If only FPP's were real money...

Love these FPP tourneys. Wish I could do as well in regular MTT’s as I do in these. Maybe it’s just because I play these more often. Truthfully the 60 fpp tourney is kind of a waste of time since it takes about 4 hours to finish, but hey, its fun and I didn’t feel like spending any more money.

PokerStars Tournament #18305616, No Limit Hold'em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: 60 FPP
610 players
Total Prize Pool: 36600 FPP
Target Tournament #18305373
6 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started - 2006/01/29 - 00:30:00 (ET)

Dear RikkiDee,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
You qualified to play in Tournament #18305373 and are automatically registered for it.
See Tournament #18305373 Lobby for further details.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

PokerStars Tournament #18306600, No Limit Hold'em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: 300 FPP
180 players
Total Prize Pool: 54000 FPP
Target Tournament #18306453
18 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started - 2006/01/28 - 12:45:00 (ET)

Dear RikkiDee,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
You qualified to play in Tournament #18306453 and are automatically registered for it.
See Tournament #18306453 Lobby for further details.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.




You didn’t think I could get through this post without some hand histories?

Alright, just some quick ones for my enjoyment.

Its always nice to get doubled up with Q2 vs K9…

Seat 1: MILKMAN1216 (263 in chips)
Seat 2: davidAura (1479 in chips)
Seat 3: JiJiM (7085 in chips)
Seat 4: juni2402w (8695 in chips)
Seat 5: canucker (9905 in chips)
Seat 6: yanetmanu (6125 in chips)
Seat 7: vikas_tyagi9 (4132 in chips)
Seat 8: RikkiDee (8650 in chips)
Seat 9: Pittsburgh01 (6745 in chips)
RikkiDee: posts small blind 75
Pittsburgh01: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [Qh 2h]
MILKMAN1216: folds
davidAura: calls 150
JiJiM: folds
juni2402w: folds
canucker: folds
yanetmanu: calls 150
vikas_tyagi9: folds
RikkiDee: calls 75
Pittsburgh01: checks
*** FLOP *** [Kd 2d 2s]
RikkiDee: bets 450
Pittsburgh01: calls 450
davidAura: folds
yanetmanu: calls 450
*** TURN *** [Kd 2d 2s] [7c]
RikkiDee: bets 1500
Pittsburgh01: calls 1500
yanetmanu: calls 1500
*** RIVER *** [Kd 2d 2s 7c] [6c]
RikkiDee: bets 2500
Pittsburgh01: folds
yanetmanu: calls 2500
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RikkiDee: shows [Qh 2h] (three of a kind, Deuces)
yanetmanu: mucks hand
RikkiDee collected 11450 from pot

What is weird is for the longest time in my life, I’ve always wanted to catch trip two’s on the flop. I actually don’t think I’ve ever done it other than a pocket pair. Even when this happened I laughed to myself and said “finally”. As a side note, this is one of my favorite tournament moves to make – betting right out with trips. It truly catches people off guard and they can’t get away from their top pair. Look at those fucking killer bets. Holy shit I am rough. Ok one more.

Seat 1: bighitta (18124 in chips)
Seat 2: BigMoney17 (115057 in chips)
Seat 3: Playyya (36133 in chips)
Seat 4: tommygun22 (22479 in chips)
Seat 5: redsquad25 (45291 in chips)
Seat 6: Slapphappy4 (13779 in chips)
Seat 7: RikkiDee (25755 in chips)
Seat 9: bigbet17 (19655 in chips)
bighitta: posts the ante 50
BigMoney17: posts the ante 50
Playyya: posts the ante 50
tommygun22: posts the ante 50
redsquad25: posts the ante 50
Slapphappy4: posts the ante 50
RikkiDee: posts the ante 50
bigbet17: posts the ante 50
bighitta: posts small blind 400
BigMoney17: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [Js Jh]
Playyya: raises 2400 to 3200
tommygun22: folds
redsquad25: calls 3200
Slapphappy4: folds
RikkiDee: raises 22505 to 25705 and is all-in
bigbet17: folds
bighitta: folds
BigMoney17: folds
Playyya: calls 22505
redsquad25: folds
*** FLOP *** [7d 3d 2d]
*** TURN *** [7d 3d 2d] [4s]
*** RIVER *** [7d 3d 2d 4s] [2s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Playyya: shows [Th Ts] (two pair, Tens and Deuces)
RikkiDee: shows [Js Jh] (two pair, Jacks and Deuces)
RikkiDee collected 56210 from pot

Ok here you may be thinking I make kind of a reckless play, and it is, especially for me. But, I had sound reasoning before I did it. First, I noticed that this player had already played KK earlier and only min raised with it preflop. So when he came out raising 4bb’s, I knew he had something decent, but not aces or kings. The only thing I was truly worried about were queens. Additionally, I have enough chips here that my raise is very significant, and isn’t an automatic call based on pot odds. One final nuance about this hand is that I pulled a squeeze play. Basically when someone raises and you have a read on them that they aren’t all that strong, then someone just calls behind them, you can make this type of raise with any 2 decent cards, and generally they will both fold, since you know neither are all that strong. The guy made a pretty bad call with the tens here in my book since I’m basically representing at least an overpair, *maybe* AK in which he is gambling for all his chips on a coin flip. But of course you can’t expect players in 60 fpp tourneys to know this, so they call with TT. All in all, I really like my play here, and it would be even more successful if some money were on the line since they would be more apt to fold here.

That was fun, one more hand only I promise. It’s another really risky play.

Seat 2: BigMoney17 (53999 in chips)
Seat 3: 411CZY (140798 in chips)
Seat 4: tommygun22 (114966 in chips)
Seat 7: RikkiDee (69856 in chips)
Seat 8: MilfTrapper (136462 in chips)
BigMoney17: posts the ante 150
411CZY: posts the ante 150
tommygun22: posts the ante 150
RikkiDee: posts the ante 150
MilfTrapper: posts the ante 150
411CZY: posts small blind 1500
tommygun22: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [Qs Jd]
RikkiDee: raises 6000 to 9000
MilfTrapper: folds
BigMoney17: folds
411CZY: folds
tommygun22: calls 6000
*** FLOP *** [3d 8h 7h]
tommygun22: bets 3000
RikkiDee: raises 14500 to 17500
tommygun22: calls 14500
*** TURN *** [3d 8h 7h] [Td]
tommygun22: bets 3000
RikkiDee: raises 40206 to 43206 and is all-in
tommygun22: folds
RikkiDee collected 61250 from pot

5 handed I’ll raise QJ every time, since it has some decent post flop potential if anyone ends up calling me. Plus the blinds are huge, and stealing them is obviously part of my plan here. So my opponent comes right out and bets a little tiny probe bet into me, the pre-flop raiser. Actually up to this point I had really only been showing down super strong hands, and really hadn’t been stealing that much, so I thought that my raises would get a little bit more respect. So when he bets into me, I read this as weakness, and I pop it up, he pretty much insta calls. Again, on the turn he leads out again with the same weak ass shit. I know he doesn’t like his hand at all, but wants to see a showdown. If I had to guess it would be something like 66, A8/7 or maybe AQ/K. So I push, with nothing but a gutshot draw and 2 overs – 10 outs. I was pretty scared here that he would call, but I knew he was really weak and I had just enough chips that his curiosity wouldn’t just call “just to see what I had”. He took his entire time bank to eventually fold. First time I’ve sweated like that for an online tourney in a long ass time. I pretty much never have the opportunity to make these big moves since the games I usually play are all in preflop. It’s nice to be able to play some post flop, deep stacked tourneys, especially late game with something on the line. Of course both these plays could have easily backfired and I wouldn’t be posting this right now, but hey, they worked and I’m a temporary genius.

When we get down to the final table, I end up short stacked with 7 players left. I actually get down to less than 5 bb but luckily my queens hold up against someone’s 88 and I steal a few blinds to get me even with the last remaining short stack. We are both down to about 50k with blinds at 3000/6000, and the other 5 players all have over 100k, and since the top 6 make it, it is really a race between us 2. Now, I have only about 100 hands tracked on this guy, and he has played 4% of hands, never raised and has zero aggression factor. So I know he is going to turtle and try to sneak into 6th unless he picks up a monster. So I pick a different strategy, I decide that I’m going to be aggressive, steal as many blinds as I can to gain a lead on him and hopefully dodge an all in confrontation. I push with 55 from early position, no callers. Round 1 – RikkiDee. With 43k, I pick up AJ on the button. There is an early position limper from a big stack who has seen pretty much every flop since the beginning of time. Everyone else folds. I decide it is go time, and push, obviously hoping that the limper folds, but hey, I have AJ. I guess the big stack decided that it was time to end this and called with K3s. I was shocked and horrified by this call, but luckily I hit an ace and doubled through, basically ensuring my victory. Folded the next few hands and watched the turtle eventually bust when he finally found a hand to go with – 88 - facing two raisers, smart move.

As much as I hate poker and all its bad-beat bullshit whorish soul crushing losses that it hands to you, these wins do certainly make up for it, even if I didn’t really win anything but 9k FPP.

Let’s see if I can repeat my 2nd place performance in the Monte Carlo event, that would truly make my year a golden one.