Spade Club Membership Tourney
On Spadeclub, the monthly poker membership cost is $20. Every day there are free-entry casino online tournaments where 2 players will win a one-month membership. These tournaments cost no money or points to enter, so the size is pretty large. The other day I entered one and there were 477 players. Out of 477, only 2 players win the prize.
I ran deep playing poker online. I was running good and making plays and winning coinflips and I got to the final table. I was mid stacked and pretty comfortable, but no one was really deep, so big all-ins were happening every few hands. I caught AK under the gun, and decided to limp in. I wouldn’t mind seeing a flop, and getting away from it cheaply if I missed, but I would also love to exploit someone’s raise with an all-in. Late in the game, I don’t mind going all-in with AK preflop. Early in a tournament, you don’t have much of a reason to do this; the blinds are small and there is usually nothing to win by making the bet. The only thing you can count on is getting called by a pair and having to race. At the end of a tournament, AK increases in value to me, because many players will be opening with AQ, AJ and the like, willing to call and all-in. They are less likely to take a stand with a small pocket pair for their tournament life.
In this instance, I limped for 4,000 and an action player directly to my left raised to 15,000. Another player flat called their bet and I decided to try and isolate with a shove, and maybe even take down a pretty nice stack. I had about 80,000 total and the pot was about 40K. Any player would only be getting 1.5/1 odds and would be taking a big gamble unless they had a huge pair. I got called by the initial re-raiser who had A, 6 off suit, and the other player folded. I won and became the chip leader.
A few rounds later I called a raise with K, 10 off suit. It was not a very good hand, but I felt I could splash around a little in hopes of stacking someone. I wanted to take players out directly, to increase my chances of being one of the 2 winners.
