Play Online Poker

Yesterday I played my first online poker game since I’m back from Italy. That’s almost 3 weeks without playing poker.
It was a $1000 freeroll tournament on PokerStars. About 3500 players signed up, with 360 places paid.

At first I had some bad luck with the flops, holding KK and an Ace flopped. The guy who called my raise made a small bet. The player in front of me re-raised, so I had to throw my pocket Kings away as one of them was holding an ace. The showdown proved me right, both had aces and one of them 2 pair actually.

Sometime later I got QJ suited with QJA on the flop. On my turn I made a bet, about the size of half the pot, hoping someone has an Ace, but no K 10 or 9 10. Two players called. On the turn (5s) I made a pot size bet and my opponents folded gave up their chance to win a nice pot.

I was now playing in the 700 first places with about 2000 players left. I still had to be careful not to lose everything as there were plenty of big stacks at my table.
I then started folding poor hands one by one, the hands I played I usually won, so I was playing very tight. I had to, because the blinds where killing my stack. With the paid places in sight and in early position I folded QQ just to make sure I reached the 360. Again a wise decision, 3 people in the pot, AK suited, 77 and J10. Flop JJ3. Turn a K and on the river a 7 which made the pocket 7 guy a Full House.

In the meanwhile I saw that the player in play with the least amount of chips was 0, so I made it to the 360 paid spots. In my first tournament in 3 weeks time, immediately winning some cash, nice!

Just after that I finished on the 340th place, winning me 70 cents.
I could end up much higher if my pocket Queens (got them 2 times in a row, imagine that), but this time I went all-in, for about 2 times the big blind in total. 3 players called, one holding J9 suited. He won with two pair.

Today I played a $100 freeroll and again ended up in the money. 2300 Players in the tournament, me ending on the 135th place, earning me 13 cents. Not that much, but something

My $100 goal is coming closer and closer now.

Well,

the last 2 weeks I spend my days in Italy, near Venice. I had lots of fun, good weather and food. So a great holiday.
that’s also the reason why there’s no update on this blog for the last 2 weeks.

Since my departure to Italy I didn’t played a game of poker but I’ll be playing the tables pretty soon.

Tomorrow I also can start playing soccer again after I broke my nose 8 weeks back. I could start playing 2 weeks back, but because our trip to Italy was that close I didn’t risk playing.

So see you at the tables!!!

After I got beaten in the $1000 Sunday freeroll on PokerStars, I tried my luck on the regular $100 freeroll on Full Tilt.

I had to fight my way up the leaderbord early in the game, but once I was ranked pretty high, I never lost my grip on the top 20.

Every table I moved to I ruled after 5 or 10 hands. With aggressive play other players started folding one by one. I picked up the signs I needed to make the right decision at the right time.
Like folding Q5 with QQA on the table. One player made a small bet, I called him. A third player re-raised to be re-raised himself by another player to an all in.
I wasn’t afraid of the player in front of me, neither from the first re-raiser, but I was very afraid of the last guy. Should I call or not? I had trips, but a low kicker. If he has a Queen also, chances are that his kicker will be higher than me. Or he already has a Full House, with AA or AQ. With some regret I folded my Queen Five, but what a relief to see he did have AQ in his hands. There was no chance I could have won the hand if I made the call.

When we got to the last 27 players and in the money, people stopped folding and in no time only 15 players where left. I was playing around the 10th place. After 30 minutes I reached the final table for the 2nd time in 2 days time, me on the 9th place.

After around 10 minutes I won a decent pot and got ranked 6th. Then I won a monster pot and was on top of the table with 50k chips ahead of the number 2. But not for a very long time, about 15 minutes later, with only 5 players left I made a bad call. I had AK in my hands and an ace on the board after the flop. I made a small bet to see what the other players will do. 2 players just called. I was pretty sure I got the win. With a 5 on the turn, I again made a small value bet, but got re-raised by an all in. If I called this, I lost about 65% of my chips. I made the call to see he had 2 pairs (5’s and 10’s).
The river put me down to the last place once again.

At the time I played heads-up for the tournament victory, I was about 200.000 chips behind my contestant. The first 10 to 20 hands, we remained to stay status quo, but somehow I got down to only a mere 150.000 chips. Much if you compare it to the 1500 starting chips, but very little if you know the other player is playing with around 800.000 chips.

Instead of going all in pre-flop with good hands,  I limped in and raised to an all-in on my turn if I paired something. All or nothing with pocket 2’s at one time, but luckily he folded.

Then with KJ in my hands, I raised to 24000 chips. He re-raised me to 75000 chips. I immediately went all in, hoping to steal a big pot, but he called with his pocket 10’s.
With a King on the flop I won the hand and left him with a bit more than 70000 chips. He started to go all in hand by hand. Because I didn’t have the cards to call him I folded and folded.
But I knew it was just a matter of time.

At the time he had around 120000 chips, I was holding AK and prepared myself to call him. I was the small blind and just called to see the flop, so I didn’t show him I had good cards. He went all in as expected and I called him.

His A5 against my AK. I was leading. With nothing useful on the flop, turn or river for him or me, I won the tournament!!!

After winning a few qualifier tournaments to another tournament, this was the first tournament I really won.
Man that felt great! I want more!!!