Last night - or early this morning, depending on how you look at it - CardsChat hosted a $2000 freeroll on CDPoker, where the deal was that only initial depositors (signing up through a CardsChat affiliate link) could participate. I was fully expecting this event to be drowned in a horde of freeroll whores, but surprisingly the event took off with only 38 participants, and a prize structure that paid top 5. Why so few, when there was so much money to be had? Well, I suppose the deposit requirement did the trick.

Yours truly had stayed up until 2 a.m. to play this event, simply because I decided that if so few people were going to play it, my equity would be $50, which is really not bad for a freeroll. Also, I had friends over so we were up playing board games until about the time that the tournament started anyway. Also, I consider myself a better poker player than the average, so my equity should really be higher than $50, right?

Wrong.

I got knocked out in 28th, and I didn’t deserve to be in it for even that long. I sucked. I really have no idea what went through my head when I decided to take a flop with 98o with a raised pot. I don’t know why I thought that pushing all-in with 55 when UTG had raised preflop was a good idea either. I was knocked out, 55 vs. QQ, not a moment too soon.

Check out the (presumably well-deserved) winners here:
http://www.cardschat.com/showthread.php?t=64775

Congratulations, GCQ0123 (-2222-), on the $800 that I was going to buy a flatscreen monitor for. Bastard.

Happy New Years, to our western friends. Our large group of Chinese readers will have to wait a little over a month for their new year still.

Tip of the day: You’re in the big blind, and there are four limpers (or so) to you. You have AKs. Do you check and have a cheap look at the flop, or do you raise?

You raise! Your share of this pot will always be more than 20%, more like 40%, and so every penny you can get the others to put in means more money that, on average, will walk your way. Don’t be weak/passive with strong hands preflop.