Dream Poker Freeroll

Last night Dream Poker hosted a freeroll for the Talking Poker Forum. There was a great turnout, 58 people from the forum were registered. Unforunately, about 45 of them had just joined the forum that day and would never post again. But overall, we did keep the crashers to a minimum. And if we are lucky, one or two may even come back to the forum and become regular, useful members of the site. I was actually chasing a freeroll when I found the site for the first time. Although, I wasn't trying to crash. I went to TalkingPoker.com to see what I needed to do to get into the freeroll, learned I didn't qualify, so I didn't play in it, but stayed a member of the site because it looked interesting. I'm quite glad I did, it has definitely helped improve my game.

Anyway, even with all the crashers, the "real" TPFers made a great showing at the tournament. At the final table, there was myself, TP, redbank, Dodouble, and Tony Cheval. Hopefully, I didn't miss anyone. I was quite surprised to make it that far. Early in the tournament, I was almost crippled. I had raised PF and on the flop I hit TPTK. I was able to push another guy all in. He flips his cards and he's on a flush and a straight draw. The turn completes both, so he ends up scooping the pot with a King high straight flush. I'm down to a few hundred chips.

I just stayed patient and wait for my opponents to get into the pot against me with weaker holdings and slowly chip my way back up. By about the final two tables, I'm now chip leader. And by final table I'm holding a stack that's about average.

During the final table, I get into a pre flop pushing war with a guy named swami66. I have AK and he turns over KK. I luck out and spike an A and end up nearly crippling him. He then proceeds to go through the roof. Asking "Why I would get all in preflop against KK with AK?", "The math says AK is a bad against KK". I don't say anything other than "KOD" or Kiss of Death. But I'm thinking "Ummm...dumbass, I have no idea what cards you have in your hand until you flip them over, sure I was worried you could have AA or KK, but you could also have any other pocket pair, or Ax--or as in the case with most freerolls worse! And against all those other hands, AK is a great hand to get all in preflop with."

But, and this was the best part of the entire tournament, TP (rogue23) starts making fun of swami66. TP even challenges him to a HU match and to name the stakes. At first swami66 accepts and TP starts asking if he'd play at a different site, as he doesn't have money on Dreampoker. Funny enough, swami66 starts backing down. Either ignoring TP or saying, I'm a tourney player, I'll only play you HU if we make it to final two. TP never did get the details hashed out for a HU match, but it's not like we expected it to happen. I checked the pokerdb and he has absolutely no stats--obviously, seeing as he's just a freeroll crasher and this cash at DreamPoker is likely the most he's ever had in his account. I doubt he's even 18 years old yet.

So the final table plays out. I end up in 3rd for a decent $31 payout. Tony takes 2nd and a crasher :( takes first. Although, he didn't seem like a bad guy. Let's hope he's one of the ones that stays at the site.