Just a few days back I talked about how close I am to breaking the $50 starting from scratch in just a bit more than 2 months. Well yesterday I’ve won myself another $2,80 in 2 freeroll tournaments.

$2 with a 20th place on Full Tilt and 80 cents on another site.

My first tournament of the day was a $1000 freeroll tournament with 342 paid places out of more than 3000 players.
I was very unlucky here as I could end up much higher if I just didn’t came out against pocket Aces with my pocket Kings. At that time I was constantly playing around a top 100 position.
With my pocket kings I made a bet 4 times the big blind and got called by 2 people. With that much money in the pot and a really bad flop for everyone unless you had 2 pair, I checked on my turn, planning to re-raise the first one to bet. The pocket Aces dude raise about half the pot size and I made it a full pot size. He called immediately.
With a Queen on the turn I was a bit afraid, but didn’t expect him to call my all in, which he did off course. Only a king could save me, but it wasn’t meant to be, I finished around the 300th place with 80 cents added to my account.

At Full Tilt later that night, I continued to play this well. I didn’t got that much good cards than earlier that day, but by playing very tight, I won about 89% of the hands that I played.
True, after they start to notice this, they all folded whenever I made a good bet or re-raised, but that was part of the plan. At one table where I played for something more than 1 hour, this was very useful. After making a bet, a continuation bet on the turn and on the river, they all folded before the showdown. And I played hands like 4 9, 3 6, 5 10, … with very good flops if you had an Ace, King or a Queen, etc…
The slogan from a commercial on TV fits this well: “In Poker it’s not about the cards you have, it’s about the cards your opponent thinks you’re having”.

Very early in this game I took my spot in the top 20 with an all-in with pocket jacks, to never get out of the top 20 during the whole tournament. Once I was sure I was in the money, I played very loose, as it was late already and was is desperate need of sleep . I told myself, that whenever somebody made a big raise, I was going all-in, no matter what cards I was holding. 2 times It worked, but the third time when I was on the big blind my all-in got called by AQ, me holding J7. I lost, finishing on a 20th place and earning me $2.

With this $2 I passed the $50 mark, one goal achieved.
Next goal is $100, hopefully in less than 2 months time.