My first poker win

I have been playing freeroll poker over at bet365.com on Saturday nights for some time now with little success, some games have literally lasted seconds with me gambling all-in on the first hand only to find myself knocked straight out and watching the national lottery on television dreaming of becoming a millionaire minutes later. This time however was to be my lucky night!

The game kicked off at 8pm on bet365.com with over 9000 players aiming to win a share of the $5000 pot. There was the usual flurry of activity as some players risked everything to fight for a place at the top of the leaderboard. After the first hour play settled down and I found myself with some good hands that I could play to keep my stack of chips growing nicely.

As the night drifted on I was still in the game with just over 1000 other players chasing the money for a position in the top 300. And then disaster struck… I bet the majority of my chips on a pair of kings only to see my opponent lay a flush on the table. Suddenly my dreams of making the top 300 were in ruins. I was now fighting for my poker life with the blinds about to rob me of my remaining chips when I suddenly had a good run of hands that allowed me to win some chips back and keep myself in the game.

Then the cards dried up on me leaving me with nothing to play, but a few bluffs against players that were clearly just hanging on to get into the money ($1 is obviously a lot of money to some people) allowed me to keep ticking over. Soon the game was down to 300 and all remaining players were in the money, then just 200 left and the game really started to heat up.

Down to the last 100 players and there were no longer any weak players left to steal chips from and table moves were far and few between so now was the time to make a name for myself… and the name I made for myself was… stupid greedy idiot! Dealt a pair of jacks I found myself sucked into throwing more and more chips on the table and the inevitable pair of aces waved in my face. I had thrown away all my hard work over the last 4 hours and now found myself fighting to stay in the game again.

I fought bravely for a while but up against much larger chip stacks my game was soon ended when the blinds took my last remaining chips and all I had to show was a queen high. However after 5 hours I had beaten off over 9000 other players to finish 23rd and was rewarded with the grand total of $22.50 in prize money for my efforts (£11.23 in English money) which worked out at just over £2 per hour for my troubles. However it was an entertaining night and I learnt a lot about tournament poker which may one day help me become a millionaire!