WSOP

OK well I'm back at school now unfortunately so I can't sit down and play poker all day.  Thats just crap

Gotta do some bonus grinding though to keep on top of that.  After chasing Ritz Club all week about there monthly pay to play montly bonus I get a reply today telling me that they have cancelled it.  Thats poo - it was one of the easiest to get.  Not happy and have now withdrawn from there - there are plenty of other Crypto sites that will pay me to play on them.  I'm getting 30% rakeback through rake the rake on Betfair and all the other sites have bonuses so up yer bottom Ritz Club

Gonna play a limit qualifier tonight on Prima (through Royal Vegas).  Never played on Prima before and have played very few limit tournaments so I don't rate my chances to highly!  Its for a strange event anyway - this will take me into the final round satellite for a limit tournament in the WSOP - strange thing is that its a limit shootout game.  Will be weird but hey its all experience and more pennies for spends too if I won.  This round is a 1 in 8 shot, final (end of the month) is a 1 in 6 I think so if luck goes my way you'll never know.

Also played a $6 thunder on Will Hill last night, going to stat my WSOP seat 2 quest.  Hey why not for $6? Got through so playing in the $25 tonight

However after a few more rounds that guys right back in it and its all every so tense again.  I can’t cope.  Chris is in need to drugs by this point and worse than me.

 

I can’t remember how it happened but eventually we get an all n called and one guy goes out 4^th.  I don’t care now – I have 3k guaranteed – I wanted it over.  Whew as they say.  We must have played 4 handed for about 2 hours.

 

So we play 3 handed for a bit,  the guy who knocked out the guy in 4^th has a huge chip lead so he makes it pretty obvious he’s not going play so its between me and the other shorty.  He’s betting into me which is the problem and I’m betting into the big stack.  He steals my blinds by going all in a lot; I have to steal when I have a bit of something from the big stack, hoping that he won’t call me. 

 

I feel sick and want it over.

 

I get A10 on my bb.  I make up my mind to gamble – I have to.  If SB is all in, I call.  He does and I do.

 

He has A9. 

 

I can’t breathe.

 

I catch the 10 on the flop, I still don’t breath.  Chris tells me he’s drawing dead after the turn, I need to see it.  River comes.  I win.  He goes out, I’m through.

 

It was one the worst times I have spent playing poker in my life, it was so unbelievably tense we actually felt ill.  Ok the prize is worth it but still – I did not enjoy it until it was over.  We went for a drive after to try and chill out.  5 hours with the last 3 so unbelievably tense – was it worth it?

 

Hell yeah J

So Sunday.  Tourney started at 18.00.  It was quite tense to start with, a little tentative and tight.  2500 starting chips and 20-minute blind meant that we only lost 3 out of the 33 players in, in the first hour.  Second hour loosened up a bit.  One table seemed to have 3 people all fighting for chip lead.  My table became quite aggressive so my chips were up and down quite a bit.  Anyway I can’t remember all the details but I managed to get onto the final table.  2 seats and $3k in cash for third.  I picked up a few hands, people slowly went out and we were down to 5.  Everyone was playing – all in or nothing so rarely were we getting calls or flops.  I pick up AQ on the button so move all in to steal the blinds.  Small blind calls (f***) with KK.  Flop comes with an ace, I get lucky and he curses himself saying he should have folded and is left really short. I dance.  I have a three to one chip lead over my nearest river after I knock him out next hand with my 10j v with kx.  Down to 4.  I have 45k.  I’m loving it.

 

However, now it goes wrong.  I sit tight for a while; lose about 3k in blinds, nothing major.  Then I’m forced to call a min raise from the SB with I’m on BB with k7 suited.  Flop comes 7 high, I move all in, he calls with his pocket aces and I double him up. Losing 7k or so in the process.  I start to worry. 

 

So I have to play now, I raised a few times to steal and got re-raised all in and have to fold.  Within 30 minutes or so I lose my big chip lead and all of a sudden I’m only 3k or so ahead and there’s still one person going home with nothing.  No one is really up for a deal so I poo my pants.  I feel like I have thrown it all away without really making a bad move and think I’m going home with nothing again.

 

Anyway I picked myself up; re did my plan and started again.  I had already looked at the Cryptologic route of qualifying as it seems a good option.  $6 6 player wit and go tourney would take you into a $25 buy in every night at 9pm.  This, in turn, put you into a $150 buy in (about 4 times a week), which led into a $1k buy in on Sundays at 6pm.  Good times for qualifiers as its mainly European players on Crypo, none of this getting up at 4am to play.  Every stage was good odds, 1 in 6 for the $6, 1 in 6 for the $25, 1 in 8 for the $150 and 1 in 15 for the final.  Not bad.  I played a few $6’s and got into the $25 a couple of times.  Also bought into the $25 directly a couple of times.  Qualified for the $150 twice I think and bought in directly once after I sold some of the w$ I had on stars.  Making progress but not too close.

 

Then last Sunday (14^th May) I bought into the $25 and got through. I have to admit I had some luck, all in on a flush draw on one occasions and made it, getting short and was put all in when I was on the big blind when I had picked up pocket aces (they held up).  All of a sudden it was over (was playing another table at the time and missed the end!) and I was in Wednesday’s $150.

 

Wednesday came and Chris sat with me while I played it.  Managed to cling on and make my way through the field, again having some luck when I needed it to finally survive and qualify to Sunday’s final.  After it I registered to start this blog J

So next thing was their new player offer.  Earn 4000 MPPs in your first 30 days of signing up and they put you in a freeroll.  They were offering 4 of these; the first one had taken place and had only had about 12 people in.  Bargain I thought so set my sites on this.  I did it right, signed up[ through rake the rake so I would get rake back on my play and also got their bonus signup offer (2000 MPPs for $200 I think it was) which could be earned at the same time as the freeroll.  During the Easter break I sat on Betfair solid for a couple of weeks and racked up my 4k in points – into the freeroll I went.  (Obviously also got the bonus and rakeback – ended up with a nice little profit through it too).

 

So this freeroll.  It played on Sunday the --- of May.  Psyched myself up for it all day, watched the lobby to check how many people would be playing and sat down with 8 other people to fight it out.  After 10 minutes one player was removed (they didn’t go out, I can only presume they were idle so they got booted from the table after a certain amount of time), down to 8.  I fought it out, played some good poker and got down to 4.  At the first break I had brought up the idea of a deal, some were up for it – good.  Then came the problems.  There was a maniac at the table who would play and raise with anything – either very good or very stupid.  He was quite short so I had a pop at him with k7 on the button, I put him all in after I caught top pair, he called with middle pair and an inside straight draw and caught it on the river.  Damn.

 

I raised a couple of times trying to steal and had to lay them down to all ins, this left me quite even with the rest of the table; I had been quite a way ahead.  So I decided to loosen up and limped with 97 of spades.  Button min raises, maniac is on small blind and he calls, bb calls so I have to call.  Flop 972.  Woohoo. Maniac bets the minimum – 300 chips at this point.  BB folds, I raise it to 1k.  Button re-raises me to 2k, half both mine and his stack, maniac folds.  I think.  It seems pretty clear to me that the button has an over pair, he thinks he’s good, I know he’s not so I move all in.  Instantly he calls me with his pocket aces.  I hold my breath.

 

Turn 6.  River 6.

 

I’m out. Aces have a bigger two pair, runner runner and I’m gone.  I was gutted.  I felt, and still do that I had played the hand just right, the only thing possibly a little suspect being the initial limp with 97.  I couldn’t do any more.  Had I won I’d have had a 2:1 chip lead on two people who had already said they would be open to a deal.  As it was the guy who knocked me out when I approximately an 85% favourite went on to win the seat.  I was fun to live with over the next few days….

Being a teacher it’s hard to find big live tournaments that I can play in.  I nearly got through the Aussie one but that would have been during term time so I don’t even know if I would actually have been able to play in it.  So when I heard that this years world series main event was during my summer holidays I set my mind on trying to qualify for it.  Although I’m a much better online player (IMHO) I felt that the experience alone was one that I could learn from and as were going to be in Vegas during this time anyway it seemed ideal.

 

I had already accumulated about $1k in $w on Poker Stars so decided to use some of these to try to qualify for one of their satellites, $640 entry I think so 1 in every 18 got a seat.  Most of the quallies into this main satellite were double shootout type games, 2 table structure where you need to win and win.  During Easter I played quite a few of these, as if you played during the morning there tended to be quite an overlay, with only 2/3 people in the first round.  I found I was often getting through to the final table but had didn’t really get anywhere close to winning.  I tied one or two single table quallies but again had very little success.

 

So one morning when Chris was still in bed I did some scouting round to try and find the best way into the world series.  A lot of quallies were 1 for every 50 or so, not ideal so I wanted to find the best value route.  This led me to Betfair.  At first I was interested in their rake qualification route – if you earned them so much in rake back they would give you anything between a free WSOP seat to a freeroll for some of the smaller events.  I considered this for a while but after we sat down and did some calculations, with coming to the site after this promo had already started we soon realised it would be near impossible to actually rack up enough rake back in the time left, unless I didn’t work or sleep that is….

(Continues tomorrow)