Hubble freeroll

Poker players play for many different reasons and have different motivations (especially in online poker). Its even more diverse when its a freeroll. I've heard some people say that "its a freeroll, no one cares", me tho, I play as well as I can for practice and to qualify for the next round where there's cash involved.

I was in doing some work last night and thought that I'd play the hubble freeroll on PokerStars before I went home. I figured I'd play for the usual hour and a half or so, finish in in the top 500 and be home before midnight. That didn't quite happen ...

I tend to do quite well in the hubble's but am yet to crack the second round when the cash is up for grabs. My best finish so far is on the bubble, 100th with 99 qualifying for the next round ... to get that close but miss out, shattered to say the least.

Last night I had another very good shot of making it through. I chipped up massively early and at one point was in the top 20 chip counts, so was cruising. I had people walking in to (my) massive hands, guys pushing all-in with their two pair when I'd already hit the flush, guys thinking their ace was good when it came on the board when I had trips ... things were definitely going my way. When I got to about 70K in chips tho I stupidly took my foot off the pedal and tightened up. I folded to small raises that deserved little respect and the flop came out what would've been a dream for me. I folded king-7 (not a good poker hand, but fine when you're chipped up) to a relatively small raise when I was small blind and the flop comes 3, 7, 7 ... OUCH. Later in the tournament I was small blind getting ridiculously good odds and I folded king-5 pre-flop ... the flop comes 5, 7, 5 ... ugggh.

My stack started to dwindle as the blinds went up as did the opposing chip stacks. I was pushed around by the bigger stacks raising with nothing just to put pressure on the small stacks. I took a stand with ace-king suited and doubled-up through a call with ace-queen off. I pushed with pocket-8's and it held up against ace-queen off. But my luck eventually ran out with ace-9 suited against pocket jacks. I raised, hoping to steal the blinds ... got called by the jacks. The flop had two hearts in it with the high card being a queen so I pushed all-in, got called by the jacks, I caught a 9 on the turn but no ace and no more hearts. So I ended up finishing 161st out of 12,000 starters.

Its a good performance but I learnt that getting to 70K isn't enough for you to cruise through to the top 99 so you can't stop pushing and building your stack. And I played for 2.5 hours getting home just after 1 (I think) ... tired today.