MicroMillions III challenge, PCA & Master Classics of Poker

This time an update right after the Master Classics of Poker as promised. I’ll start out with some fun news regarding the MicroMillions which starts tomorrow, a challenge!

Grzegorz “DaWarsaw” Mikielewicz and I will be dueling coming Sunday in a MicroMillions challenge. The rules are as follows:

– Sunday November 18, MicroMillions Events #28 till #34
– We can only play if we’ve qualified using FPPs
– We are only allowed to play FPP qualifiers on Sunday, starting at 06:00
– We can rebuy as much as we like, but only after we’ve qualified with FPPs
– Whoever wins the most money (rebuys will be deducted, FPPs won’t) in these 7 events is the winner!
– The loser of this challenge will be the personal assistant for one full day at the PCA! (we hope to make a short movie out of it)
– In case we tie, we are both going to be Tyler “frosty012” Frost’s PA for a day (That would be really worst case scenario!)

Well, I’m at least looking forward to it! Looking at the schedule, event #28 till #34 are the following events:

Event #	Buy-In	Name	Date	Time (CET)	Guarantee
028	$5	MicroMillions-028: $5.50 NL Hold’em [6-Max, $40K Gtd]	Nov 18	12:00	$40,000*
029	$1	MicroMillions-029: $1+R NL Hold’em [3x-Turbo, $75K Gtd]	Nov 18	14:30	$75,000*
030	$3	MicroMillions-030: $3.30 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up, Turbo, $25K Gtd, No Late Reg]	Nov 18	17:30	$25,000*
031	$3	MicroMillions-031: $3.30 Stud Hi/Lo [$10K Gtd]	Nov 18	19:00	$10,000*
032	$11	MicroMillions-032: $11 NL Hold’em [Sunday Storm Special Edition, $300K Gtd]	Nov 18	19:30	$300,000*
033	$2	MicroMillions-033: $2.20+R NL Hold’em [2x-Turbo, $75K Gtd]	Nov 18	21:30	$75,000*
034	$5	MicroMillions-034: $5.50 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Turbo, Shootout, $20K Gtd, No Late Reg]	Nov 19	00:30	$20,000*

 

Greg normally plays NL 6-max Cashgames but hardly any tournaments. There are two 6-max (1 Shootout) tournaments which should be in Greg’s advantage. We are both not very good at Stud Hi/Lo so that could be interesting. Cashing in event #32 would be very nice but this tournament will get a lot of runners. Overall qualifying should be no problem but it might cost a lot of time! I’ve been playing a lot of tournaments lately so I feel pretty confident in this bet. Since most tournaments are turbo’s Greg’s cashgame experience is less relevant but it’s still an advantage.

It’s especially fun that I’m doing this bet with Greg since I’ve got to know him last year at the PCA and since then we’ve been in contact a lot. He visited Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago and I’m already looking forward to meeting him again at the PCA. This also means I’m going to the PCA again! I haven’t qualified for the Main Event yet but will try some more satellites for sure. If I don’t qualify for the Main Event I’m going to select a couple of side events and hopefully win big in those.

This weekend at the Master Classics of Poker I didn’t win big but I did win! I busted the €750 event on Friday pretty quick after getting it all-in with AT vs A5 in a blindwar, 5 on the turn and the only thing left which I could do was drinking. I excelled at the drinking part of the day but had some troubles waking up on Saturday to play the €300 event. It was a Turbo and in Holland Casino this means that after an hour everybody is playing push/fold poker. Somehow I managed to keep my stack going without showdowns which is the easiest way to make sure you don’t bust 😉 When we arrived at the last two tables my fear of final table bubbling (after doing that 4 times in a row) popped up, I had an average stack most of the time but after 6 shorties survived their all-in I had paid a lot of blinds and feared to miss the final table again if somebody called me and had me beat or got lucky. After picking up the blinds twice another shorty pushed all-in in the SB and I had to call with any 2. Luckily I picked up J7 vs his 76. Finally a final table again!

I was 3/9 but with 3k/6k blinds and an average stack of 81.000 there wasn’t a lot of room to play. I could find some spots to reshove to keep my stack alive while some of the shorties busted. With 5 left I had a bit below average stack, just 12Blinds and pushed QJs from UTG. After a tankcall from the Big Blind for 95% of his stack he called with AJo, a flush draw on the flop, open ended straight draw on the turn but I didn’t hit any outs and busted in 5th place, winning €5.006. The pay-outs were pretty steep, 1st paid €21.627 which would have been very sweet but still I was pretty happy I can’t complain about my good run in this tournament. After I busted I did an interview with Pokernews.nl (I appear at 06:49):

I did another interview earlier that week(I appear at 04:28):

I’m ready for the MicroMillions Challenge and ready for the PCA! See you at the tables.