A while back I wrote about my plan to gain access into a World Series of Poker event, while using absolutely no money of my own. This link right HERE will serve as a reminder for all my loyal reader. Since then, I hadn't played much online, making it that much more difficult to achieve my goal, but this past weekend I decided to play a few Freerolls.
In case you're not familiar with a Freeroll, it is a free tournament to enter. There are usually many entrants, the play is typically quite poor, and often the blinds will raise very quickly. Most online sites (Party Poker, Pokerstars, Full Tilt, etc.) have them, but only some of them have actual cash payouts, while others offer merchandise or tickets into another tournament.
I play at Full Tilt for a variety of reasons, but the Freerolls are one of them. A standard Freeroll at Full Tilt will have 2700 players, and will pay out to the top 27 players, with a top prize of a whopping $15. No, it's not much money, and the odds are severely stacked against you, but you're risking absolutely nothing to play, so all you need is a little free time.
So like I said, I played a few Freerolls on the weekend. Saturday night, I registered for a No Limit Hold'em Freeroll that filled up within 5 seconds. No exaggeration here, I'd never seen it fill up so fast. Sadly, I lasted only marginally longer than 5 seconds, eliminated on the 2nd hand when I had AK, lost to a maniac holding 10-3 with 4 people all-in preflop. This is the type of craziness you can expect from a Freeroll.
One rule I always stick to in one of these insane tournaments is that i never, EVER player the first hand I'm dealt. I don't care if it's pockets Aces, they go into the muck. Within the first 20 minutes of a Freeroll on a normal day, the field will already be narrowed down from 2700 to under 1500. The play is so loose early on, you have to either get lucky, or just wait for the fish to choke on the hook before you begin.
Sunday evening, I decide to register for the Limit Razz Freeroll. As play begins, I truly began to understand the benefits of playing Limit poker in a Freeroll. The play was more predictable, and although I'm not very familiar with Razz as the only time I ever play it is online, I got off to a pretty good start.
A little while later, I remember that the registration for the NL Hold'em Freeroll is about to begin, and a short while later I'm playing 2 Freerolls at the same time. Not only that, but playing 2 very different forms of poker, at different stages of the tournament. As time progressed, I realized that we were getting pretty close to the money in the Razz game. A player at my table had been chirping at my for at least the past hour about what a terrible poker player I was, so you can imagine how happy I was to eliminate him from the tournament, on the bubble. What a great feeling, and even better feeling to know we had made it into the money... all $1 to those finishing 10th-27th. The final table is where the BIG money is at, lol.
Meanwhile, over at the Hold'em tournament, I'm doing quite well also. With just 75 players remaining, I'm sitting comfortably in the top 20, despite never once seeing any of the big 3 hands (AA, KK, AK). To be honest, this is probably a good thing, helps keep me out of trouble, playing small hands, picking off the short stacks when I can.
It's at this point that I realize I recognize the name of a player at my table. A quick glance back at my Razz table, and sure enough, same guy sitting with me at both tables. No, it's not a miracle, but worthy of at least mentioning. Anyways, some more time passes, I make a few nice hands in both games, and now I'm at the final table of the Razz game, and we've just broken the bubble for the Hold'em game.
It's hard enough to get into the money in one game, and I rarely even try to play more than one at a time, but this was quite an achievement for me. I think playing in more than one tournament at a time helped me play better, because I was never bored, and as a result, never played anything stupidly as I'm often prone to doing when I get a string of bad cards. On the other hand, there were also a few times when it became overwhelming, making big hands in both games, and the time running down for each.
I folded JJ preflop with no raise accidentally once, as I was so focused on an all-in situation in the Razz game. A few hands later, i was eliminated from the Hold'em game in 18th position, as a result of confusion. I had raised about 4x the big blind from an early position with A-J suited, the guy on the button pushed all-in. I had failed to realize how big his re-raise was, and didn't even hesitate to call him. Turns out he had almost as much money as I did, and I was 4th at this time.
He flipped over QQ, and I knew I had made a major error, one I never would have made if I'd realized his re-raise was about 20x the size of my raise, AA would be the only hand worth calling into those pot-odds. So, I finished in 18th, and time to focus on the final 5 in the Razz game.
At this point the blinds were so high, it was as close to no limit as you could possibly get. One player had over 50% of the chips, while the other 4 tired to survive. Antes alone were getting pretty big, and I got lucky to make a "wheel" (A2345, the best possible hand in Razz) to double, up, which allowed me to finish in 3rd spot.
Here's some interesting stats:
Razz - $9 profit - 6.5 hours played
Hold'em - $1 profit - 4.5 hours played
The time is now 3:15am, and I have to be at work by 8:00am. My daughter decides she can't sleep anymore, and I'm up with her until 7:00am. Sleep for an hour, and I'm off to work.
1 hour of sleep, 11 hours of table time and only $10 to show for it. I've had worse.
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