Close But No Cigar

(I really have no idea how that saying came about. Does anyone else?)

So tonight I was sitting at home alone. Shiela had been called in to work, there was no small group and my new soccer coaching season hasn't started yet...so I had some free time. Now my online poker bankroll has been on the rough edge lately. I had taken $5.00 and worked it up to around $135. Then things went downhill. I started losing a lot of $5.00 heads up games and the next thing I knew my bankroll was down to $11.00! Needless to say I lowered my playing limits back to the $0.02 -$0.04 limit Texas Hold 'Em game with the occasional game of $2.00 no limit. So since my bankroll is so small, I can't afford to enter any tournaments...so I'm looking for free ones.

I found this one tournament that was a little different than most. Usually in a tournament the winners win money or else a seat into a bigger tournament. But this tournament was giving away 2 tickets to the April 16th NBA Miami Heat game plus $2500 in expense money to the top two finishers and it only cost 700 player points to enter. So I did...along with 775 other people.

I decided to play very tight this tournament and see how far I could last. It didn't go well. I was playing very few hands and was getting blinded to death. Finally, I was down to 900 chips and managed to win a hand with three people in the pot. That pushed me up to 2500 in chips and things turned around. I kept playing tight and eventually I worked my way up to 50,000 in chips! I was in 10th place overall and was loving it.

Unfortunately as the tournament went on I lost out ona couple hands. One big one was when I had QQ and the flop came A X X. There were four people still in the hand and I figured one of them had an Ace. However, no one bet big on the flop so I bet a couple thousand. Two of them called. The turn was another Ace. I didn't like that. The player to my right bet around 5000 and I went into the think tank. I could reraise him here to see if he's bluffing, but I was down to around 25,000 in chips and the blinds were 800 and 1600. I finally folded as did the other player. Then 2 hands later I held Ace 5 offsuit in the big blind. There were two raises in front of me and I again had to think about this. I was pretty sure someone else held an Ace and my 5 kicker was very low and I was out of position. I folded. The flop came A X 5. I almost cried as I would have surely doubled up there.

In spite of those hands I was still doing well and I made it to the final 2 tables which meant there were only 20 people left. I was dealth A 10 offsuit on the button and I raised aroudn 5000. I was called by 3 others. I forget what the flop was but I had a gutshot straight and ended up calling all in because I only had round 7000 left anyway. I lost and was finished in 18th place.

So althought I won't be going to Miami this Sunday, I was pumped with my overall performance. If I could finish in 18th place in a regular money tournament online I would be doing pretty well (that means I finished in the about the top 2%). I'll have to keep playing these free tournaments and hopefully next time I'll be off to sunny ol Florida!