$20,000 Guaranteed

I tried the $20,000 Guaranteed at PokerRoom last night. It was a $20+2 with one $20 rebuy in the first hour and a $20 add on at the end of the first hour. I’ve never played a tournament with rebuys before so I wasn’t sure of the proper strategy. I assumed people would be real loose for the first hour when they would be able to rebuy and then who knows after that.

I won a few a few hands early, but then made some bad/loose plays and found myself at about $T1200 as we neared the first break. We started with $T1500. I then noticed that I had the option to take my rebuy. I originally assumed you could only rebuy when you busted out, but it looks like you can use your rebuy as soon as you drop below the starting chip count. The add on was coming up in a few minutes and I couldn’t decide if I should take the rebuy or the add on, or both or neither. Blinds were about to go up to $T75/$T150. I opted to go with both, and I’m glad I did. That put me at almost $T4500 which was about the tournament average at the time.

With those extra chips I was able to relax a little. Rather than worrying about having to go all-in or fold, I was able to make some preflop raises and steal some blinds, which I did quite often. I was amazed that no one got fed up and called just because I kept raising. Now, when I say I was stealing a lot of blinds, what I mean is that I was raising a lot pre flop and no one ever called. I almost always had a hand that warranted a pre-flop raise, but usually it was the type of hand where if someone called I would be quite worried, and if someone reraised me I would probably cry like a little girl. Fortunately I was only called a couple of times, and whenever I was called, I was able to claim the pot on a flop that missed my opponent.

Coming out of the third break I had a chip stack of about $T9000 which was about average. I was in 100th place out of 200 or so remaining. (666 entered the tourney). I was holding my own, winning a few pots here and there, and generally staying out of trouble when the problems began. I think I was down to 80th place, and the top 70 paid. I was confident that I could last at least until the money. Then, all of the sudden the servers went down. I watched everyone at my table “sit out” and then I too got disconnected.

Judging by the flurry of chat on the ring game window, I wasn’t the only one with problems. It seemed like just about everyone had lost their connection. What really sucks is that a few people still seemed to be playing. I could see the tournament standings on the website, and some players chip counts were continually increasing, while most of the rest of us gradually went down. I tried a few times to reconnect, but to no avail, and I had to sit there and refresh the web site watching my chips dwindle away. I ended up busting out in 87th place.

I sent an email to support requesting that at the very least they refund my money. Hopefully I wasn’t too drunk and that email was somewhat coherent. I’ll let you know what happens. At the very least they better refund my money. Anything less and I will take by business elsewhere. I’m pretty pissed off though, so I’ll probably be taking my business elsewhere anyway.