PokerStars Blogger Tourney Results

PokerStars Blogger Tourney Results.

Well, I didn’t win the blogger tourney.  Not that I expected to, but I was at least hoping to make the top 100, which is where the prizes started.  I finished 320th out of 1473 players, which isn’t so bad except that I made one really stupid mistake at the end that wound up costing me my shot at placing higher.  That’s the toughest thing about tournament poker.  You can play well for hours and then one mistake can cost you the whole tournament.

I was going to post a play by play, but I really wasn’t involved in many exciting hands.  For the first few levels, I hung around the starting $2000 chip count, then missed a few flops and dropped down.   I moved to a new table and doubled up when the big stack tried to bust me with garbage.    

I was below average for almost the whole tournament but never in any desperate shape.   The hand in question came in 8th level.  Blinds were up to T$200/$T400 with $25 antes and I had about T$2500 in chips, pretty short stacked.   I was in the small blind with 67o, and it was folded around to me.  The big blind had slightly less chips than I did.  I felt like I couldn’t fold there, so raising seemed obvious.  The problem was I figured he would easily see that as a steal attempt and was afraid he would play back at me, forcing me to fold.  So I went all in.   I was gambling that he wouldn’t have a hand that he would want to risk going out with.   It’s the type of play where if it works I feel like a genius and if it doesn’t I feel like a moron.  The problem is if he sees it as a steal and calls me, there is almost no hand he might have that I can beat.  Turns out he has A7 and I’m all but eliminated.    

I’m very frustrated with that hand.  Right after I made the raise I was wishing I could have it back.  I should have either just folded or raised a little.  If he played back at me I could have gotten out without losing my whole stack, and if he had nothing, then he still folds.  Or if he calls the raise, maybe I can take the pot on the flop.

I think the tournament was a great idea by poker stars, but I do have one complaint/suggestion if they or anyone else opts to do it again. There was a large number of players that registered, but did not play.  There were two at my starting table and four or five at the table I was moved to.   It seems kind of unfair to have some people play full tables and others play at tables where they know half of their opponents are going to fold every time.  Since this is a free roll, it doesn’t matter if you sign up and then don’t play.  To combat this problem, I think they ought to make it so that you have to login to the site/tournament two minutes before the start or get automatically eliminated.  That will at least make the playing field more level for those of us that actually wanted to play.  

Overall it was a good time even if I’m less than satisfied with my results.