Blogger Championship.

I came in 22nd out of 1,473 in the PokerStars World Poker Blogger Championships of the Universe and won an iPod nano. Who wants to touch me?

That is a kickass prize for a freeroll tournament. Yay PokerStars. I was actually going to ask for one of those things for Christmas.

I don’t really remember anything remarkable that happened. I played for about 4.5 hours, and I didn’t really feel worn out or like I had accomplished anything after. I don’t really know how I finished 22nd. I don’t really know anything about no-limit tournaments so I just played my standard weak-tight game. I was never really put to the test or anything.

It seemed like half the people didn’t even show up. It was a freeroll, so I guess you had nothing to lose by not showing up. At about 700 people the no-shows started dropping like flies. The most hilarious thing I saw was when one of the no-shows was in the big blind, and the hand was folded around, and the small blind folded off to the big blind, not realizing he was sitting out. That’s like handing out 1.5 big blinds for free.

I hung around and when it got down to about 200, I didn’t really think I had a chance at making the t-shirts (37-99 got shirts or hats or both or something) because I had a below average stack and was playing really weak. But everyone else was playing weak, too, and before I knew it, the t-shirt bubble had burst. Ms. Brick was hovering over me for a while and got so frustrated with my passive play that she just threw her hands up and left.

At that point I was below average with about 4,000 chips (average was about 15,000). I figured I would just get anted and blinded away and take my t-shirt. But then a few key things happened…

With about 80 people left I called from early position with Q-10 of clubs. Everyone folded. The flop came 8-J-Q with one club. The big blind bet and I went all-in. He had me covered by about 500. He had 9-10. I was done. Except the turn was the 9 of clubs, guaranteeing me a split, plus giving 12 outs to beat him. I missed and we split.

From there I won a coin-flip with 88 against KQ when he missed a 14-outer on the river to put me at 8,000. A short while later picked up 88 again and shoved.

I was called by a 7-2 off. Not kidding. The guy had a huge stack, but geez.

Another big stack with A-Q also called and the flop came…

8-7-7

I wish I had more money because I would have broken the guy with 7-2. Of course if I had more money he would have folded. So I tripled up.

From there I started playing a bit more aggressively and was able to steal some antes and blinds. I busted a few short stacks when they didn’t get lucky and I busted one guy who had a decent amount of chips when I won a coin flip with K-Q against his 10-10. Before I knew it I had 80,000 and there were 50 people left. I decided to just fold my way into the iPods (places 17-36).

I was down to about 60,000 with 37 people to go. I was in the big blind (which was 4,000 at that point I think) with K-8 and a short stack with 3,000 went all-in with Q-10. He hit his Q on the river and eventually got up to over 100,000.

I had about 55,000 when the iPod bubble burst and decided it was time to ram and jam but I never got the cards to do so and I don’t know anything about no-limit tournaments and thus don’t have a clue as to how to properly go about ramming and jamming, so my chips dwindled away with the huge blinds.

With the blinds at 4,000 and 8,000 with a 200 ante, I got 3-2 suited (spades) in the big blind with 22 people left (places 7-16 got an Xbox 360). After posting I had about 21,000 left. An early position player min-raised to 16,000 and it was folded around to me. I decided that I was about a 60-40 underdog, and after folding and posting the small blind I would be down to 17,000, so I decided to take a chance. I shoved and he called with A-9 of hearts. I actually hit two pairs but he hit his flush.

Oh well.

It will be a long time before I get that far in a tournament that big again (seeing as I don’t really play tournaments), but I’m kind of disappointed that I went out with 3-2. I kept thinking after that maybe I should have folded the 3-2 and stayed in for another orbit to try and win an Xbox. But I had so few chips that doubling up at that point wouldn’t have helped me that much. I'm thrilled to get 22nd. I can think of four key coin-flips I won to double-up or at least win a significant number of chips. That’s not going to happen again for a long time.