A Very Special Thanks To Jeff!
Just when I was about to give up on this whole deal, I got a breakthrough!When Jeff commented to me regarding an earlier blog about a Play Money tourney on Full Tilt Poker helping to build a bankroll, I didn’t think I would have enough time to play and build up my play chips to 500K as needed for the tourney he mentioned. However, I did go out there and look around for what else may be available for winning real money through play chips games and tourneys and I found a tourney that appears to be played at varying times daily in which one can will a few tourney dollars by playing.
I logged in and got myself registered for the Play Money For Tourney Dollars tourney and settled in for battle. There were 2700 entrants and it began at 6:40 p.m. ET. Right off I started getting decent hands and was able to get my chip stack over average and at one point, I managed to have about 150,000 chips! (This is really good for me, folks).
I had to fold a lot of hands as would be expected and the blinds just kept on climbing. My stack slowly dwindled with only a starvation diet to live on and I got all the way down to 11,960 chips with 30 people left in the tourney. Blinds were at 6000/12000 and antes were 1500. I had to fold the next hand which left me with 8960 and I was BB. I was All-In with a Q,8 of diamonds and ended up with a full house when the table came as 3,Q,3,3,Q which saved my butt and gave me 36,880 chips.
I had to wait until I was back to being BB and had a 10,6 with 16,000 blinds. This time, I won with 2 pair (sixes and tens) and took home 107,760! By now, there were 27 people left in the tourney.
I got NO further hands to play and ended up All-In on BB again with a 4d and 2h LOL! My opponent took me out with 2 pair and I finished 14th with a WIN, yes WIN ladies and gentlemen of 2 Tourney $ Wooo Hooo!
I ain’t out of this thing yet! $Maxiecat$
May 10th, 2008 at 4:11 am
DAMN! That’s so exciting. I started with a $1.30 in my BR - that’s what I won out of the freeroll that got me into a freeroll that paid money. You can do it. You’ve proved you have the determination and willingness to learn as you go. Hell…you’ll probably pass me and Glenda before you can say “I’m in the money!”
good job. I’m so happy for you…us…woo hoo
May 10th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Good things come to those who wait. But that waiting really sucks.
You see that the river flows both ways. That’s been long in proving that in your game. You have to be in the hand to be sucked out on or do the sucking out. And we can see from your blog that occurs for more reasons than picking up the rockets.
You talk about winning hands. Did you manage a few steals as that stack slipped down to a weak M? Stealing isn’t just bluffing but is a necessity when you’ve manage to build a nice stack. Think about it from 3 off the button and the bigger your stack the earlier the position you can work from. You are not doing it with 72o, usually. But suited connectors or paint gives you something playable when called. It is comfortable to try it in the second hour where a 4x raise doesn’t cripple a stack. You may have to show down some weak hands which sets the table up with a different image of you that is as exploitable as a big stack. You don’t want to have that stack creep down to an M approaching 10. If you can pick that up, the third hour gets more workable. When all this happens right, it is more fun than back to back aces.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Took a look at the possibilities on Full Tilt. There are .05-.10 ring thats a real donkfest. You’d be pretty much setting with your whole roll there. Or you could give short stack buyins a try. There is an article on the site about doing that.
There are some rebuys that cost 0-.10 with the chips at .50 and an addon available to make the stack 2.5 starting. You could try to work those without going the rebuy or addon route. Or you could let it all hang out which wouldn’t likely be pleasant after.
My suggestion is the $1 SnG. These mini-tournaments are very workable. You can often fold you way to or close to the 3-way payout. If you could win won of those, you’d have a bit of breathing space and the odds are a lot better than in a cheap rebuy.
There are some play money SnG’s there you could get comfortable in.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
JK, thanks for the input. I will try the $1 SnG next and BTW, I did steal a couple of hands in there!
May 12th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
WHOOHOO!
Just noticed the post, congrats! I’ve been way too busy with work to keep up with the blog, but it looks like you’ve been busy!
I was very careful when I first started to build up a decent free $$ bankroll so I would feel comfortable in the real $$ games. At that point I hadn’t played any $ games, only playchip, so I wanted a cushion to make me feel more comfortable. I played the playchip games the same way I play the real $ games… I worked up a decent bankroll, then moved up a level. I slogged at 10k playchip games for frigging ever, got over 1M, then moved to 100k games. After that is was very easy to get enough chips to go into as many 500k games as I needed. I figure I saved time by NOT playing the regular freerolls, the odds of those things kinda suck.
I tried the $1 sng’s and quite frankly, I would stay VERY far away from those if you can help it. They are total crapshoots. The $2 games can be pretty fishy, but not like the $1. I lost a lot of my initial roll trying to make it through those, then wised up to the $2 games.
I know your impulse is to get into a cash game as quick as you can… but my vote is to save it till you have a comfortable stash…
Good luck!
Jeff
May 13th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Hi Jeff, Thanks for all the good information. I did play a $1 tourney that I will be blogging on later today. Too bad I did not get your post sooner! I will continue the play chip games now and see what I can do. Thanks again for your tips!