Anyway, Friday night I ended up playing at PokerStars. The plan was to get to the gym after work but the afternoon was mad busy and by the time I finished writing everything up and sending confirmations it was already 6:30. By this time I needed a beer and something to eat so the gym got put off till the next day.
I played one of the Sunday Quarter Million qualifiers and cashed as usual. I played a few $1 90 man tournaments as well but did no good in 4 of those. Since I was sitting in front of the TV and not switched on 100% I was mostly just playing for fun. With that in mind, I decided to again play in the PCA Fantasy Freeroll.
It started off fairly well winning a few hands, avoiding some of the madness and steadily chipping up. Still early stages in level 2 just 9 minutes in two people lost their shit on a king, king, jack flop one with the jack, another with the flush draw and of course I had the king. A second jack on the river sealed the pot for me and I basically tripled up. Things slowed down for a little while until it was folded to me in the small blind and I had pocket kings. Luckily for me the big blind was chipped up and aggressive and acted strong when he hit a small pair on the flop and I checked when first to act. He didn't improve, my kings held and he doubled me up.
From there I lost 1/2 my stack when I had to fold queens on a very ugly turn heads-up but got it back shortly after when my ace king held up against ace 6 suited. From there, it was uneventful for a while and with the blinds rising and the field diminishing I pushed all-in under the gun with queens and to my surprise got 3 callers. Thankfully my hand was the best going in, it faded a flush draw on the flop and I quadrupled up.
I then got moved to a table with a couple of the chip leaders and they were essentially playing every pot so I waited for quality hands. With the blinds going up I pushed with pocket jacks, got 2 callers and it held up to triple my stack. Later as my stack dwindled I pushed with ace ten off, rivered a straight and and held upended up pushing with ace ten off and managed to river a straight to get ahead of the blinds again.
Having learnt from my last freeroll adventure where I finished 30th, I sped my game up. The blinds were so high compared to most stacks that it was essentially push-fold play. If I had a solid hand I was all-in pre or if I was in the blinds and hit a flop I pushed. I got called my midpair a number of times and steadily moved in to the chip leaders.
In the later stages of the tournaments, I only lost a couple of hands that I played but thankfully they were to short stacks. The first was when I raised solidly from the button with 6's and the small blind woke up with queens. Another raise from the hijack when I had ace queen only to be flat-called by kings in the big blind and then he pushed on the flop but I had to call because there was so much in the pot.
When we got down to two tables left I stole a couple of pots when checked to and had queens twice in the blinds that helped me chip right up. Once when someone shoved with ace rag and another I shoved vs multiple limpers, got called by ace jack and he only managed to catch a jack. Those moved me in to the top 5 stacks and I avoided any further trouble to finish in the top 9 out of 8200 players and qualify for the Main Event Satellite. I checked that tournament which isn't for another 30 days yet and apparently there can be up to 40,000 players and again you have to finish in the top 9. The odds on getting through that size field are extremely slim but its worth a shot.
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