Online adventures

Von nzvr4poker, 18.02.2009, 3949 Aufrufe, 59 Kommentare | Kommentar hinzufügen

Hi again everyone. This week I have been back to playing lots online. Pokerstars have been celebrating their 25 billionth dealt hand with a series of promotions, with one of them being an inflated Sunday Million to a whopping prize pool of $2.5 million guaranteed. I paid the required $215 and took my virtual seat amongst just over 13,000 entrants. With what ended up being a massive $2.65 million to be shared amongst 2,025 players, I was well motivated to get my share of the cake.

During the first level of the tournament with the blinds 50/100 I picked up in the big blind. I called an under the gun raise of 300. The flop was . I check-raised my opponent’s bet of 400 to 1000 and was called. We both checked the turn and my opponent check-called my bet of 1100 when the river came , flipping over 88 and giving me a big pot of 4,850 to send me on my way.  My next big hand was when I found   under the gun and raised to 750 with the blinds 150/300. I was called in two spots including the big blind. The flop came down . I bet 1,400 and was called by the big blind. On the turn the  appeared and after being checked to again I bet 2,700 which the big blind also called. The river was the and I checked behind with my opponent showing and me collecting a nice pot of 10,600 to add to my stack.

Just after the first break I picked up QQ in early position and raised only to be re-raised by a late position player. The villain was short stacked and I made the call for a pot of approximately 10,000 and the board ran out giving me a very healthy 21,050 chips. After getting up to 25,000 chips I had my first major setback when I called a mid position raise from the big blind with  . After a flop I checked before calling my opponent’s shove. Unfortunately he had and my hand didn’t improve dropping me to 19,000 chips. After that I found progress much harder, winning some pots and losing others to drop down to 17,000 in chips. With the blinds at 600/1200 I raised to 3,000 from the second position to act and a late position raiser shoved all in for 25,000 forcing me to fold my AJo hand and dropping me to 14,000 chips. I needed to chip back up as there were only about 4,000 players left so the money was approaching fast.

Unfortunately, the end of my tournament wasn’t far away. With the blinds 750/1,500 with a 150 ante I picked up in the second position to act and I raised an under the gun limper to 3.900 total. I was called and the flop came down and with 11,100 in the pot I interpreted his check to be a sign of weakness and shoved all-in. I was snap called and the villain turned over leaving me drawing dead to running cards. The turn  and river did not help my hand and I was out in 3,249th place. A bit disappointing but I learnt a lot from another Sunday Million adventure.

Since the Sunday Million which is actually played on Monday morning in Australia and New Zealand, I have been attempting to qualify for the New Zealand Poker Championships as well as the LAPT (Latin American Poker Tour) Mar del Plata and ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour) Sydney tournaments. I haven’t had much luck so far with highlights being AJ losing to A3 on a AJ3 board after the money went all-in on the flop and the river was another 3. Following that I had 33 all-in against J7 short stacked losing to quads on the turn. In another tournament I ran AQo into AA after the rebuy phase and lost with 88 to 55 all in preflop in one of my other tournaments. To make matters worse I had cashed in today’s 6-max $5 $4000 guarantee only for my AKo to lose a big pot all-in pre-flop against KTs when the river was a ten, condemning me to a respectable 139th place out of 1,740 runners. As you all know these moments are part of poker and unfortunately in February luck hasn’t been on my side. Cross your fingers and hopefully I can report some happy endings to you all.

Finally, as promised from ANZPT Adelaide I got a photo taken with my friend Dennis Huntly’s fiancee Jennifer. The photo was taken at the welcome party before the main event.