Friday, March 07, 2014

Double Trouble

Ultimate Poker in another player-friendly promotion, has rolled out something they call "NO-verlay." If any tournament with a guaranteed prize pool, actually meets its guarantee, everyone gets their buy-in refunded.
At first the promotion didn't catch on, only a few tournaments were going freeroll. But as the promotion entered its third week, word spread, players got wise and now every tournament is filling up. The $100 buy-in Sunday tournament was free, the $50 nightly has been free about 8 - 10 days in a row, and the $10 and $20 buy-ins that start later and are accessible to me, have also been free just about every night over the past two weeks.
As you would imagine I have been trying to play as many of these tournaments as possible to maximize my value. At first I wasn't doing very well in these free tournaments, but I've recently hit a string of luck, cashing 3 times in 4 days in the $20 buy-in ($244, $125 and $29) but last night was my biggest score yet.

I started at 9pm with the $10 buy-in $750 GTD Rebuy and Addon. I did not rebuy or add on (because those are not refunded). I got down to a short stack early and decided to shove with A7. I got called by AK and hit two 7s on the flop. A few hands later I shoved A8 suited (still short stacked) and again beat AK, this time with an 8 on the river.
The rest of the way I played good solid poker, took a couple bad beats, got lucky in a couple spots, and ended up winning a very brief heads up match.



In the meantime I was also playing the $500 GTD turbo, $10 buy-in. Blinds go up twice as fast and it pretty much becomes all-in or fold after the first few levels, if you are short stacked. Which I was when I picked up A10. As I tried to click all-in, I got disconnected. I had to reset my router and by the time I did, my A10 had been mucked. That might have been the luckiest thing that happened all night because after that I went on a heater and ended up shipping this one too.



A nice $600 to add to the pile, and I'm hoping to add a few more before this great money giveaway ends.

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