I’m sick in bed, but thanks to WP and a laptop in bed I can have a little fun.
The fever has been broken and was annoying. The Bronchitis is finally trying to make its departure.
Earlier in the year I played the Blogger Tournament on Poker Stars and came back to playing on the site as I have started my $0 to $1000 bankroll challenge. I’ve kept to my rules normally as I don’t play more than 5% of my bankroll at a time and I can play any $1 or 2$ tourney that I wish.
I’ve tried to keep on the Double or Nothing tourneys since I think that they are more fish down at these levels than any other.
Now I’m not going to tap the glass but, look folks… you can play the odds of a lottery or you can slowly try and eat the fish to become a shark.
Take this hand. I could have reverse Hoy’ed him leaving him with one chip but a simple raise was in order, if I’m going to get anyone behind me coming along I want it to be worth my while to fold. HA!
Poker Stars $10.00+$0.40 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t125/t250 Blinds + t25 – 7 players – View hand 565322
Hero raises to t500, 5 folds, BB raises to t505 all in, Hero calls t5
Flop: (t1310) T 2 Q(2 players – 1 is all in)
Turn: (t1310) 2(2 players – 1 is all in)
River: (t1310) K(2 players – 1 is all in)
Final Pot: t1310
BB shows 6 T (two pair, Tens and Deuces)
Hero shows A K (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
Hero wins t1310
Now some would say that I got lucky, but I disagree because the odds show that I was a 61 – 38 favorite. I was third chip stack where 5 chips wasn’t going to kill me. Noone came along to force the issues. If the chip leader came along after my raise, then I think twice…
No I don’t. I have AK after not having anything since this hand…
Poker Stars $10.00+$0.40 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t75/t150 Blinds + t15 – 9 players – View hand 565353
2 folds, UTG+2 raises to t670 all in, 2 folds, Hero calls t670, 3 folds
Flop: (t1700) T K Q(2 players – 1 is all in)
Turn: (t1700) 2(2 players – 1 is all in)
River: (t1700) 7(2 players – 1 is all in)
Final Pot: t1700
UTG+2 shows A 8 (high card Ace)
Hero shows T A (a pair of Tens)
Hero wins t1700
Which I went in a 64-26 favorite.
Look, both times it looks like I was lucky against shorties. I disagree. Why call with the AT anyway? Because if the shorty doesn’t raise all in I’m going to. Why not raise all-in afterwards? Because then it gives the big stack in the SB pot odds to call anything.
Look, I understand that there are times that you are going to be putting money in when you know that you are behind…
Poker Stars $10.00+$0.40 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t25/t50 Blinds + t5 – 10 players – View hand 565371
8 folds, Hero raises to t230, BB raises to t550, Hero calls t320
Flop: (t1150) 8 9 K(2 players)
Hero bets t205 all in, BB folds
Final Pot: t1150
Hero mucks A 5
Hero wins t1150
But, in the end you have to make gut calls and pushes even though you don’t know 100% if you are ahead or behind. In the last example 205 is NOTHING to the Big Blind. But with the scare King and two hearts out there he has no idea if I have the K, Aces or a set.
Which is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill!
I’m not saying that my play is 100% perfect, just that it takes SKILL to play.
And by the way, the challenge bankroll after my OOPSIE (drug induced playing outside the boundries) is up to $37.75
Using only Double or Nothing tournaments , or tournaments that don’t exceed 5% of my bankroll I will make $1000 from a lonely $1 start.
Free rolls are fair game as the usage of points to enter tournaments.
I can use any means to my end goal of victory without depositing or counting any transfers made to me.
I was down to $0.32 and I turned that into $1.19 at a .01/.02 table. (Had to get to $1.15 so I could try a DoN for the challenge.
So off I go, attempting never to have to deposit into Poker Stars again, I started my challenge and I have a $16.50 SCOOP coupon that I will use to my advantage.
I played the WBCOOP tourney on Poker Stars on Saturday and my previous attempts had me out before the dodo birds who were being BLINDED out were eliminated.
So I had no confidence in my game.
I made the following decisions to change my play today.
1. Make people pay for their draws. No cheap continuation bets when I had the best hand pre-flop and even if I did post-flop.
2. No cheap flops when I had quality cards and even when I was making moves. Unless I got caught, I was playing the player and not the hand.
and most importantly…
3. Have confidence in my reads. Trust them and there was a time when throwing away AK when AKQ hit was the right play.
(In this example I was behind TWO sets. Thank You RNG!
But I played those three rules to this portion of the 30-60 blinds.
Yup , first place. But now I had to keep it up.
After a brutal beat (screw you, you don’t get a dollar for this bad beat story), where my Kings were bettered by a rivered set of Queens, I had fallen down.
But I decided that the player who rivered me would be my target until the blinds were down. Every time he raised, I re-raised, showing the Bammer once and the Hammer a couple of times.
His anger was evident when I pulled the Reverse Hoy on him and left him with one single chip winning the revenge hand when his rivered broadway was no good to my Ace high flush… funny thing is that I only had the Suited Blake on me (62 of spades) and the anger came back to me from him.
The name has been changed to protect the innocent and the stupid.
Fish: Even a donkey has its day doesn’t it. I did your mom last night and all she could do is scream.
My reply was : She told me that she still hasn’t felt you put it in yet.
Which got the table on a roll.
And me back to second place.
But then I realized that I was doing SO WELL, that there was no way that I was going to be able to finish the tourney before I had to head to work.
So I had to leave shortly thereafter thinking that I would only be gone an hour and a half… I had to have a big enough stack to ride out for a bit…
So I left, in second place with 48K in chips hoping that I could survive.
But as I came back , finished with my event, running into the office, trying to get logged in on my laptop, first I had to download the update and then I couldn’t remember which of the 7 passwords I rotate I had given, and Poker Stars couldn’t send me my password, because something was screwed up and I couldn’t log back in.
So there you have it, I blinded away as I watched, e-mail to support, again and again until I gave up.
And so did my stack.
My last hand was right before the break, and I had several hands as I looked up the hand archives that I could have played. KK, AA, JJ and 2 sets of twos.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
Now some of you would bring up that any of those hands could have been to my detriment, to my demise. But
But in the end I have a $16.50 Scoop entry and .32 cents in my Stars account.
I have a hopes and dreams in my life and in the end I will once again make it to a big tournament, and this time I won’t be blinded away.
49 hands played and saw flop:
- 1 times out of 6 while in small blind (17%)
- 0 times out of 6 while in big blind (0%)
- 4 times out of 37 in other positions (11%)
- a total of 5 times out of 49 (10%)
Pots won at showdown – 1 out of 1 (100%)
Pots won without showdown – 6
Vs.
Player # 2
43 hands played and saw flop:
- 0 times out of 5 while in small blind (0%)
- 3 times out of 5 while in big blind (60%)
- 2 times out of 33 in other positions (6%)
- a total of 5 times out of 43 (12%)
Pots won at showdown – 2 out of 2 (100%)
Pots won without showdown – 5
K
2
(2 players – 1 is all in)
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