Something for Nothing, the Return

Saw in a few places news about PokerStars’ 10 billionth hand which finally went off yesterday. Hadn’t really been angling for that one, myself, though I have to say I have enjoyed following some of the buzz surrounding it.

Noticed that one maybe-it’s-a-joke, either-way-it’s-hilarious thread on 2+2 titled “10 BILLION hand auto folding team.” Also read Michael’s funny post over on Counting My Outs where he talked about witnessing one of the lead-up milestone hands take place at a $1.00/$2.00 limit table -- and how one player decided to fold preflop from UTG. (This despite having already won $200 for just sitting there and having a chance at $500 if he or she had won the hand.)

Then this morning I read over on Plan3t Gong about the big one -- the 10 Billionth hand -- for which each player seated at the table won $10,000, and the winner of the hand claimed a cool $100,000. All of the players won a WCOOP Main Event ticket as well, worth 2,600 in tournament dollars.

Was late yesterday afternoon when lightning struck a micro limit NL hold ’em table -- $0.01/$0.02 stakes. The first player raised all-in, pushing his $4.83 to the middle. AND THE NEXT PLAYER FOLDED! There was a reraise all-in -- the table’s big stack with $6.43 pushed -- AND ANOTHER FOLD! So two of the six players seated at the magic table folded preflop, neither of whom had even three dollars to risk. (See Mark’s post for the entire hand history, including chat.)

The first player who folded -- thereby preserving his $1.73 -- turned down a chance to win 57,803 times his or her stack. The second player had $2.95, deciding to keep it rather than try to multiply it 33,898 times. During the pre-hand chat, that second player actually typed “i seriously have AKs, but don’t think it’s worth to risk it.”

Have to believe these guys didn’t quite understand the terms of the deal, thinking perhaps they would be risking the $10,000 they’d won just for being there if they had played and lost the hand. Then again, perhaps they were stubbornly adhering to their beliefs that poker is NOT (nor ever should be) gambling. We laugh at the guy who forgoes 50,000-to-1 odds, but most of us refuse even better odds every day that we don’t buy a lottery ticket. After all, this week’s U.S.A. Powerball jackpot, to be drawn on May 23rd, is currently up to $63 million -- and it’s only two bucks to play . . . !

Nah. I’ll pass, too. Not worth it.

Speaking of getting something for nothing, this here post is intended to be a follow-up to a couple of posts from about six months ago. Back in November, I wrote about having won one of those FPP turbo tourneys on Stars, netting me 215 worth of tourney dollars. After a bit of hand-wringing, I decided against playing in the Sunday million and instead thought I’d use the funds to play in smaller buy-in tourneys.

I did so -- very sporadically -- over these last six months, with not a lot to show for it. Ended up running through nearly 100 $T with less than $30 in winnings to show for my efforts. Something like a negative 76% ROI or some horrific figure, if I’m calculating correctly.

Donked off a bit in some ill-managed rebuys. The highest single buy-in I tried was $8.00+$0.80. I played a bunch of tourneys back in December, then only one or two a month since. To be honest, I was having a hard time thinking of the T$ as actual cash, which might have been causing a bit of a disconnect when playing the tourneys. Dunno if I’m explaining myself clearly or not, but what I’m trying to say is I tend to concentrate much better when I know if I don’t cash my buy-in gets subtracted from my overall roll. (Make sense?)

So I decided today just to cut my losses and sell the rest for real, honest-to-goodness cabbage. And by cabbage I mean bread. You know, dinero, coinage . . . . CASH, dude! Good wherever anything is sold. I sold my T$ to CashmanBrian, getting the 90% back he pays for tourney dollars. A quick, painless procedure. (My first experience with CashmanBrian, and it was positive.) So, altogether, I ended up taking home about $140 for that 375 FPP I spent back in November. Decent return, that.

I’d like very much to get back into the tourney scene, although I fear my brain is essentially wired more properly in the direction of cash games. I’ll agree with most of the poker world, however, and admit tourneys are much more sexy. There people win thousands (and more) on a single hand all the time. Whereas the rest of us low- and micro-limit types have to wait around every ten billion hands or so for such drama to occur.

If we don’t fold preflop, of course.