Tour 18,686 Freeroll Won Entry End 879 199 Hands $1,000 Weekly Freeroll

Play was going along nicely then came to a screeching end as I crashed and burned on hand 196. I'm UTG w/As Qd, 31,714 chips. Blinds are 500/1000/ante 125. I open raise 3 BB (3000), UTG +1 folds, MP1 & MP2 call, and rest fold, making for a nice 11,625 pot. Flop Ac 9c 8d. I bet 4500 into the 11,625 pot, MP1 folds, and MP2 raises me to 9000. At this point I could call or fold and would have been better off folding, but I decide to re-raise him going all-in w/my 24, 214 chips. I actually do think about what he may have and that he might have AK, which would be a better kicker than my Q, but decide to take the gamble that he doesn't. He calls and, yes indeed, he has it when he shows Ah Kc. :-/  Turn 6c. River 2s. I'm down to 1496 chips with the BB of 1000 and ante of 125 coming up next hand. Does not look good.

Next hand , 197, I go all-in w/Ah 6h that holds up against Qh 8d and Jc 7c. I now have 6238 chips. Hand 198 I fold. Hand 199 I have pocket 8's on the BTN and raise the 3 limps all-in w/my last 4148 chips, SB w/58,682 chips  calls, and the BB w/10,811 remaining chips re-raises all-in, the two others fold and the SB calls. SB has pocket 6's and the BB has A8o. Only one overcard out there to my 8's. I'm hopeful and if I win I'll have 15,000+ chips and able to breathe a little. Flop 3s Js 9d.  So far so good. Turn 4c. One card to go! River 6c giving the SB a set and I'm gone along w/the BB. Sad, but if I hadn't pushed AQ two hands earlier, I'd still be in the game most likely. Hard to tell how I'd have responded to betting w/my pocket 8's, though the J 9 would have scared me off a bit.

Overall I played ok and even though I blew it in hand 196, I was at least conscious of what I doing. Having been able to do that, I now must learn to also "just say no."

This freeroll was different than I expected. Players, in general, played better than I expected and though we had thousands they didn't drop as quickly as they usually do in a freeroll. I guess having to be one of the top 250 winners in the satellite brings a better caliber of player to the tournament. At least that was the case at the tables I was at.

I still haven't decided if this is "worth-it" as the most you can win is $100 if you come in 1stand only pays the top 90. It does give me good practice at building my chip stack in a large tournament like this and I find it gets a lot trickier when the blinds get to the levels I busted out at. You can't just wait for good cards and limping can eat up your chips while you're waiting for one of those hits that make up for all those little losses. Plus it seems when I don't go in my cards seem to hit and when I do they don't. Hand 171 was an example of this. Well, example, in terms of, it's a hand I could have easily decided to fold.

Hand 171. Blinds are 250/500/ante 50. I'm SB w/13,903 chips. Action folds to the HJ who open raises 2 BB (1000), CO folds, BTN calls, and I decide that even though I only have pocket 2's, it's only costing me another 500 to get into a 3200 pot. BB calls. Flop 2c 10s 5d. I hit my set!! Everyone checks to me and I check as well. Turn 10d. Uh oh, a possible larger set is the 1st thought comes to my mind and I'm feeling disappointed. I make a min bet of 500, BB folds, HJ calls and BTN calls. River Ad. Nuts again, now there is a flush possibility out there & that beats a set!! I bet another min of 500 into the 5900 pot, HJ raises me to 3500, the BTN re-raises to 6500, and I'm thinking crap!! Then something dawns on me.

Have you noticed I missed something very important here. Pocket 10's on the board w/my set means I have a FH. That beats a 10 set, that beats a diamond flush. Now if someone has pocket 5's or A's then I'm in trouble, but no one has bet anything prior to the River at this point, so I think I'm on pretty good ground here.  I could lose but I have a good chance of really chipping up! So I re-raise all-in w/my last 12,153 chips. The HJ calls and BTN re-raises to 18,806 and the HJ calls going all-in!!! Wheeeee!!!! Main pot, which is what I qualify for, is 43,909; side pot is 10,244. HJ shows Kd Qd having a nut high flush. BTN shows 3h 4h having a straight A-5. I win & boost my chips to 43,909!! Phew!!

Actually my not noticing the FH on the Turn probably helped me get a lot more chips as I'd have opened the betting more aggressively. By limping they thought I must not have much and they both had good hands that encouraged them to put their chips into play. I think the player with the straight was a bit iffy there and should have folded when he could see a flush on the board, but he may have been like I was later on and hoped the better didn't really have a hand that could beat him.