The Worst Winner

It would appear I am much better at Twitter than poker. I don't have a lot of followers, I don't get many retweets and even the number of likes is probably subpar but what I do get, in abundance, is poker tournament tickets.  There is a wealth of poker tickets and goodies to won in the world of Poker Twitter, and here's what I've gotten out of it in just three months: After winning a $27.50 Spin & Go PCA satellite ticket on Twitter, I expertly converted that into what felt like a disappointing min Spin & Go prize of a $55 satellite ticket. Spirits were lifted when I beasted the next stage and captured a seat in the $530 mega satellite for a Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) package, in which Pokerstars were guaranteeing something ridiculous like 100 packages to celebrate/highlight the return of the PCA. In terms of buy-in and possibly prizes, this was the third biggest tournament I have ever played, and I'm playing it because of a random prize d...

“Win a luxury holiday to the Bahamas for you and your friends!” You know those competitions for amazing all expenses paid five star holiday? You probably never hear of anyone winning one, you might even wonder if anyone actually does win them, I used to wonder that, until I won one, but I am the  worst  winner. Prostate Cancer UK ran a fundraising campaign called ‘Lad's Night In’. Similar in vein to things like 'Movember' or the 'Ice Bucket Challenge', the idea was to get people to do something fun, in this case play poker, raising money and awareness to help fight prostate cancer. My dad is living with prostate cancer and I play poker, so I got involved.  Pokerstars were sponsoring the campaign, bringing two things to the table: - a home game poker pack, including cards and dealer button - a holiday in the Bahamas for 5, including flights, accommodation, spending money and entry to a side event at the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) to be...

PartyPoker’s 2016 Grand Prix Poker Tour made me happy. Barring a big score, it was my perfect pokering scenario, I wrote a bit about here . In summary it was a $109 buy in tournament with multiple Day 1s (live and online) culminating in a big live Day 2. My bankroll typically extends to playing £/$20 buyins and having Baby Mack to work around means my free time is mainly restricted to evenings and parts of the weekend, so with the online aspect I could satellite into a Day 1 through a $22 satellite and play the Day 1 (a couple if required) from the comfort of my couch after Baby Mack’s bed time routine. Then I need only show up for one Sunday afternoon of poker, which I have mostly already secured a decent cash for, with the potential for a big win on the cards. Perfect. Since then PartyPoker’s live events really started taking off, transforming into some kind of EPT replacement and long gone are my ideal mini/GPPT events as a result. A few months ago, a new local venture seemed s...

Aahh, the MicroMillions. The MicroMillions series of events is a conundrum and a  dilemma, and, for me,  the epitome of tournament poker on Pokerstars. There are a couple of things to note about the MicroMillions events, for a buy-in of just a few dollars you can win you a five figure prize but in order to do that you must first best a gazillion players.   For a recreational player who mostly likes to play some poker in the evening, the large player pool of Pokerstars is actually a problem. I can't be playing against a few thousand players until the wee small hours when I need to get up for work at 7am. No where is it more evident than the MicroMillions events. N onetheless, there are HUGE prizes to be won, at very little cost and somebody is going to win them, so why not me?  As an experiment I have decided to play as many of the events as is reasonably possible, and see where that gets me. A late night will be worth it for $10,000! It might also act as som...

PartyPoker were giving away two $109 tickets for tonight's MILLIONS satellite on Twitter earlier.  I won! But by the time I got in from work, put the baby to bed, grabbed something to eat, I had missed registration...  There goes $109.  And it wasn't just me who lost out, I deprived some other poor bugger on Twitter from winning a ticket.  I am the worst winner.