I enjoy listening to podcasts almost more than music on my iPod when I am busy doing work or commuting to and from the work place. Aside from my normal sports related ones, I have a number of poker-related ones that I look forward to when they come out. One of the poker-related ones that I like that is unique in its approach is "Gambling Tales" with Falstaff and Special K. My good friend OhCaptain turned me in to these guys a couple years back, I believe after he met them in person at the winter blogger gathering in Vegas (I need to figure out a way to get there next year... Maybe I can sell pieces of myself, in keeping with the frugal tradition).
Starting new this year, the Gambling Tales guys are hosting a freeroll at Full Tilt on a weekly basis for listeners of the program. I decided to check it out, and when I registered for the $50 freeroll, there were only 30ish people registered. I figured my chances were decent for some return on investment (which was 0 :D ), so I registered. When I then logged into the tournament on Thursday night, I was shocked to see that it was full, meaning 1000 people had registered. It seems as though the password got out to the russian sites, because at least 50% of the people at all the tables I was at were from Russia. Either that or Special K and Falstaff really have a way with the Russkies.
On my first table, there was only one other active participant, who happened to be 2 to my left, which is terrible when there are so many dead stacks. After avoiding too much confrontation, I got to different tables with different players, also with dead stacks mixed in. Because I was looking at the prize structure and seeing that the return could be less than $0.10 even if you cash, I didn't focus really hard for quite some time. I organized my office, paid some bills, watched some movies, and probably ate some food.
Once the dead stacks were all elminated, I was still sitting pretty decent. Since I was not paying too much attention and no one at my early tables was chatty (or maybe they didn't speak english), I can't tell you what happened, but ultimately where I started to remember was when we were down to two tables and Falstaff actually was at my table. Here, there was actually table discussion, which was what I was really hoping for with this freeroll, more than the potential return. Avoiding getting into bad or marginal spots, I survived to the final table, last in chips at that point with about 6 BB or so.
Staying out of the way, shoving and getting called with worse and holding, and just stealing where possible, I managed to get to heads up, only with a 1:7 chip deficit. I would have been happy enough with that, but a few races later, I ended up winning the whole thing! The reward for this unbelievable accomplishment? See for yourself:
So my question is, is it bad to use so much rungood for less than $10 in 4.5 hours? I guess it is nice to be the inaugural champ of the Gambling Tales freeroll at least. Thanks boys!
