still left me with only about 5 hours sleep, but I felt good because I had just beaten over 200 people and netted more than $135. Then I finished second in Sunday's $250 Limit freeroll. Second place paid $77.50.

I don't remember getting especially lucky in either of these tournaments, but I know what happened was I didn't get especially unlucky. 

I played in another limit tourney last night, and one of the reasons I prefer no-limit to limit is that the first hour in limit tourneys is nearly pointless. You can play stupid and knock yourself out, which you can count on 50-100 people doing. After the first hour, when the big blind is 100 chips, you can finally actually start playing. Raising pre-flop actually gets people to fold so you can isolate. You can actually bluff and people will drop an unmatched ace, instead of counting on hitting it on the river.

I was up and down early in last night's tourney, playing only my big blinds for the first hour, plus premium hands. I got up to T2000 (initial is always T1000) when my 68o blind hit a 6 and an 8 on the flop. After the turn I got re-raised by the small blind, so I knew my opponent had a wheel. I was prepared to fold to any bet when the river came 8 and my opponenet capped. He wasn't upset at all, we were both playing crappy cards on blinds after all.

My old weaknesses appeared after the break, however, when I raised pre-flop with QQ and an ace fell. I dumped out and BOTH callers had aces, one with AK. Soon after I was all in after a couple of bets with AKo, and bricked all the way to the river, beaten by KTs that hit a T on the flop and the river.

Wednesday night is a good night for tourneys as there is one I usually buy into (gasp!) and one freeroll (raked hands required) that I like to participate in. So I should have news of success or failure tomorrow.

 

Neglect...

I'm already neglecting this blog, and I have no excuse...well, except that I was off of work last week and I really only find time to address this during slow times at work.
 
I hosted my first home game on Friday. We played no-limit hold em $20 buy in with 7 people. I finished 5th, when 1st thru 3rd paid. Not a stellar showing, but I did win the second game. I got cards even a monkey could have won with. The buy in was $10 but instead of winner take all like we usually play, we paid 1st thru 3rd again. We had 10 as 3 people showed up late, so I took $60 for first. The most satisfying hand was when I had JQ and the flop had a 10 and an 8. When a 9 fell on the turn I felt confident. When the player immediately in front of me (RZ) went all in, I had to smile. He had 8s and 9s, and my nut straight took him out. I started with Queens full of 10's to take out two people, and had another hand that beat someone who had one bounty already. So I was chipped about 6 times the other players after one trip around the table. I don't think I even had the big blind yet.
 
So in game three, when I got AA in the first hand, I was ready for a repeat. WRONG! Cracked by my boss' boss with his Q8 (yes he called a 10x BB raise with Q8) when he hit both on the flop. He went all in, I called and my night was over. I dealt for the rest of the night, and these folks are such careful players it took 3 hours to get over with. When I had the lead it took less than 30 minutes.
 
At the same time I was playing in an online tourney at Royal Vegas, representing Poker Source Online. It was round two of the Poker Forum Challenge. I finished BARELY out of the money in the first round, finishing 32nd out of 500, money started at 30. I got in the game 40 minutes late, already blinded down to 1200 out of 1500. I built that up to 6000 in about 15 minutes, but had to return to the game. When I knocked RZ and his two pair out, I asked him to play the online tourney for me. He built it up (it was  blinded back down under 2000) up to 8000 very quickly, with only 40 left, so I figured he would cruise into the money. But he called an all-in with AK. He caught a King on the flop to take the lead against all-in's QQ, but a Queen on the turn knocked him out 37th.
 
I'm fairly confident that I am the best player on the PSO forum, but my 32nd and 37th don't really demonstrate that fact.

Intertops Hangs in there...

Another Freeroll, 3rd place this time paid $60 and suddenly my account is $238 at a place I said I would never play again.

The freerolls there are actually pretty good. I'd be crazy to quit there. There are only about 300 people that play them, maximum. The ones with rake requirements rarely get over 100, and the prizes are usually 500 or more.

I have won both limit and no limit freerolls there, and the 3rd place was a limit. I'm not sure how they decide to make it a limit tourney or not. The limit one this week was the same time as the no limit one last week.

And the competition is really REALLY not good. You see so much bad play, it is silly. The guy who knocked me out third finished DEAD LAST in the next one. Maybe it was a suck out, but I seriously doubt it the way this guy played.

I had probably the worst beat ever in the late one. KK pre flop, so big raise. One caller. Flop is K33, so I bet the rest of my small stack. Caller calls with AJ, I'm waiting to collect. Turn 3 and River 3 makes my king kicker lose to the Ace. Yowtch. THAT'S poker.

First tourney at RV...

For the first time in a long time, I didn't play a hand of poker at Intertopspoker.com. I still have money in my account, but I am hesitant to touch it since I am barely above the withdraw limit.

Instead I got my email situation straightened out and got my account verified at Royal Vegas. I still had deposit issues, and didn't feel like tackling it, so I just wandered around, looking at tables. They added a free $10 to my account so I bought into a SNG. $.75+.25 tourament. Prima Poker rooms really seem to cater too the micro bankroll players. It was a turbo tournament, meaning the blinds double every 5 hands. This seems to put a large amount of pressure on the poor players, because they went all in with some extremely weak hands. I was up early, kept the pressure on, and won it going away. The monster payout was $3.75.

So after my big cashout, I have $50.25 at Intertopspoker and $12.75 at Royal Vegas.

I do like the interface at RV more than I did at Aztec Riches. The only main difference is when it is your turn the buttons appear on the middle of the table, instead of tiny little buttons in the corner of the screen. I can deal with that. I still had to change my screen resolution to 800x600 to make the table big enough. Maybe I need a bigger monitor. Prima rooms also only let you have 2 tables going at one time, where Party allows 4. I've only played 4 once before, to try and get in raked hands. It went really well, but I caught unbelievable cards.

I've made a commitment to try out Absolute Poker, if I can get them to follow through on the free $25 account. We will see...