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.