Zero To Sixty

So I played in the Absolute Poker Friday Night $50 Freeroll, along with nearly 5,000 other people. I guess the good news is that I finished in 120th place, which isn’t too bad considering the competition, but I was once again out-of-the-money.  I made relatively few mistakes, and when I lost a big pot due to a small mistake or a bad beat, I didn’t lose my self-control.

All in all, I feel good moving forward, even as I still sit with zero money.

At second break I’m at 132 out of 138. I guess I could consider this “good,” as the tournament started with nearly 5,000 players, but I’m not happy. I want to always be at least in the top half as the tournament runs.

I’m 257 out of 729 remaining players in the Absolute Poker Friday Night $50 Freeroll. Feeling pretty good about how I’m doing so far, although I have a long way to go.

Had to take care of some family things with school tonight, so I missed the Bodog freeroll. I played in several of the Carbon Poker “Funstep” sit’n'go tournaments, and got past level 1 to level 2. I got busted in level 2 with a particularly bad beat (opponent hit triple kings when I had two pair As and Ks). So it’s back to the drawing board tomorrow.

I’m particularly proud of how I got to round 2, however. I got hit with two bad beats in a row, which took me down to $250 in chips head-to-head against my opponent, who had $5750 in chips. From that huge hole, I climbed out and won! I’ll take this as a good sign–this time I didn’t lose my head or my optimism when I got knocked to the floor. I came back and won.

Still, the nightly result was the same: Total winnings still sit at $0.00.

I took part in another Bodog $500 freeroll tonight, but I exited the tourney quickly. I hit one of those streaks you simply can’t do anything about–a run of playable hands that weren’t winners. In an attempt to finesse some chips out I even played aggressively, but my opponents didn’t back down. As a result, my stack dwindled quickly, even as I played fairly well. Here’s a good example.

With my stack at $1,000 in an early round and the blinds at $5/$10, I was dealt in the big blind:

This is not a bad big blind draw, and I limped in for $10. The small blind raised it to $35. That wasn’t a good sign, but with an ace in my hand, a flush draw, and a mere $15 to potentially snag $50 (close to 5 to 1 odds), I figured that it was a small price to pay to see the flop. Which came…

Bingo! Top pair on the flop! Now all I had to worry about is what the small blind was raising pre-flop. The odds were against him having KK or AA and him flopping a set. My best guess was that he had QQ, AT, or something similar. I also considered there being a small chance he had AK. Of all the combinations, the only one that I considered realistic and that scared me was if he had an ace and a higher kicker, as my kicker was a lowly 5.

Small blind came out with a modest bet of $50, which I expected. I wanted to test him immediately (unlike my performance the previous night, where my passivity cost me lots of chips), so I raised him another $50 to $100 even. The idea was certainly good, but I should have come in stronger. The truth is that I didn’t want to lose more chips than I needed to, but I needed to push him off the idea that I may have had a K pair, and I certainly needed to destroy any flush draw pot odds he might have. A proper raise here would have been $150 or so. That would have put the pot at $250, with him having horrible flush draw pot odds.

Anyway, he re-raised me, and since he did raise preflop, the flush draw talk is probably moot. As it was, I would have folded right there, but the raise was only $50, and a call was certainly in order to see the next card. I called.

A good card in that it didn’t change the balance on the table. There was still a flush draw, but I had top pair. Small blind ended matters right there, however, by betting the the pot with $365. I folded on the spot.

I lost $170, which took me to $830, not a horrible place but certainly not the way you want to start a tournament. All told, I believe I played this hand okay. Betting strong on the flop would most likely have gotten me re-raised and led to a fold–making me lose about the same amount of money. On the other hand, I am sure that doing that was a better play.

What followed were a number of hands that were playable, some even in the face of raises, but in the end poor flops and turn cards required me to fold with a loss. I did make a big mistake, however,  and it was the clincher: I called a $200 preflop raise with AT suited. When the T hit the flop, and I had top pair and Ace kicker, I couldn’t have been happier. I bet $215, and was aghast when the preflop raise fellow raised me to nearly all-in. I was clearly facing a higher pocket pair and folded. That took me down to a couple hundred bucks, and when I lost a good all-in to double my hand on a bad beat, my tournament was over.

So here I am at the end of day two with the same result: $0.00.

Tonight was my first attempt to earn money to start my voyage to $60K. I entered the Bodog $500 freeroll. First prize: $120. I started out well, and up until the first break I was near the top. I then hit a series of setbacks. These weren’t major setbacks but smaller ones. I would call them small mistakes. Some weren’t even really mistakes. Here’s a good example:

I was in the big blind with a stack of $8,470. Big blind was $100.00. I was dealt:

One player raised to $200, and here was my first mistake. With a crap hand, I called. So we go to the flop:

This was much better! I had top pair, and the possibility of a flush or straight was minimal. Granted, I had a lousy kicker, but there was already a second pair on the board. The only thing I had to worry about was a pocket pair Js, Qs, or Ks (and 9s!). I didn’t worry too much about a 9, as it was quite unlikely that anyone would raise preflop with a non-paired 9 in their hand, and the odds of a flopped four of a kind is astronomical. Still, there was that chance of the pocket royals.

I led out with a bet of $100, figuring I had the best hand at the table. Mr. “preflop raise” reraised me $100, and here is where I made another small mistake. At that point I should have re-raised something big like double the pot or just folded. With my strong hand, raising big was probably the right play. If he calls my big raise, I know he has a monster, and I can get out quickly after a check. If he doesn’t that means I won the hand. Instead, I called.

In my head I felt I had the best hand, and I reasoned that an extra $100 was a small price to pay to move ahead. This isn’t an unreasonable thought, but the reality is that he isn’t re-raising unless he is bluffing or has something substantial, and with what was showing on the table, it had to be a pocket pair of jacks or higher or, goodness, even pocket 9s. Still, I forged ahead. The next card dealt was:

I tend to be aggressive in certain spots and one of those is when I think I have the best hand. I still held out hope that was the case here, so I led with $120 bet. This was mistake number three. Leading with a check here and seeing how strong his raise would be was absolutely a better play. The raise should have been bigger and occurred on the flop. But here it was a mistake.

As it is, he re-raised me again a small $120. I called, which was clearly another small mistake. By now, he was making it clear that he had a big hand. A queen dropped, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash after I bet. So it is likely he had KK, AA, or 99. All of which blew me away. Still, I forged ahead. Next up came…

This was a total nothing card, but it made it clear that there was no flush and no straight in play. In hindsight, a spade here may have worked in my favor, as the flush draw may have succeeded in scaring him out, and his reticence to bet may have solely been based on worrying about the flush draw (although I think it more likely that he was slow playing me into death by papercut!).

At this point, it was down to my top pair and whatever he had in his hand. Only five hands beat me: Pocket aces, Kings, jacks, a queen, or some 9 combination. I very foolishly felt that it was unlikely he had any of these. I bet $440. Clearly I wasn’t reading all the signals over the past few cards. He definitely had one of these! What was I thinking? Any way, he raised the pot (now standing at $1,930), and I folded.

In poker terms it wasn’t a disastrous hand. I lost $960, which was significant but not overwhelming when you consider I started with $8,470. The trouble is that I had just played a few hands like this, and my stack, which was near $10K after the break, was now down to $7510.

Psychologically, these small losses did a number on me, and this is one thing I absolutely need to improve upon, because these small losses led me to just chuck the whole tournament a few hands later. Feeling depressed at my stack getting smaller, I was dealt:

This is an very good starting hand. In fact, it is the 22nd best starting hand in hold’em. I felt good about finally winning some chips back. Unfortunately, a fellow to my right went all-in before the flop. Now he had a large stack, so it is remotely possible that he was trying to bully the table (and I faintly tried to convince myself of that), but the reality is that he had a strong hand, and most likely an extremely strong hand.

However, I saw his huge stack (he had over $18,000 to my $7,000), and I could think of only one thing: Doubling up! All of the small losses had beaten me down, and–despite the fact that I still had a stack more than double the tournament average–I felt I had to make a statement. I simply wanted the death by papercut to end. It was all or nothing! In short, I lost confidence in my ability to put together some small and medium-sized wins to climb back into the upper echelons of the tournament.

So I went all in.

Everyone else folded and we were mano y mano. He turned his cards over, and–no surprise–they were big:

In head-to-head situations, pocket pairs are monsters. This was worse because we shared a queen. So even if I paired up with a Q that dropped, he would still win with 3 of a kind. So I had only three hopes: A king to drop or four hearts or clubs to drop. Needless to say, the odds of either of those happening were very very slim. Here’s how it played out:

Any hope of a flush was now gone. My only hope now was a K.

One last hope.

And I was out of the tournament.

One of the most important skills in poker is willpower and self-control. You need to steadfastly play the right way, even when you suffer a series of setbacks or you can’t seem to catch a break. Just when you try to “break the rules” or bend them to fit your circumstances is when you start to really careen out-of-control. That happened to me today.

So, as a result, my first step toward $60,000 ends with me not having actually moved at all.

My bankroll still sits at $0.00.

I’m not sure if I’ll have time to participate in the Bodog free roll tomorrow night, but I am planning on starting tomorrow. One of the funny things about large freerolls is that in the early rounds, a lot of people join with the idea of just rolling the dice and building large stacks of chips in the first few hands. They do this by putting all their chips into the middle of the table for their first bet, even if they have lousy cards. If they win and get that large pile of chips, then they continue playing normally. If they don’t, then they are out and no money lost (after all, these are freerolls!).

I’m not a big fan of this strategy, but I certainly am open to taking advantage of the situation. If I get a powerful set of hole cards tomorrow, I’ll go all in and collect the chips. So, let’s hope that my first two cards are…

That would be nice.

Okay, obviously the first thing I need is a bankroll. I can’t start making money at poker if I don’t have any money to start with. That means I have only two options: Freeroll tourneys and earning the $1 via Carbon Poker’s fun tournaments. I’ll be working on both. Once I have some money (even 1 dollar), I’ll start working the small stakes cash tables.

Freeroll tourneys are just that: Free tournaments that actually pay you cash if you win. Usually it is a relatively small amount, but it is something and definitely a start. I’ve looked over about a half dozen poker sites, and only three have a significant number of freerolls: Carbon Poker, Absolute Poker, and Bodog. Absolute Poker and Carbon Poker have $50 freerolls, which award you around $5 if you come in first place. Bodog has a daily freeroll with a $500 prize fund. First place there is actually a decent chunk of change.

So my first plan is to focus my efforts on Bodog’s nightly 8:40 PM (central time) $500 freeroll and finish in the money (ideally in first!).

Another possibility is Carbon Poker’s “fun” sit’n'go tourneys. These are tournaments where you trade play money for a coupon that let’s you participate in level 1. Level 1 is a 6 seat tournament, with the winner receiving a coupon for level 2. Level 2 is another 6 seat tournament, with the winner receiving a coupon for level 3. Level 3 is a 10 seat tournament, and the winner gets (drumroll)… $1.

That’s right, if you can make it through three tournaments against relative new poker players, you can earn a buck. Sounds like nothing, but since I’m starting with zero, and I could use $1 on microstakes tables, I could actually build off of that.

The good news is that Carbon poker is constantly running the fun tourneys, so you can take part at any time. This is ideal for me, since I am focusing my major efforts on a single freeroll tournament, the Bodog $500 one in the evening. I can then play the smaller Carbon Poker fun tournaments whenever I have some free time or am bored.

So here’s my starting strategy: Play as many of the $500 Bodog nightly freeroll tourneys as I can, with the initial goal of finishing in the money. Once I do that I can move onto the next stage of my strategy, which is building my bankroll via cash tables. The same time I am focusing on the Bodog freeroll, I will play in the Carbon Poker “fun” tourneys, with the goal of winning $1 here or there to start another bankroll.

While I gave myself no time limit, I would hope that I have at least $1 within my first week.

For this adventure, there are very few ground rules, but the rules themselves are important. Here they are:

1. I cannot start with, add, deposit, or in any way shape or form increase the money I am able to work with.
   • This includes not only myself but deposits or gifts from others.
   • When I get to $60,000, it must all be pure winnings.
2. I can only include winnings from poker. This includes all types of poker, from razz to stud, but the truth is that I pretty much foresee myself only playing no limit hold’em.
3. I am free to use any online poker room, but it must be online. If I happen to win money in a brick and mortar casino, that doesn’t count.
4. I am free to withdraw money for personal use at any time. While this will lower the money I can use in stakes games, it still counts as winnings.
   • This also means that if I withdraw money, I can re-add it to my account.
   • In other words, this is a net income game. At the end of the road, I need to simply have won $60,000 more than I have lost in online poker, starting with zero and not depositing any non-winnings money.
5. There is no time limit.

Okay, if I think of any more, I’ll update the rules, but basically it’s pretty simple: From zero to sixty via online poker.