A MEGA Update [09.07.2005]
Before I update, I have an offer for my readers. From now til September 30th (coincidentally my birthday), anyone that signs up through me will be set up with 25% rakeback on Eurobet (a PartyPoker.com skin). If you don't know what rakeback is, or what a skin is, make sure you read my rakeback article, because it's free money. All you have to do is email me at
[email protected] and everything will be set up with ease.
Last night I played a $30+3 rebuy tournament on Party. It had about 450 players. On Party, if you go all-in during the rebuy period, regardless of how many chips you have, you can rebuy. Since your chips are in the pot rather than in your stack, the software temporarily thinks you are eligible for a rebuy. Playing from Scott Fischman's house put me in a gambling mood, so I decided to rebuy trick my way into a huge stack. By the first break, I had spent $333 and had 13,000 chips.
Having that stack so early on is great. You can just sit back and wait for big hands and good spots. There's never any pressure. You can play lots of speculative hands like T8s that you often couldn't play with a normal stack.
From 13k I built up to 30k pretty easily. I lost a small chunk when I had TT and my opponent w/ KQ played his hand very slowly on the K high flop. Then I dropped all the way down to 8k chips when TT rivered my JJ. Some guy with A2 donated me his chips when I had AT. I did get very lucky when I won as a 30/70 underdog for all my chips. I built all the way up to 70,000 chips without playing a big pot. With blinds at 4,000/8,000 and 6 players at the table, the player under the gun moved in for 39,000. I had A6o in the big blind, a marginal spot. The player under the gun was very short, so he had a wide range of hands, and with 8,000 chips of mine already in the pot, I had a call and he showed A5o. The flop came QJ2 and it looked like we were probably going to split. The turn was a jack, but the river was a 4, meaning my 6 kicker played! That brought me up to 110,000 chips. I got very lucky again when my AK outflipped pocket deuces for all of my chips, and that gave me a monster stack.
The final table went pretty smoothly. I didn't really play any big pots until there were 3 players left. With blinds at 10k/20k and 250k chips, I raised TT in the small blind to 60k. The big blind pushed all-in for 200k, and my TT held up vs his (her?) A6o.
That left us heads up, and I built up to around 700,000 chips and my opponent had about 500,000 chips. The prize pool had $8400 for first place and $5,000 for 2nd. My opponent asked to chop, and I rarely chop. I told him I would want at least $7400, which was essentially my way of saying no since that was a pretty bad deal for him, but he took it.
For those of you wondering, Party does not support chops. This was a private deal, and he trusted me to pay him (and of course I did pay him). I would generally not recommend making deals like this, as the sad truth is, most people are not trustworthy. I guess my opponent knew who I was, so he trusted me. I just want to make sure no one reads this and then assumes it's always a safe thing to trust your opponent at a final table.
That was the second tournament that I won in about a week, so that was a nice feeling. After so many top 5 finishes in big tournaments, but no top 3's, it's nice to know that I do have what it takes to take down a final table.
This morning I woke up for the WCOOP, and what a roller coaster ride it was. It was 6 handed PLHE with 30 minute blind levels (which I LOVE) and 2500 starting chips. I dropped down to 800 chips pretty early on when my opponent's flush got there on the river and I had to fold to his all-in. I suppose I don't know for sure that he had the flush since I didn't see it, but I would be very surprised if he had anything else. I built back up to 2500, and then got my KK all-in vs AQs. Luck was not on my side, and I dropped down to 700 this time. From there I built up to 25,000. The roller coaster continued as I dropped down to 10,000 and built back up to 25,000 at least three times. I finally got to 50,000, and then I dropped back to 25,000 twice more. I got very lucky and sucked out for all my chips at one point, but I did also take a couple of bad beats myself.
When I built up to 25,000 chips, it was still very early on. I had a huge stack and was able to play a lot of points. Somewhere along the way I broke even for about 2 hours, and when I had 70,000 chips, it was only half the average stack. I ended up getting 99 all-in against a very aggressive players AQo, but he spiked an ace on the river and I was knocked out in 50th place. I suppose 50th place out of 2345 players is impressive, and to most people $1400 is a lot, but I was very dissapointed, mostly with my play to be honest. Every time I opened up my game, the two players to my left started playing back at me, and I didn't handle their aggression as well as I could have. I tightened up and played my straightforward ABC game which is never fun. I am glad that I have the discipline to do that when necessary, but I don't think the players at my table were particularly skilled. I feel like I should have been able to better take advantage of their mediocre play. By now I'm probably rambling, so I'll jump to the next tournament.
Tonight I played in Super Wednesday which is Limited Hold-Them. I'm not very good at limit, but the players in this tournament are terrible. I'm going to start playing it more often. Limit hands are boring, so I'll skip the details. I had 50,000 chips with 30 players left when the average stack was 20,000, but a couple of missed draws vs short stacks knocked me down low. The final hand that knocked me out was when my QQ ran into a KJ that shouldn't have been in the pot in the first place. The flop came KJT, and we got all-in on the flop. I didn't hit my open ended straight draw or a queen, and I was out of the tournament in 22nd place.
Ah, tournament poker. If you play well, you will get deep in these tournaments often. I've been running good and winning the majority of my coinflips, so I've been getting pretty deep lately. I was able to close two of these tournaments with first place finishes, so I have to say I'm running well. Every time you get far and dont finish in big money (i.e the wcoop and super wednesday), it's a bit frustrating, but one big first place finish more than makes up for it all. As if the tournaments weren't enough, I've also been running well in sit'n'gos. Today I played 7 of the $400+30's on stars, and I've finished 1st 3 times and 2nd once. I also won a $1,000 two table sng the other day (for $9000). All-in all, I'm probably up about $50,000 in the past ten days. Life is good.
I should mention that these good results have come from Scott Fischman's house. He swears that this place is lucky. I'm not supersticious, but there have been hundreds of online tournaments won from this house. It's almost like an internet cafe. Lots of poker players stop by all the time. I hope to learn a lot while I'm staying here, watching everyone play their own game.
That's all I have for tonight, but before I end this, I want to mention my rakeback offer again since the offer is soo good.
From now til September 30th anyone that signs up through me will be set up with 25% rakeback on Eurobet (a PartyPoker.com skin). If you don't know what rakeback is, or what a skin is, make sure you read my rakeback article, because it's free money. All you have to do is email me at
[email protected] and everything will be set up with ease.
-thanks for reading
-Justin Bonomo
