After not playing for about four weeks I have fiinally decided to get going again. I have been putting money together so that I will have some type of bankroll to start playing again. The decision was whether I wanted to play Live or stay with Tournament play.
The decision was fairly simple and came about a week ago. There is a group that has been playing league poker for about a year. The poker league has been five weeks at a time. They have a group that is about fifteen strong that play every Wednesday evening. They put together a package and pay for a tournament in the WSOP. On this one they are not specifying that you need to go to the WSOP and can claim your money in cash. Sounds like I should try my hand at this.
I have about seven weeks to go before my summer off but the classes I am taking right now are doing well and I am about a week ahead of schedule on all of my assignments and tests. Nice when they are done at home and I can spend the time working on the assignments to get them completed. I decided since this all was happening lets go for the opportunity.
Last night was the first evening of the league. I showed up early and waited for the beginning of the tournament. I know being a new person showing up in their event I would have to bide my time and learn how each of them play. I decided to come in with a plan and play very tight to see what each of the players would do and what their ranges would be. With the experience these guys have and playing at the WSOP and Wildhorse I hope I can also learn something from them.
The first hand I played was pocket 2's. The flop came out with xJJ and betting took place. I decided to stay in and another J came on the turn. With the full house I checked and the villian bet and I called. x came on the river and another round of betting and he took the lead in betting. Any bigger pair would beat me and that was my thinking. I ended up putting about 50% of my chips in and he turned over xJ. Ok, what a way to start.
I was very patient and my stack started to increase a little bit at a time. I was starting to hit some cards and the players were reluctant to play against me. I quess going all in with my short stack and them not wanting to double me up was some of it. I don't remember how many times I went all in during the evening but this next week I will need to figure out how to play post flop and beyond and not try to get out of the tournament by running into something bigger than what I have.
It was nice that I made the final table and from there I worked the chips and was the chip leader at one point. From there I was able to get to a third place finish and put a nice 1st week number up on the board. Now if I could keep this up and put some good finishes up for the remaining four weeks I should be fine.
I do need to study for the next weeks tournament. Also I can't forget about my computer studies as well.
Have a fun day......
