wsop qualifier

Well, it's that time again. Pokerstars WSOP qualifiers. I'll be looking to play a lot of satellites to win a seat this time. Last year, I staked half my buy-in at the main event and the other half by friends and family. You know you have a great support system and network of friends if they're willing to stake half of your buy in - esp. if it's the Main event. Anyway, I plan on playing the smaller buy-ins anyway for like $1000 or $2000. I would totally love to win a bracelet. I'd wear that shit all the time.

Anyway, I played a $5.50 tournament that is a satellite to a $160 double-shootout. The $5.50 is a unlimited rebuy tournament during the first round of play. Luckily enough, I never had to rebuy. Got real lucky a few times. I had AA vs. 77 in a three way hand and we both flopped a set. Of course he slow played and I slow played. By the river, we had all the money in and I took it down. Then I called a raise pre-flop with pocket 3s and tripped up and felted another poor soul. The very next hand I had pocket deuces and folded to a raise. I would have tripped up again and would have increased my bankroll. It was ridiculous. I should have played. Anyway, the blinds increased every 5 minutes. Talk about super-turbo mode. I made it into the top 20 - we got a free seat to the double-shootout. But to give you an idea of how ridiculously high the blinds were, they were $6000/$12000 blinds with $1000 antes.

Anyway, I'm waiting now to play the double-shootout. In case you don't know what a double-shootout is, it's basically playing two sit-n-go tournaments in a row. You have to win both to win the whole thing. Not an easy feat. This particular one has 81 players (9 tables of 9 players). The winner of each table ends up at the final table. The winner of the final table gets a paid seat at the World Series Main Event with $1000 and spending money/hotel for the week.

I'm back now and I didn't take it down :(
I played my pocket jacks a little too aggressively. What happened was I had the JJ in the big blind. The button raised and the small blind called. First of all, with the raise on the button, I can't give any credit to the hand. The call felt weak so I felt my Jacks were the best hand. So I raised the size of the pot. The button was short stacked and went all in. The small blind folded and I called. The button had AKo. My JJ didn't hold up as my opponent made two pair. Oh well. That pretty much crippled me. I played my short stack strategy but couldn't recover.

Next, I played a turbo sng. This game is a PERFECT example why I don't like turbos at all. I was playing some short-stacked poker and was tied for 4th with 3 other players. We were all short stacked and basically playing the "fold or all-in" method. So I was BB with $600. The shortest stack raised all in with another $630 or so to go. The button called and I should have called. The pot contained $3060 and I had to call another $630. Basically 5 to 1 on my return. Should have been a no-brainer but the odds weren't what I was thinking about. I was thinking about survival and having the all-in guy eliminated. Of course I would have been the one to eliminate him with trip queens but that didn't happen. He survived and of course I get eliminated on the bubble.

My main problem was I didn't have enough time to think out my actions fast enough due to the turbo format. Ughhh. I would have let the pot odds dictate my play in that position. 5 to 1 is a great return: even with 27o. Even if I knew I had pocket deuces vs. pocket aces, 5:1 is the right return to call. That's about as dominated as you'll get in hold 'em. Dumb fold on my part! No more turbos...EVER!