MicroMillions III challenge summary

Yesterday DaWarsaw and I did a MicroMillions challenge in event #28 till #34. The loser would be the personal assistant of the winner for 1 day at the PCA (Bahamas). Check out my previous blog for details, beneath a summary of what happened:

Sunday November 18, 10:00 – 12:00

My alarm went off at 10:00 and I woke up instantly. I went downstairs to get some breakfast and checked the PokerStars Lobby for any FPP Qualifiers to event #28-#34. My strategy was to qualify for all tournaments first so I could focus the remainder of the day on playing the tournaments. DaWarsaw wasn’t awake yet so I was happy to get a head start. I regged all FPP qualifiers I could find, there wasn’t a limit on the amount of FPPs we could spent and I just wanted to get this done as soon as possible. Pretty soon I was playing 6-max, full-ring, heads-up Hold’em and Stud Hi/Lo on 12+ tables at the same time. At these moment I really love poker.

At 10:14 I already shipped my first ticket, event #32 regged! 4 minutes later I won my heads-up qualifier and got the ticket for event #30. Event #34 followed quickly but somehow I didn’t manage to qualify for event #28 yet. In total I played 20 satellites to this event and after I won my first, I won another 3 tickets since I had already regged for more sats. Event #29 quickly followed and I had event #31 and #33 left to qualify for. Event #31 was a Stud Hi/Lo event and I really really don’t like split pot games! Luckily it only took me 3 sats to qualify for this one and at 11:40 I had qualified for all events. In total it cost me 3868 FPPs to qualify for the 7 events and I won in total $50,3 in tickets which means my FPP’s where worth $0,013 cents. I would recommended not to fire all types of games at the same time since definitely this could have gone better but at least I was done qualifying so I could get the real work started.

Sunday November 18, 12:00 – 14:00

Event #28, a $5,50 6-max Hold’em event. I’m firing up some other MTTs to play at the same time, I don’t want to focus on just the MicroMillions events. DaWarsaw busts first but my stack isn’t great. 9.889 runners and I need 1650th place for a cash, still a very long way. I shove my 99’s all-in at a T84sss board and get flushed out by AQ. Since 6-max is DaWarsaw’s specialty I’m happy with the result, at least I was freerolling for some time.

Sunday November 18, 14:00 – 16:00

Event #29, a $1+R 3x Turbo Hold’em event. I never play rebuy events and after checking the lobby I see that the rebuy period lasts 90 minutes! Since rebuys will get deducted of the winnings I can’t rebuy to often! I do the first before we get started and double up pretty quick with AJ vs AT, pfew. DaWarsaw decides to add some more tactics to this challenge, he is going for the single bullet to limit the amount of rebuys, a smart move. I gather some more chips and got a healthy 25k stack for only 1 rebuy! 99 UTG, I open, a guy who rebuys every 2 hands shoves all-in, the table chipleader shoves all-in, he does this every hand…. I can get a lot of chips by winning this pot, but to many rebuys could be fatal. I don’t know why but I call, shorty shows A4o and the chipleader shows TT, $*(%@! double rebuy, double rebuy again, double rebuy again, doube rebuy again! Oh boy….. DaWarsaw enters the event, he doesn’t even rebuy! He wins his first hand, his 2nd, his 3rd, oh boy…. I did 9 rebuys and an add-on for a total of $9,1, he only took the add-on for $0,91.

Luckily he busts first again, freerolling for the 2nd time. I got a decent stack and open KK UTG, 2 callers. J87ss board and I get it all-in vs a flushdraw. The river is a 2s and I’m out, two events down, no money won yet but $8.19 behind due to rebuying 🙁

Sunday November 18, 16:00 – 18:00

Event #30, a $3,30 Heads-Up Turbo Hold’em event. We start at 17:30 and I lose 900 chips (5k startstack) already in the first hand with KJ on K629Q. From there on I pick up 90% of the pots, I open or call every hand and pick up any pot preflop or on the flop. He plays 100% fit or fold and doesn’t hit anything. If he bets I fold and he never wins more then 180 and I go up pretty fast. I pick-up 99, he 3bets and I call. He fires on a Q75 board, I call. He checks on the turn, I bet and pick up a big pot. He’s short now and after he raises I move all-in the next hand with ATo, he calls with AKs but I get lucky. I won my first HU in 12 minutes, unfortunately so does DaWarsaw a few moments later again.

Sunday November 18, 18:00 – 20:00

The 2nd round of the HU starts at 18:35. After a minute my first bluf goes wrong but rather now then later. He picks up a lot of pots, at least he doesn’t seem to play fit or fold like the previous opponent. With 69o on T87ss8T I get value 3 streets vs AQs. I lose some pots and I’m at 2445 points. QQ vs AQ and I’m back, he wins some back and I move all-in with AJ vs AK but win! A good bluff 3 hands later and he never recovers. 2nd HU won but unfortunately so does DaWarsaw a few moments later.

Event #31, a $3,30 Stud Hi/Lo event. It was going to get busy, I already had a lot of tournaments running and even more started in this timeframe. Paying attention to Stud Hi/Lo while playing a bunch of Hold’em events is pretty hard. I played pretty tight but looking at my opponents there was no need to, most people sucked. There are never a lot of Stud Hi/Lo (or other mixed games) MTTs running and I think that’s so great about the MicroMillions. You can’t only play small buy-in Hold’em events but also games like Razz, 2-7 Triple Draw or in this case Stud Hi/Lo. After getting a bit more feeling with the format I was started to gather some chips, cashing in this one would be a surprise but who knows?

Event #32, a $11 Hold’em event (Sunday Storm Special Edition). The Sunday Storm is always a big event but this time it was even bigger. Cashing in the Sunday Storm isn’t that hard normally and I expected that we both could go deep in this one. Since it was also to most expensive tournament cashing in this one would be worth the most money. We started at 19:30 but nothing really happened the first half hour.

The 3rd round of the HU started at 19:46, winning this one means that I’ll cash. I completely crush the guy, I win every single hand and within 40 hands it’s over. ITM!

Sunday November 18, 20:00 – 22:00

Plenty of people are railing by now as I’m watching DaWarsaw’s HU vs wyoung83. DaWarsaw is ahead most of the time but luckily wyoung83 is a comeback kid! Lots of trash talking going on and I put some more pressure on DaWarsaw by telling him that I’ve won and he needs to win this one to stay ahead. I’m not exactly sure anymore what happened but wyoung83 manages to win, happy me! Thanks again wyoung83 😉 So I’m ahead but not really by far, I’ve won $8,35 but spent $8,19 more in the rebuy event which means I’m ahead by $0,16! DaWarsaw doesn’t exactly know how much rebuys I’ve taken so he doesn’t know if he’s still ahead or not, I’m of course not telling 😉

My 4th HU round starts, now that I’ve cashed anything extra would be useful. Just like the previous match I’m picking up almost every pot, I never knew HU could be this easy! After grinding him down in very small pots he only has 1185 left and I win a flip with AJ vs 44. $13,27 in the pocket, I’m ahead by $5,08 now!

Event #32 is still underway but nothing really happens there. DaWarsaw busts which is always good news, freerolling in this event as well! The same counts for event #31, the Stud Hi/Lo one, which means up till now I’ve freerolled in all events. I actually have a pretty decent stack and started to like it a little 😉 Not much later I bust myself as well in event #32, I would have loved a cash in this event but with almost 40.000 runners you’ll have to be lucky sometimes as well. Betting all streets in two Stud Hi/Lo pots and getting rivered twice is costly and I also bust the Stud Hi/L.

Event #33, a $2,20+R 2x Turbo Hold’em event. In the earlier rebuy event DaWarsaw added some extra tactic to this challenge by playing the rebuy with a single bullet. Luckily he already gave away this tactic so I unregged this event and waited till DaWarsaw regged himself. To my surprise he didn’t reg while he was behind, fine by me 😉

Sunday November 18, 22:00 – 24:00

The 5th HU round had just started and my start is pretty good. This HU goes both ways and both of us have had above 7.000 points a lot of times. While I’m ahead in chips we get it all-in with AQs vs JJ but he wins, when we are almost even we get it all-in with my toppair vs his straight draw, he wins and I’m out. I’m really happy that I’ve cashed but could have used the extra $8. A min-cash for DaWarsaw in any event is still good now since I’m still only $5,08 ahead.

DaWarsaw late regs event #33 and so do I. I don’t want to lose by rebuying to often in this event so I try 1 bullet and lose, DaWarsaw already rebuyed once and so do I. I lose again and leave the tourney. I hate to play it this way but if DaWarsaw uses this strategy while I’m ahead I have no other choice. He’s freerolling for the first time and I can only watch him play since I’ve busted everything else. He does well, 17.188 runners entered, 2250 places paid and there are 6.000 left, people bust quick, only 4.000 left. Blinds go up fast and DaWarsaw is a little carddead. Blinds go up again and DaWarsaw only has 4,5BB left but almost everybody is short at his table. The big blind only has 10BB’s and DaWarsaw pushes all-in, 3300 people left and surviving another round of blinds could get him a long way, a min-cash is $15,33, enough to win the bet! The big blind calls and DaWarsaw shows two small cards, the big blind is ahead but not by far. The boards runs out bad for DaWarsaw, busto in 3222nd place! Close, very close! Pfew.

Sunday November 18, 24:00 – 02:00

Event #34, a $5,50 6-Max, Turbo, Shootout Hold’em event.The table started out 5-handed and I didn’t really understand why the table wouldn’t fill up. Only after 20 minutes I figured out this was a shootout. It wasn’t only a shootout it was also 6-max, DaWarsaw’s regular game. I gained some chips early on and wasn’t impressed by the other guys at my table. Cashing this event myself would even be better then hoping for DaWarsaw to bust. With QQ in a blindwar on a A62ssA9 board vs a relative shorty (1.875 with a 5.000 average) I couldn’t find a fold on a river shove after 2-barreling myself, he showed A2. Another relative shorty opens, I 3bet TT and he shoves all-in. I call and can’t beat A4o. Still 3k left and I 3bet QQ in the SB. The BB calls and the IR folds, we get it all-in on a T54 rainbow flop and he shows KQo, it can’t get any better! A king on the river kicks me out of the tournament. Argh, how did this happen?! I’m still ahead but my fate is in DaWarsaw’s hands now.

Looking at how easy my table was I think his chances are pretty good. He’s 2/4 at the moment I start watching his table closely, then he gains momentum and has almost 12k chips (45% of the chips in play). Still 4 people left and he loses some chips again, a shorty busts and he’s 2/3. It feels strange rooting against somebody you know but I really don’t want to lose this challenge! I’m too lazy to take care of myself, let alone be DaWarsaw’s PA for 1 day! He loses some more chips and is 3/3, up & down, up & down. Boom, all-in and he’s behind, the boards runs out bad again for DaWarsaw and I’m victorious!

This feels good. Winning by $5,08 isn’t much, but these are the MicroMillions so what do you expect? I can finally start thinking of what DaWarsaw can do for me at the PCA. He had already made a list on his blog and I think some of his ideas were great 😉 I’ll probably start with ordering some breakfast when I wake up and I definitely want to play some tennis again in the Bahamas. I watch a lot of tennis on TV and you always see the ball boys do a lot of useful work (gatherings balls, handing out towels and drinks) and as I said earlier, I’m pretty lazy myself. I think DaWarsaw will be a perfect ball boy!

After the tennis match I’ll probably relax a little at the pool while DaWarsaw brings drinks and food… Wow this already sounds like the perfect trip to the Bahamas again! This was really a fun challenge, it was pretty close and pretty exciting but at the end but only 1 can win 🙂

GG DaWarsaw!