From Tiny Acorns
Thursday, February 26, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard there’s this global financial crisis going on. Come to think of it, with all the turmoil in the housing sector chances are good you ARE living under a rock, though hopefully a rock near a WiFi hotspot so you can keep reading the UB Blog. Even in these tough times one must keep one’s priorities straight.
With belts a-tightening it’s very important for poker players to practice responsible bankroll management. I know, the words “responsible” and “bankroll management” are rarely found in such close quarters but these are strange days indeed. Sure, playing ultra-nosebleed stakes will get you all sorts of attention (and a reminder–High Stakes Poker returns on March 1st) but quite a few big-name players have shown that playing at the other end of the financial spectrum can be a huge challenge as well.
Chris Ferguson famously tried to build a $10,000 bankroll starting with nothing (it took him 18 months of freerolling and microstaking to get there). Daniel Negreanu has been playing $.01/.02 no-limit in an attempt to replicate Ferguson’s feat (though he started with an initial $10 deposit). And yesterday Hollywood Dave wrote that he and Annie Duke have a prop bet to see who can win an WSOP seat for just ten cents through UltimateBet’s Step Tourneys. Hey, anybody can throw bricks of cash and cranberry chips into the pot when a reload is sitting in your hip pocket. But when you’re down to your last dime, that’s when the hands start shaking and the sweat beads on the brow.
But you can’t get down to you last dime until you earn your first one, and a good way to do that is by playing in freerolls. That’s how Annette Obrestrad got her start–the 2007 WSOP-Europe champion and online Destroyer of Worlds won her initial stake through freerolls and has never, ever deposited her own money. It would perhaps be premature to say that the nine players who final-tabled last night’s UltimateBet Blog Freeroll Tournament will replicate the bankroll-building exploits detailed above, but who knows? A grand total of 746 players started last night’s event with nothing but when the final table was seated these were the nine players who knew they’d be leaving with something:
After KAWDSHAWK69 bubbled (if one can be said to bubble a freeroll tournament, and I think one can) the survivors battled it out until COOTER BROWN1 and DENERODAY were heads-up. First prize? A $215 seat in Sunday’s $200,000 Guaranteed Tournament. Second prize? A set of steak knives. No, wait, sorry, that was second prize in Glengarry Glen Ross. No, last night second prize was $30. That’s three times more money than Daniel Negreanu started out with. Three hundred times more than Hollywood Dave and Annie Duke plan to invest on a WSOP Main Event seat. Thirty dollars, cash on the barrelhead.
And in the end it was COOTER BROWN1 who ended up with the consolation prize, as he moved in after flopping top pair with Kh-5d and got a call from DENERODAY, who flopped the nut flush draw with Ah-5h. The two had nearly equivalent stacks and so this figured to be the decisive hand either way, and when the turn brought the 2h it proved to be DENERODAY’s way, as he held the nut flush to lock up the hand and the Sunday Guaranteed seat. COOTER BROWN1 seeded his bankroll to the tune of thirty dollars, while DENERODAY must return to the fray Sunday afternoon, to see if he can translate his freeroll finish into a five-figure payday.
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Tags: annette obrestrad, annette_15, blogger freerolls, chris ferguson bankroll, daniel negreanu microstakes, daniel negreau bankroll, freerolls, glengarry glen ross, poker freerolls, set of steak knives, ub, ub blog freeroll, ub blogger freerolls, ub freerolls, ub step tourneys, ultimatebet, ultimatebet freerolls
February 28th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Well here we are two days before the 200K! Sense last weeks Blog tournament I haven’t had much time for poker, only playing in a couple tournaments. Saturday will be my day to bone up on my play. I already have myself signed up for two $100 and one $1000 tournament and intend to play each as if it was the 200K. I consider myself a fairly tight, passively aggressive player. In the past I played alot of Lowball (5 card draw low) and this tought me alot of patience. All I can do is play my best game and hope that “OLD MAN RIVER ISN’T AGAINST ME”. You all know what I mean, flop the best, make your move, get called by second best and watch him take you down on the river. I never hold this against a player because I usually make them really pay to make that draw. Well we’ll see how it goes and I will be back to hopefully report some good news.
February 28th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
[...] Last Wednesday, DENERODAY won the Ultimate Bet Blog Tournament. We asked him to share his thoughts on his preparation for the Sunday 200K (first prize for the Blog Tournament was a seat at the 200K) His original post is here. [...]
May 24th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
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