FLO8 Freeroll or what not to do before a wedding

This is mostly story with some poker hands thrown in. Since this is my first substantial post, I hope it’s in the appropriate place.

Friday night I wanted to kill some time so I looked for a freeroll on Poker Stars. I found an Omaha H/L freeroll about to start so I signed up. I had played some Omaha and I figured a freeroll would be a risk-free way to get more of a feel for the game.

Well, I immediately realized that it was fixed limit. I had never played fixed limit Omaha in my life. Oh, well, it should be an interesting diversion and I’ll be in bed soon. I had a wedding to go to the next day, and I didn’t want to stay up too late.

There were over 2400 in the freeroll. In a typical NL freeroll half (if not more) of the players are gone before the first break. With FL and split pots, it takes an hour to knock anybody out. This could be a long night.

To make it worse, I take a look at the tournament lobby and noticed that the freeroll is a satellite, so even if I do well, I can’t win any money. I have never played a satellite because I think they are a waste of time. Now at this point any sane person would have sat out and gone to bed. Unfortunately, I was winning, so I kept playing.

My strategy was simple, bet and raise with the nuts or nut draws and don’t chase non-nut draws unless it’s cheap. The thing is no one believed me when I raised with the nuts; they kept calling and raising and I kept winning. To make a long story short (as my Aunt would say after an hour or so), I came in second place at 6:30 in the morning. I went to bed a half-hour before my wife got up. I got up in time to walk the dog and get ready for the wedding. When the waiter asked me if I wanted regular or decaf, guess what I said?

I made matters worse for myself because the top 27 all get to the next level. I could have sat-out then and gone to bed, but I was in fourth place at the time and I’m thinking maybe I can win this thing. What a stupid, macho, attitude. There is absolutely nothing left to win and it was the middle of the night, but I persisted for two more hours.

Two hands at the final table were somewhat interesting. I was at the same table with this guy for hours. He started out with a huge lead over me; I eventually passed him, then he got a big lead again. This went on for a while. At this final table hand he had about 750,000 chips and I had about 450,000 chips. The flop was JTx giving me a set of Tens and him a set of Jacks. We cap the betting. The turn is a T which gives him the nut FH and gives me quads. We cap again and after a rag on the river. When I win he goes, “So sick.” I reply “Sorry.” Now our chip stack are reversed.

Noting happens between us for a while, then I have a weak hand in the blind with 567x. I forget what the fourth card was. The flop is 348. I’m thinking I have a draw to a nut straight and head-to-head might have a chance for low. The turn is a face card, he bets and I raise. I forgot I was on a draw. I thought I had the straight (hey, it’s 5 in the morning). We cap the betting on the turn and river when another face card hits. He has the nut low and won high on something like Ace high. His remark was, “wtf.” I didn’t reply. Our chip stacks were reversed again with him in the lead.

I got the last laugh when he finished fourth and I held on for second. The other guy knocked out the last three players and had an 8:1 chip lead so I dumped my chips, took second and went to bed.

I just got back from the wedding and decided to write this while I wait for the coffee to wear off and I can go to bed. Anyway, I live in San Francisco, so the wedding was very diverse and interesting, complete with lion dancers. Oh, the drums, the drums.

I nice story matey, different to the average post.

Excellent post.

Signing up for the wrong type of tourney is a classic mistake but that's taking it to extremes

Hi Howie - that is funny. I hope you get some sleep today. So now you have another tournie to play - when is it?

And welcome to Cardschat!

The next tourney is Limit stud. That's a game I've only played in home games and not for at least ten years. The tourney starts at 14:00 (in 20 minutes as I write this) and I'd already signed up for another tourney on Full Tilt Poker for the exact same time.

I'm afraid to check on the other tourney at this point. I'm afraid it will be "go fish" or maybe uno.

So I play limit stud on-line for the first time. I was trying to play a solid game and I was up modestly for the first hour. In the second hour I got a series of good hands, but I was sucked out on seven times when I had the better hand with one card to go and I'm gone. (Is that sixth street?) Three times the same player got a flush on the last card. Once someone hit a straight. Twice I had two pair to an overpair and they hit a second pair. The last one got trips to beat my pair of aces.

There were over 2400 players. If each satellite gives 27 people access to this tourney, I guess they had 92 satellites. That is so sick. No more satellites for me. Good night.