2 Million Dollar Bills

Tuesday has finally arrived and of course that can only mean one thing, its my weekly online poker session. I suppose my first two Tuesdays have been a disaster, but I don’t feel that they truly represent my Texas Hold em poker playing ability.

As anybody that plays online poker or poker in the real world for that matter, is fully aware that you will never be successful all the time in tournament play. At the present time Im still up about $60, since I started back playing with my free incentive of $20, which Party Poker kindly gave me. I had built the free $20 up to over $100, through grinding it out playing single table tournaments.

Im confident that I can get things back on track, I remember when I first started out playing online poker probably about 2 years ago. I had a fairly sedate start not really winning or losing much money. Then I had a amazing spell where I placed about 5 times in those 90, 60 and 30 person tournaments, along with some fairly solid performances in NL Hold em and heads up play. I was up about $900 in about 1 month. I then made a typical mistake made my many online poker players, I thought I was invincible; I thought I was going to become a legend.

I for some reason I stopped playing tournaments, (wish I could explain this decision) and concentrated on NL Hold em and Heads up play. I drastically increased the level at which I was playing at. I also started playing 3 and 4 rooms at a time, I was useless at this, but kept on persisting, telling myself it was a learning curve and I would come good. I thought I could handle it, I was on a roll. At this stage I also never had a clue about bank roll management.

Within about 2 weeks I had blown the $900, I sort of blinked and it was all gone, I had quite simple tried to progress on to bigger money play too quickly. I had become delusional; I had blown all my winnings before I stopped to think about things. It was after this point, I started buying poker magazines and I started to learn about money management and the importance of building up a bankroll, and playing within the level that your bankroll allowed you to play. I could see clearly where it all had gone wrong.

Shortly after this I become disheartened with Poker, one minute I was up $900 next I was down a few dollars, I had lost my will to play poker. A game which I use to enjoy and got buzz out of, it was now stressing me out. I stopped playing for about a year, until the free $20 from Party Poker arrived. I have started playing NL Hold em tournaments because I feel that is my strongest game and I enjoy it the most.

My aim is to obviously to start placing in the prize money and to experience the ultimate buzz of winning a tournament with fairly decent prize money. In my mind its only a matter of time until this happens. Maybe I need to start playing more than one poker tournament a week, but unfortunately I haven’t got the time at the moment. I’m busy working on my 2 million dollar bills goal and that involves various other business opportunities, which I’m actively working on.

Its curry night at the local, so I’m off for a nice curry to set me up for a successful poker tournament later tonight, I haven’t decided which one Im playing in yet, especially after the way I messed up last week. I’m hoping to get some good cards and a wee bit of luck; my poker ability will take care of the rest!

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I was ready to begin my poker session, I was going to be playing a $33 NL Hold em buy in, with a guaranteed prize fun of at least $5000. The tournament was scheduled to begin at around 10.30 pm UK time. I was looking forward to the game and trying to improve on my last poker performance.

I was busy working on a web site, which I’m in the process of building, prior to the tournament beginning. This was a big mistake; I should have been preparing myself mentally for the poker war that was ahead of me. This is where it all went wrong, before I was even dealt a hand of poker!

I was so focussed on building another web site, which is an important part of my business plans and of me achieving my goal of making 2 million dollar bills, that I forgot to register for the tournament, I thought I had clicked on the register button, but it transpired that I hadn’t. Another valuable lesson in life was learned through poker, I should concentrate on one thing at a time, and give it 100% of my concentration, focus and effort.

There wasn’t any  tournaments within the next 2 hours,  which  I felt offered a decent enough challenge or prize money. I find that when you play low money entry poker tournaments, that too many of so called poker players that are playing, are solely relying on luck, they constantly go all in with crap and they sometimes luck out on the river. Guys going all in with J10 or Q8 what’s that all about!

I’m currently playing my poker on Party Poker, which isn’t my favourite site, but I still have over $100 of winnings left in my account, and it will provide quite few entry fees’ into tournaments. I personally feel that PKR is the future of poker, but that’s another story.

I needed a poker fix, so I registered for the next tournament, which was one of those unskilled low value games. It was a $2 buy in NL hold em, it had around 400 entrants, with an unexciting amount of prize money.

The first table had the usual online poker suspects from around the world, players from the UK, Holland, Russia, Germany, and Canada. The game went the way I was expecting! Out of the first 10 hands, there had been 5 quick all in’s.

After 5 hands I won 560 in chips, when I paired my A on the flop, Not long after this I had a starting hand of AJ, on the flop I hit my A, I was getting action from Chewyscat2, I was starting to think he may have had AK or AQ, but he had went all in earlier with A2, so I thought I would take my chances with him. He hit a 10 on the river, which gave him two pair, I lost 1200 chips.

Not long after this It became apparent that I had to take a chance and try and double up, if I was to have any chance of making the money. I had a starting hand of A4,  I went all in, if I won I would be back up to about 4000, so it was worth the gamble. Chewyscat2 called me, he had a starting hand of JJ, I never hit my A. So there it goes, I was well and truly shit on by Chewyscat2 for a second time! I placed 187 for the tournament.

The only way to make the money or to win these lower value games of poker is basically to have a lot of luck. One of the guys in the room doubled his stack to over 6000 when he went all in with Q9, he paired his Q on the river, and not long after that he had his stack up to 9000 with a similar piece of luck. Either he has a poker crystal ball, which is helping him out, or he is working for Party Poker, or he is the luckiest worst poker player in the word!

Another disastrous night of poker, what could I do, it was 12.30pm, I couldn’t even try and get the wife to play a game of strip poker as she was sleeping. The way my luck was running I would have probably lost at this as well, but I suppose it wouldn’t have really mattered! There is always tomorrow, as far as the strip poker is concerned!

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I was finally ready to begin my, soon to become infamous Tuesday Online Poker Sessions, I hadn’t played poker for over a month, but I expect it to be like riding a bike, you never forget!  My goal is a simple one, to make some serious money. I plan on starting off by playing in tournaments, which provide a decent amount of prize money.

I found a NL Hold ‘em tournament on Party Poker which started at around 10.30pm (UK time), $33.00 dollar buy in, when the tournament started there were 256 players, a prize fund of $7680, and you had to finish in the top 30 to make some money.

I was ready, my mind was focussed, I was calm and relaxed, and the excitement was building as I watched the final minutes ticking down. I had my supplies next to me, my large bag of jelly babies and 3 cans of Nutrament Energy and protein drink. I played Ace Of Spades, by Motorhead, real loud to get me pumped.

The game was NL Hold ‘em and you received 3300 starting chips. The blinds went up every 10 minutes. I was up against some characters by the names of greko222, texaspete00, bentinck1131 and another 5 weirdly named poker legends, my name of choice was exactly1111.

My strategy was to play really tight right from the start, the first hand I was dealt was a pair of Queens, I paid to see the flop and, then folded, there was a potential flush and an ace on the table. I never played another hand for about 35 minutes, I had AK off suited, and paid 300 chips to see the flop and then folded when I hit nothing, someone raised it up to 1000. I then won 400 5 minutes later with a pair of 10’s.

I made it to the first break with 2210 chips, after an hour of play, things weren’t looking too good, I had to take a chance at some point real soon and try and double up. My first hand after the break was AQ, I shoved all in and everyone folded and I was back up to 2960 chips. 3 hands later I shoved all in again with A10 off suited and got called and lost!

I finished in 77th place, which is the way it goes sometimes, If I could have doubled up at the point when I lost, I would have most definitely have made the prize money, but the poker gods were against me, and my timing was wrong. It was my first game for over a month and I was a wee bit rusty, but I will return next Tuesday ready to do battle again.

There was only one thing left to do, and that was have a week glass of Mount Gaye rum and coke, to console myself. The glass of rum cheered me up and reminded me, that I will be living in Barbados in 3 weeks time. I can’t wait to get there and play some live poker with the card sharks at St Johns!

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