First MTT win on PokerStars

So as mentioned in previous post I took down the $.25 buy-in MTT. Entered final table as chip leader and continued my domination and took it down.

PokerStars Tournament #48311583, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $0.25
2698 players
$100.00 added to the prize pool by PokerStars.com
Total Prize Pool: $774.50
Tournament started - 2007/04/27 - 22:00:00 (ET)

Dear Stewman20,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $125.86 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 363.06 tournament leader points in this tournament.

Final hand

PokerStars Game #9645193915: Tournament #48311583, $0.25+$0.00 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIII (25000/50000) - 2007/04/28 - 04:14:32 (ET)
Table '48311583 182' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 5: mindthink (383412 in chips)
Seat 8: Stewman20 (3663588 in chips)
mindthink: posts the ante 2500
Stewman20: posts the ante 2500
Stewman20: posts small blind 25000
mindthink: posts big blind 50000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Stewman20 [Ad Kd]
Stewman20: raises 2650000 to 2700000
mindthink: calls 330912 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [2c 8d Qh]
*** TURN *** [2c 8d Qh] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [2c 8d Qh Td] [7d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mindthink: shows [Qd 9h] (a pair of Queens)
Stewman20: shows [Ad Kd] (a flush, Ace high)
Stewman20 collected 766824 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 766824 | Rake 0
Board [2c 8d Qh Td 7d]
Seat 5: mindthink (big blind) showed [Qd 9h] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 8: Stewman20 (button) (small blind) showed [Ad Kd] and won (766824) with a flush, Ace high

What a roll lately

So in the past 2 weeks, I qualified for the 100k on Pokerstars, finished 13th out of 3451 in the 20k free roll last Saturday (took a sick beat). I had KK and raised to 100k utg, bb moves me all in and we play the biggest pot of the tourney. He has AJ, spikes a jack on the flop and then a jack on the turn. He went on to win and I won $106.

Then played in a $.25 MTT tonight and took it down for $125.86. Beat 2697 players. More on next post about that.

Been playing great tourney poker lately. Went back to Uber Tight ABC poker and been successful. Literally playing about 20% of the hands. Not a style I generally like to play but it is working lately. Cash games have been sucking so may give those a break for now.

Quest Over....F Poker

Ok, so as you can tell by the title, my quest has ended. PokerStars account sits at $0.00. Why you ask? Well, I started the weekend (Friday Evening) with $454 in my account. I lost about $300 of that playing 2/4, 3/6 and .25/.50 NL. The rest was in various MTT, SNG's and shootouts. I tried 4 shootouts for the Sunday million tournament,making it to the final table once and finishing 5th when a guy made a horrible call on me with A3. I go all in utg for T1215 with 77 and the BB (in for 100) 3rd in chips calls me with A3. Of course an ace hits the flop and IGHN. Made a profit off of that but don't understand his call. That was how it was for me all the weekend in tourneys. I played 11 overall and when all in I had the best hand 10 times. I was playing the 3+r Sunday million satellite and had bought once and then did the add on and sat with over 50k with about 75 people left. I was 4th in chips at that point. Top 16 get entries into Sunday Million. With about 60 people left I made a horrible play. One limper ahead and I make it 4x the bb with 1010. Folds to everyone and limper calls. Flop comes J high and I bet half the pot. Limper min raises me and I push all in for some reason. He had about 30k and insta calls and has AJ. That hurt and a few levels later, I'm at about 22k and had 3 limpers ahead all in for 1k. I look down on the button with AQs and I just want to take the limpers money down. I push all in and the SB calls me with QQ and I don't hit my 3 outer.

I have over 5000 FPP's so I'll probably use those for WSOP qualifiers, but I don't think I'll be depositing anymore money into PS for the time being. I might try FTP. They have a good reload bonus so I may do that.

I do have a new plan though and it doesn't involve on-line poker which is a great thing. I am going to go and play live ring games at the Casino by my job at least once a week and if it goes well will bump that up. I went last Friday and played for less than an hour and booked a nice win. Wanted to stay but had an engagement to go to so had to leave a juicy game. The play there is not horrible but not great either. Seems like the players are either solid or total fish. I have played 5 times this year there and have 4 winning sessions. We shall see how that goes. They also run tournaments Tuesday and Wednesday nights. $130 buy-in and 20 minute levels. I don't remember starting chips but I want to say 3k, not sure. They usually have around 150 entrants and pay top 18 usually from what I can tell. I plan on playing that at least once a month. Hopefully my ring game action is good where I can play that tourney at least twice a month. Live poker is so much more enjoyable than on-line.

Saw some impressive multi-tabling yesterday. Well known on-line play Apestyles finished 18th in the Sunday Million for over $6k. At the same time he was playing 2 other tourney's and cashed in both of those. Made about 8k between the 3 tournaments. Don't know how these guys can play 3+ MTT's at once and go deep in all of them. Great concentration these guys must have. I try 2 tables at once and can't even do that effectively.

Saw another player who I've railed before. MrJack-Bauer was playing the Sunday Million and almost cashed. At the same time he was multi-tabling the 25/50 PLO game. He was cleaning up one one table. Don't know what he bought in for in that game but he was up to over 16k. When I started watching, he was well below that.

One final comment/observation regarding on-line poker. I know that this won't change because of the anonymity factor but I really wish people would stop using the chat box as a tool to criticize and continually clown on players. Over the past month I have had my share of comments made my way because of my play and comments made to others about their play. Some of it was valid criticism and others weren't. Granted in low-limit 6 handed ring games, you will have players chase or call down with midfdle or bottom pair and I am definitely guilty of that. I sucked out many times on players but let me tell you, I was sucked out more times than I sucked out on people. That is a fact of life in these games. You deal with it and move on. I never criticise or make fun of a player and wish others wouldn't. Why would I want to clown on a player who is really bad? I wouldn't say a word and hope he keeps reloading at my table so I can take more. If I point out how bad he is or make fun of him, he probably will leave.

Anyways just my 2 cents and I know it won't change and that no one will even read this but it is just something I needed to get off of my chest.

Quest update

Time for my weekly update regarding my quest. After being at a high of $992 just a short while ago, last week saw me drop about $800 playing games between 2/4-5/10. I played bad at times, played well at times, and just got cold decked. Had 2 royals made against me when I had boats, had 2 quads against me (one was runner runner) when I had boats and numerous other suckouts which are par for the course in low limit ring games.

This weekend saw me go from $122 up to $454 (thanks to NBA who got me $100 of that)and hopefully back on the right course. Still got long way to go but I still feel confident. I just need to keep plugging away.

Currently sit at exactly 4000 fpp's so I think that makes me gold status,not sure since it all wasn't done in one month (basically 3 weeks but over 2 months since I got there yesterday)

I did play in the 20k free roll open to silver stars and horribly misplayed my AA from the BB. Blinds 25/50 and I have approximately T3500. 1 limper and sb continues their bet and I raise to 225 with AA. Limper calls and SB folds. Flop comes 7-x-3. I bet a little more than half the pot and limper calls. Turn comes K and I bet half the pot and limper calls. River a blank and I instantly move all in and he instantly calls with a 33 for a flopped set and he has me covered and IGHN. Misplayed my big pair as I often do on-line. I need to learn to slow down. I know I've said this before but I'm so much more patient and thoughtful when playing live then on-line. Well at least it didn't cost me anything but about 30 minutes of my time.

Congrats to my boy "ilikebirds" who almost pulled off the trifecta of cashing in the 20k, 50k, and 100k free rolls. He cash in the 20k and 50k for $200 and almost cashed in the 100k. Not too shabby.