Yah for me!

[jasonHoldEm]

Hi guys,

Ok, I know that most of you won't think this is a big deal, but I just finished first at party's NL freeroll today. I know it's play money and all, but I'm still pretty psyched.

This was my first multi-player No-Limit tournament and I owe a lot of my success to your comments here in the tournament forum. I still made my share of mistakes (missed bets and whatnot), but thanks you to guys I beat out 440 players and I'm now 10,000 imaginary dollars richer, which I'll be using to pay for my pretend bills.

woo-hoo!
jHE

PS- For the record, I do play for real money and realize that there's no real comparison between real & play, etc. I'm just using the free games to get used to playing no-limit...so please don't rain on my parade.

[jasonHoldEm]

A couple quick hands:

When it got to heads up my opponent had a 3:1 chip advantage. He was also playing very tight. This was good for me as I was able to raise preflop with almost anything playable and he would fold.

Finally I got a "good" hand, I had Q8s I had raised preflop for 3x BB and he had called. Flop was 28J rainbow. I made a pot sized bet and he called. Turn was a blank. I made a bet of about half the pot and he called again. River was another 8, and my opponent sprang to life making a bet for half my stack. I pondered for a moment and pushed all-in (not sure if this was a good call or not, but I was behind and was already pot committed, so I pushed). I was a little worried he had a boat, but he called with 84o and I took it down. This put me in the lead and I continued to punish his tightness with my preflop raising. It went back and forth a few times (I overplayed a JTs hand that really hurt me). But I managed to get the lead back eventually.

Finally, I was up about 4:1 and he pushed all-in preflop, this threw me off a little as it was the first aggressive move he had made (preflop). I had KK and I happily called (otherwise it would have been an easy fold). He had A9 diamonds and the board came with four hearts (one of them being the ace), luckily one of my kings was a heart and I took it down to win the tournament.

Comments greatly appreciated,
jHE

[DaNoob]

Congrats on the win!! I wouldn't rain on your parade, as I love playing the freeroll and have never made it past 18th. Also, congrats on your patience. I usually lose v early due to lack of patience more than anything else, and that is something I certainly need to work on (just see my other tourney posts).

Maybe I'll see u on the cheap money tables one of these days...

[Hung]

That's how I learned to play NL HE.
I played NL tournaments daily. And beating more then 400 players isn't just luck. Time to move on for $$$ tournaments. You should play the $5 or $10 multitable tournaments. 1st prize is't so bad. $200-$300. Worth giving it a shot, right?

Well done.

[RollaJ]

Well done, beating out 440 players is not easy no matter what the buyin.....
As for pussing all in with Q-8 on that hand, don't do it! You are either slightly ahead, or way behind! I would certainly only call that, why risk the whole tourney at that point, he can bust you, you cant bust him. If you are ahead at that point, youll have a nice lead... if not youll still have chips to fight with. That was a bad play at a bad time in the tourney (consider this just a little drizzle, not rain) /forums/images/icons/grin.gif