Wold PLOgger Championship

So, having heard about it on someone else's blog, I duly applied to be entered into the WBCOOP (World Blogger Championship Of Online Poker).

After literally minutes of due diligence, Pokerstars accredited me and I was in !

You play in one or more of the freeroll qualifiers, in an attempt to reach the final. I suppose I expected them to be NLH, but when I looked I found all sorts. Yes, 3 of the 6 are NLH, but there is Omaha Hi/Lo on Wednesday and "8-game Mix" on Friday.

On Monday, it was PLO. I have a truly abysmal record in Omaha tournaments, but I decided to give it a spin.

I arrived slightly late into it, but the very low initial blinds meant I'd only lost 5% of my chips in 30 minutes of sitting out.

First hand, I was tempted to limp with some random holding. Almost fell into a typical Omaha trap of hitting some of it (like 1 pair and a weak flush draw and a backdoor straight). This tempted me into putting a few more chips in, but I did the decent thing and gave up on the turn.

Another false start soon after saw me fall to half my original stack. Time to take stock. Blinds were still low relative to the stacks although it feels like in PLO the pots get big quickly so 50BB at PLO seems like only enough for a hand or two really.

I came to see that some of the other players barely knew the rules of PLO (like me, they probably had NLH in mind when they registered) so I tightened up my starting hands and positional requirements, played my draws quite passively, but value bet strongly.

I moved back up to my starting 2,500 chips, and onwards, and soon I was in the top 72 (72 qualify from each freeroll).

The hand that really set me going in the right direction (and the first time I was all-in) was when I called a <>AcQc87.

The flop was pretty: Kc5c6x - so I flopped an open-ended straight draw to the high end, and the nut flush draw. The raiser bet, and I pushed. He called with K543hhcc - so he was winning with 2pair. He also had a low-end straight draw and a lower club draw.

It was close all the way - preflop and on the flop it is almost 50/50. The turn is an Ace giving me one pair and 3 live outs to two pair. The river in fact brings a club!

I went on, to be Top 20 and then top 5 at one point. I was starting to like this PLO !

I remained in good shape until the "bubble" burst at 72nd. I was now guaranteed a place in the final this weekend. There were prizes on offer for the top 45 on the day, as well, with the Top 9 actually getting some decent value (in free tournament entries).

I decided that now it was right to go for a big stack or the quick exit. So when I raised with KT88-double suited and got re-raised, I decided to push. The stacks were such that he had to call. I was expecting to be see AAxx, or KKxx at least, but in fact I was a favourite facing AK65ds.

However, this became academic when he flopped Aces-full.

So, out in 57th, but mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, I had entered a $10 NLH tourney to keep my mind from wandering too much (I suppose it might be better to just focus 100% on one thing, but that's not my approach !).

This time, I can genuinely claim that I played it tight-aggressive. What with the PLO tourney and some cash PLO I was playing on Cake, I only had time to play 7% of hands. I wasn't getting much in the way of starting cards until I managed to see a cheap flop with 67. The flop came K67 !

I bet 2/3rd of the pot and was a little surprised to find it raised back to me all-in.

I snap-called. He showed A7, so he has several cards to improve, and an Ace came straight away on the turn. I'm outta here, until the river brings another 6 !

After that, I continued to play pretty tight and later moved into the top10. On and on it went, and I remained in contention.

However, with 60 or so left (2,160 runners - 324 places paid) I again found myself re-raising all in with AK. The initial raiser called with pocket 9s and although the flop came JTx to give me 10 outs on the turn and river, the pair was good and I was out after more than 4 hours.

$30 approx in prize money seems scant reward for 4 hours play and finishing in the top 3%. As is usually the case, the big money is only at the end - and $3,500 was decent money to the winner although it did take another 3 hours to get there !

I suppose my performance was enough to keep me believing that I could go all the way sooner or later - that's the dream that keeps all tournament players going amidst the constant disappointment !

Next stop - the WBCOOP final on Sunday.