I played a warm up poker tournament Friday night, to get me into the swing of poker. Actually, I think I played two (I don’t remember what nights I played which games.) The first one, I got busted out early by a guy who called my all in (with a straight) and hit his flush on the river. That was ok though, because the next tournament I played, I won. I changed my strategy a little bit for the end game, and came up as the winner. So, at that point, I’d played in 5 tournaments (4 pot limit) and finished in the money 3 times (first, second and third.) I was all psyched for the big freeroll on Saturday night.

I didn’t do so well.

In fact, I was out before the people who didn’t even bother to show up.

I got busted on a bad semi-bluff. I had the guy pegged on either a bluff or a small pair, when he had actually been betting an inside straight draw, which he managed to hit on the river. When I fired at the pot, he thought for a really really long time, before calling me, and sending me packing. It was pretty counter intuitive to me, because he was betting all the way, when he should have been hoping for a free card, though I guess he thought he could get rid of me by throwing pocket change at the pot. It worked out for him anyway - well to the extent that he lasted a lot longer than I did - we both wound up with the same amount of prize money.

Anyway, so since I’d set aside that time to play poker, I signed up for a $10/1 single table tournament. It was also a lot of fun, except that this time I finished in the money - second in fact. FWIW, that’ s 4 out of 6 tournaments in the money now, and a grand total of +$39 to my account, which brings me back to about what the free money guys gave me (plus a buck or so.) More importantly though, I’m having a lot of fun playing, which wasn’t the case with those silly $0.50/$1 limit games I was playing. That’s enough poker for one day though. I’ll just close with this - the free money thing is real, and a good way to get to play live poker without risking anything online. They don’t even require a credit card. They also have an affiliate program, so if you’re interested, let me know, and I’ll send you info (I’m not going to post the information here, because I don’t want to. So there.)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “A cup-holder! Bart, we’ve got to stop and get a cup!” - Milhouse