Last night I was playing a No limit hold’em freeroll at UltimateBet.com. Considering that it’s a freeroll and they cap it at 2500 people, changes are, you’re playing with a lot of crazies. That is to say people who didn’t risk anything to play and don’t care if they go out on the first hand. So the first few hands are always a little wild, and a good, solid player can get knocked out if they are not careful. Knowing this, I played conservatively.
The hands I did play, I won, solidly. I could see through the cards. I was also lucky not to go heads up with any whacko’s. At the break (one hour in) I had 5400 chips and was in 54th place. I was playing very “book-like”. At one point, I folded A A when the board came 7 8 9 and a guy, with 300 fewer chips then I, went all-in. It was a hard lay down and I told him I would fold if he showed me his cards. He showed 10 J suited.
So during the second hour of play, I continued playing strong hands, playing position, and stealing blinds. I slowly moved up to 20,000 chips. When the second break came I was at 35,000 and in the pay (top 50 received a TEC – Tournament Entry Chip for this Sunday). During the third hour I sat on my chips and just stole some blinds. We were down to 93 players remaining. 43 more till we all get paid. Antes were 125 and blinds were 500 – 1000. I was ready to do more sitting and wait for the short stacks to get blinded out.
Then the cable went out. Everything! TV, Internet, everything. I just stared at the screen as it told me I was having connection problems. I waited, and waited. It took about 10 minutes before I decided it wasn’t going to come back. My stack was going to have to survive for me. I went to bed, knowing that I had played solid, smart, no limit poker against a bunch of crazy cowboys and some solid players. In the morning, I checked the results. Did my stack hold up? Was I in the top 50? Click here to find out.
