Keep HFL Free

This is courtesy of PokerNews.com:

Full Tilt Poker has announced a brand new challenge for players with both the skills to play heads-up poker and the bankroll to prove that they’re the best. Full Tilt’s $25K Heads-Up World Championship will be contested on Saturday, May 24th and Sunday, May 25th, 2008, and is the highest buy-in ever for an online heads-up event.

Taking place one week after the currently-running FTOPS VIII series concludes, the event will be hosted by 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Champion and Team Full Tilt member Chris Ferguson. Other Full Tilt stars who have already announced their intentions to participate are Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer and Jennifer Harman. Key hands and match-ups will be recorded and post-event commentary will be provided by Phil Gordon and Ali Nejad. The toruney kicks off at 15:00 ET on May 24th.

For those who would love the chance to participate but can’t quite manage the $25,000 buy-in, Full Tilt will also host a couple of online qualifiers on the days preceding the championship. Exclusive play-inevents with a $500+35 entry fee will be held on Thursday, May 22nd and Friday May 23rd. The starting time on both of those dates is also 15:00 ET.

The championship will have a maximum of 64 players, and for both the championship itself and for the qualifiers, Full Tilt will use a “no byes”, perfect-field structure that encourages players to reserve their seats in advance. Late-registering players run the risk of having their buy-ins refunded if the next level of the field (16, 32, 64, etc.) remains unfilled.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

Keep HFL Free

11:50am: It was my first live session in nearly two months, but I returned back to Harrah’s New Orleans yesterday and was able to pull out a decent winning session playing 2-5 NLHE. 30 minutes into the session I walked into trouble as I re raised to $65 from $20 with QQ and got two callers. The flop was 8 5 2, and I led out for $100 to see where i was at. I found out real quick, as the fairly tight player to my left raised it up to $400, only to get check re raised all in for $600 by the guy on my right. Although I got away fairly cheap on the hand, I was up against 55 (left) and KK (right). The set held up, as the man to my left took down a fairly sizable pot.

The rest of the night consisted of the following distribution of premium/notable hands:

AA: 0 times
KK: 4 times (1W, 3L)
QQ: 2 times (1W, 1L)
JJ: 1 time (1L)
10 10: 1 times (1L)
99: 4 times (2W, 2L)
AK: 2 times (2W)

KK and 99 were the two most frequently dealt hands pre flop. Amazingly, I flopped a full house with 99 once and filled up on the river on a lady who turned trips the other time. Unfortunately, she was really tight and I didn’t get paid off as much as I normally would have had anyone else in poker room had what she had.

That being said, the majority of the night I sat at -$200 to -$300, before going on a late run the last hour and a half of my 9 hour session. Included in that run was a great call I made with AJ against a guy who was trying to represent trips. I realized about 3 minutes into my thought process when I had to call $200 on the river that he had missed his flush draw and was trying to represent that he had been calling me down with middle pair and tripped up on the river. When I put the money into the pot, he just put his head down and mucked his hand.

All in all, it was a solid return for me as I profited $400. However, that was just a warm up and I expect better days to come. I will split my time this week between heads up matches, the blog, and live poker. This will be my first full week of full time poker since my apartment caught fire.

Good luck to everyone playing today, and happy mothers day!

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process