PartyPoker via PokerStrategy

The Holidays are upon us!!!

Thanks to Gloria’s long holiday declarations, I now have more time to play poker!

I am going to talk about Partypoker and how I got started with it through Pokerstrategy.












My poker buddy alan referred me to a site called Pokerstrategy wherein they would credit your account with $50 to start off your poker bankroll. But of course it is not that simple, you have to read their poker articles then take their online exam, once you pass that exam, you choose an affiliated online poker site, create a new account, and the $50 would then be automatically credited to your new account within a few days.

After around 3 working days, I received my $50 dollars with an attached email. I thought the $50 was for me to dispose freely whenever I wanted to but the attached email stated that I would have to acquire 150 partypoker points within 90 days to keep the money or else the $50 (or anything left of it) would be confiscated. So I thought, yeah sure no problem, that would be easy.

On the 1st day (1st session), I logged on to the .05 .10 cash game with the max buy-in of $10. After playing a couple of hours, I was up by $3 dollars. I decided to leave the table and see how many points I have racked up. I refreshed the partypoints icon and saw…… 1 point! One measly point!!! What the…. Something must be wrong here! I couldn’t have just been credited with 1 point after grinding for a couple of hours!! So I went to there website and checked how they calculated partpoker points. Stated on the website, for .5 .10, that 10 partypoker points would be credited for around every 250 raked hands…. That’s a lot of raked hands considering I played too tightly and almost only played my blinds unless I had big cards.

On the 1st day (2nd session), I decided to play the .10 .25 jackpot cash game to hasten my points accumulation. Jackpot games get raked an additional .50. These special Jackpot tables rewards bad beats of quads and up. The maximum buy-in was $25, but I decided that $10 would be enough. After several hands, I realized that jackpot tables were much more active than ordinary tables. Players where more inclined to play there pocket pairs and suited connectors more often, in the hopes of hitting the jackpot. Pots were averaging $3 a hand. Within an hour, I burned my $10 and got credited with 1 more partypoint. Accumulating 150 points now seem to be far fetched idea.

On the 2nd day (1st session), I was back at the .05 .10 tables with $10. I opened up my game a bit and started attacking the blinds more often that I usually do so that I get raked more often. I started taking notes on players unwilling to protect their blinds against a small raise and consistently took there blinds. The problem with play .05 .10 tables was that the returns where quite slow and I was getting bored with the pace that money was trickling in.

On the 2nd day (2nd session), I was back at the .10 .25 tables, but decided to just play the ordinary tables since the jackpot tables were too crazy to play with. I now bought in for the maximum $25. I continued my loose play and kept attacking the blinds.
I got doubled up with this hand: Preflop: I bet 3x bb and got raised back 2x, I called. Flop comes Q 10 K off suit: I bet half the pot and got raised, I called. 4th street shows another Q: I bet half the pot and just called this time. River shows another Q: I checked, opponent bets, I raised, got reraised. At this point, only quad Queens could beat me, so I go all-in and got quickly called. I got thrown off how quickly my all-in got called and was almost certain I was against quad queens.

Fortunately, I got doubled up!!!

Can you guys guess our starting hands? (see bottom page)

On the 3rd day (1st session), with renewed confidence, I was back at the .10 .25 jackpot tables, hoping that my strategy could continue to work. Bought in for $25. I was playing well and doing fine, peaking at around $35. That was when my AQ rammed against AK. I was now down to $7. I thought about calling it a day and reflect on how badly I played that hand. But since I had nothing else to do, I decided to grind it out until I finally gained back my starting buy-in of $25. Whew, that was a long hard climb, but it was so fulfilling because I didn’t tilt and was able to regain my composure after I almost destroyed myself.

These consecutive days of cash tables earned me around 35 points and I am now on my way to completing the required 150 points. Should I clear the 150 points, another $100 would be credited to my account on a staggered basis.
On the 3rd day (2nd session), I decided to join the Partypoker $300 freeroll. Around 6500 players joined with 1000 players getting paid. 1000th place gets .06….. wowoweeee….mucho dinero….

The game started around 7:05pm. That was dinner time, so I logged in around 7:40pm. I stayed in the middle of the pack for most of the tournament. After around 3 hours we were In The Money at 1000th for .06 dollars. I thought, with that 3 hours I could have won so much more money at the cash tables. But I sure didn’t want to bust out now because I would have just wasted the 3 hours spent. I continued to grind it out. Luckily I didn’t get any bad beats nor did I hand out any.

By around 11:30pm, my SMART BRO was smoking hot, we were already down to the last 30 tables and the prize was now getting bigger and bigger. I was still in with mid stack hoping to make my move. I was dealt AQ, a player goes all in and was folded back to me. I thought, time to stack up. Before I could press the ALL-IN button, I get disconnected. What!!! I get reconnected after a few minutes and now sees QQ hole cards, before I get could do anything, I get disconnected again… dang!!!

I rushed out to the sala hoping to get a better internet signal. Now, I saw pocket pair 10s, I panicked and just pressed the ALL-In button before I get disconnected again. It was a 3 way all-in against unpaired high cards and I got tripled up.

Around 12:30am we were down to the final table with blinds capped at 75,000-150,000-4,000. I just did my thing, letting the bluffers bluff and just picking my spots until I became one of the chip leaders. With only 4 players remaining, I looked at my YM and looked who among my poker buddies were still awake. Unfortunately, only Sherwin was awake, reading God knows what. So, Every time I was stuck on a hand, I would ask his opinion and basically just did the OPPOSITE of his suggestions. Thanks dude, couldn’t have done it without you.

I was now heads up with around 7 millions in chips against my opponents 14 million. Fortunately, the blinds were already capped which leaves me with a lot of room to maneuver. It was now around 1am and I am quite sure that my 15hours SMARTBRO prepaid load would be running out anytime soon. I hope I get to end this game.

My opponent questionably occasionally goes all in preflop, hoping to end it right there and then. I told myself that this guy/ gal, feels he/ she can’t outplay me, that is why he/ she keeps going all in preflop. I was determined more than ever to outplay him/ her.

These were the defining hands that changed the tide to my favor:

My opponent goes ALL-IN for the Nth time when I saw pocket 8s, snowmen!!! I am probably ahead unless I run against a higher pocket pair, it was now a race and a chance I was willing to take. Opponent shows me Ax and I was way ahead. I was now up around 16 million against 4 million chips.

I kept my patience, kept staying away from his/ her preflop all-ins and focused mainly on outplaying my opponent. With a J9, I double the BB and got called. Flop gives my middle pair 9 with an ace scare card. I bet ¾ the pot, and my opponent goes ALL-IN. My initial reaction was, he/ she couldn’t possibly have paired the Ace because he/she would have went All-in preflop with any Ace. And if I was against a pair ace, he/ she could have tried to extract more chips from me by just calling or raising. I called the ALL-IN and opponent shows rags. I win!!!

That was my wonderful Partypoker freeroll experience. 6hours for $44, not so bad.














Some thanks you notes are in order:

Poker Strategy – for giving the partypoker starting bankroll of $50.

Alan – for referring me to poker strategy.

Party poker – for sponsoring those freerolls.

Sherwin – for your wrong poker strategies.

Smartbro – for wireless internet access here in the province.



(I had KK against AA)