Freeroll Tournament

Last night on Stars, I decided I ought to try a tournament, if nothing else to confirm that I suck at them. Also to get a little practice at larger-field tournaments before heading out to Vegas next week. (Oh my god, that's next week!)

I was looking for a 100 or so player tournament, but a freeroll tournament was starting up in 20 minutes, so I signed up. Hey, free practice, right? No cash prize pool - the top 27 places received free entry into another tournament several days from now, that one with a $1000 prize pool.

There were 3600 people in. Not quite what I was looking for, but did I mention "free"?

I decided to look at it as an endurance test, since my usual problem in big tournaments is getting bored and then doing something stupid. A huge field would be good for that.

I don't think I fully anticipated how the "free" part would really work into it. Players started going all-in nearly immediately, trying for a quick doubleup. I stayed out of the way, waiting for good cards and picking up pots when I got them. About 300 players were gone in the first 10 minutes. 600 in the first 20. Holy crap.

I played reasonably well, I thought, picking my spots and betting aggressively. I doubled up a couple times by having a good hand when someone else went all-in with a marginal one. I made the second break, two hours in. We were down to a few hundred players by then, and although they weren't supid, my tablemates didn't strike me as particularly strong.

The problem was, it was after midnight and I was starting to doze off. Part of me wanted to tough it out and see how far I could get. But the prize was entry into a tournament that began at 1am Monday morning and already had 1000 entrants, so would likely be several hours long. Even if I won, I wasn't going to stay up all night before work to play in a huge tourney with a $1000 prize pool.

When we got down to about 150 players left, I decided enough was enough. I had made my point and lasted two hours and beaten out 3500 other players. So I made a very risky semi-bluff, getting called by a better hand... and then sucking out on the poor guy to make my straight and bust him. I had nearly doubled up, and with 100 players left, the "money" was in sight. But I was having trouble keeping my eyes open to see it.

I got moved to another table. If I could stay awake and alive for another 40 minutes or so I would probably make the money, but I was done. Time for a "go out in a blaze of glory" hand. I found AK suited shortly after, raised, got reraised by the table chipleader, rereraised him back, was rerereraised, and I pushed. He called with a trifling AA, and I nearly doubled up the guy, giving him a massive lead over the rest of the table.

I went to bed happy with my play. I had finished in 80th place of 3600, and could have gone further. I knew damn well I was beat when I played that last hand, and would have survived and continued if that's what I was after. And I found that there are a lot of stupid poker players out there, so maybe I don't have to be as worried about big tournaments as I have been.

On the other hand, any blogger game every blogger game I have played in has been Noam Chomsky compared to this Dick and Jane crap.