Monday, 31 March 2008

Qualified Unsuccess

The Sunday Million last night was a $1,050 buy-in, certainly too much for the direct approach.

I have, in fact, never managed to qualify via a satellite despite coming close on several occasions but it still seems like a good idea to try, and I decided to have a crack at three different routes.

One was my favoured double-shootout: 6 tables of 6 with the winners of each table forming a final table of 6 - winner takes all. ($33 buyin - usually it is $8.8 for the $215 buyin events)

Another was a variation thereof: the TRIPLE shootout - same idea but 216 tables to start with and three tables to win. The flipside was, only $5.50 to enter (fantastic leverage if you do it).

Lastly, a classic satellite: 234 runners by the time it kicked off. 4 to qualify. Free to enter (1,000 frequent player points).

I played these simultaneously which was quite hectic whilst I was still in all three - which turned out to be much longer than I expected - well over an hour.

The FPP satellite was actually very well structured - long blind levels and 10-handed, so quite a steady standard of play. The DS and TS were turbo 6-seaters, but still being taken quite seriously by the players.

I was allowed by the poker gods to appear to be in with a chance. In the FPP sat, I played very tight and was on average chips with 2/3 of the field gone. In the the DS and TS I got to heads-up on the first table - so looking to close it out and move on.

In the TS, I thought I was there when I had 80% of the chips and got him all in with 65o to my AQs, especially when I hit the Ace on the flop. However, runner-runner straight got him out of jail. Next hand, I flopped trip-Aces, only for him to recover with running hearts for an 8-high flush. However, I did eventually succeed there.

In the DS the heads-up battle was also drawn out but I eventually was seen off.

Meanwhile, in the TS, I was out early on Table 2: my AK vs QQ.

And, finally, with just the FPP sat left, I was getting a little short and got it in with 66 vs QQ.

So 0/3. Try again next week.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I find the best value in $3 rebuy tournaments played on Party Poker. With about 10 seats and 200 players there is a good chance to qualify, I think I have something like 20-30% success rate with a buy-in of $10-15. There must be something similar on poker stars, no? What is important I think is to have more than one seat available (10 is quite good), otherwise it gets too volatile, and you want to use your skills with least vol.