TOUR 90 $1 Main Event Satellite 5 FTP T 29 Sessions

Last night at 10:11PM I played my 1st 5 FTP $1 Main Event Satellite 90 player session and wrote about it here in my previous post. I took a break and started back again at 1:08 AM and started my last session at 8:17AM. I had one small cash session ($.30 +.05) that pays deeper but still starts with 300 chips. Since what you win is entry into a $1 + .10 tournament, it really doesn't pay to play for cash and time wise it doesn't pay to play for 5 FTP's either. :-) Here is a list of my sessions and where I finished and number of hands I lasted. For a few hands I didn't make a note of the number of hands and I've not tried going back to PT to find that out.

At the end I finally had a victory and won an entry. I wasn't sure that was ever going to happen as coming in 1st or 2nd isn't all that easy especially when you start with only 300 chips Though called a Turbo the blinds only change every 5 minutes compared to the 6 minutes for SNG's that I play, so it's not that bad. Some other tournaments have 3 minute blinds and 300 chips!!

I'm not sure if I learned anything more in how to play 300 chip tournaments, at least in the sense that I'm getting a feel for it. Ideally I feel you want to chip up early so you have enough chips that you can put pressure on those with 300 or less chips and be able to absorb the losses you might take. The payoff, of course, is if you get a few of those 300 or less chippers into a pot and you win you make nice chip gains.

But what cards to play to get that initial chip boost? Certainly big cards are likely to do better than small cards, though not always. One example: I had Ah Kd vs pocket Q's (Qc Qh) vs pocket J's (Jd Jc) vs 6s 9s. Who won? Well here is how the board ran out:  6d 6h 3d 9d 4d.  I ended up with a K high diamond flush, pocket J's ended up with a J high diamond flush, BUT 69 ended up with a FH!!! Those kind of hand results can all too often happen as, particularly in the earlier part of the session, you have multiple player pots with folks who bet, call, and go all-in with crap and since you end up going to the River anyone can win!

One other thought, why did I play so many sessions? Well one reason certainly is it only cost 5 FTP to get in and as soon as one 90 player tournament filled up FT started another one. I could have played multiple tables easily but I'm not ready for that yet. So easy to get a new session and cheap when you have 2400+ FTP points to start with AND I wanted the experience of trying to succeed starting with only 300 chips. That's the plus side of my continually playing.

On the negative side it's a lot like when I play regular solitaire on my 'puter (I play the Vegas version) and when I lose I play one more, then another one more, on & on & on ... I just can't stop. I want that win and see the cards flying on my screen. & what happens after I win? Well I think, maybe I can do it again and the cycle starts all over. Now last night once I won I was tired (I was tired before that) so I was glad I could quit and go to bed, PLUS once I have won an entry, that would only cost me $1 + .10 to enter on my own, there isn't much $$$ incentive to play more, at least last night.

Anyway it was fun and interesting and kept me away from losing any real money except that $.30 + .05. Now can I handle that possible up to 100,000 field Easter Sunday and end up being one of the 5 who win that $12,000 package???? I can dream can't I? :-)