Gambling Tale #017: Comic relief in Purgatory....

The words Poker Freeroll in and of themselves, are a lot like Government Worker to me. I mean really, is there a bigger way to confuse two words of the English language just by putting them together? At least, that's what I always used to think! But after last nights Gambling Tales Freeroll I do know that it was FREE, and most definitely after nearly three hours of play I do have to admit, I feel like I just got rolled.

Okay to get a few facts straight, here are the details. The boys offered a Freeroll for 998 of their closest friends last night. If you stopped by the Gambling Tales Podcast site and had a short listen to a great conversation, you'd get the P/W and the first 1000 were in. Simple!

So as an avid listener I was one of the first in. It's just how I roll for friends. When I saw that they actually got the full 1,000 entered, I bowed a little polite bow of respect to the South. The boys I thought, must really be onto something here! It took about two full minutes to realize how smart Falstaff and Special K really were though, by opening up entirely new markets in Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Genius really, just effin' genius!

A minute or two into the game was when I also noticed previous winner and Pal to Oh Captain, DeeBakes was sitting two spots to my right. 'At least someone at the table could speak English,' I said to myself. Naturally though, I was moved from Dee's table almost immediately. Thus leaving me to defend myself, with nothing more than Babelfish and google translate.

The game started out pretty much as expected for a Freeroll, with $50 in the pot and 1,000 players. Meaning of course, a full 1/3 of the field was sitting out. Not that there's anything really wrong with that I guess, I do get a kick out of the tools that continue to fold to them after an hour or so of play. Can't you just picture them sitting all frustrated in their SB saying, "Damn! Why can't I just get a hand against this guy?" I certainly can! Then there's also the free blinds available to a couple of savvy players, if they both realize what's going on. It's a little thing we like to call intelligent collusion around here. Of course in a nutshell, it takes two intelligent beings to come up with such a plan. Say, oh I don't know, like, two live players. Perhaps the ONLY two live players sitting at the table, uh you know, with 7 dead spots at it or something? But for the really seasoned Freeroller, there's also plan B! This one takes all the moxy you've got but in the end, it'll be well worth the effort it takes to consistently re-raise the only other live player sitting at your table. That is of course, unless the other player gets fed up and busts you out with pocket Astins, and your re-raise, re-re-raise, re-re-re-raise jam all in strategy, finds you holding the bottom pair of 3's, on an Ace high flop. Then my Freerollin' friend, you might want to back off the gas just a touch. But don't worry, a dead stack will move in to take your place and then there's always the chatbox. The wonderful release portal where you can tell the one other live player at that table that just stacked you, what a true Donkey play he really made. So, there is that right?

I think it took three hands total to get all of BadxxScooter's stack and despite showing him the pocket Astins the first time around,


he went with the Plan B move mentioned earlier.

At a table of dead stacks for the next 15 minutes or so, I built up a little stash of chippies. Then with no one busting at my table as of yet, I was moved to another table. One with only three dead stacks. I was honestly alright with that though, as a raise pre-flop, bet flop, checked turn and OBFV on the river,


didn't seem to work out too bad at the time.

It was around second break or so, when I noticed I was picking up the BamBamCan fan club of sorts. I channelled my inner Waffles and had as much fun with it as I could.


Hell! I even managed to somehow hold back on transferring $100.00 to one player in Turkey, despite the importance of getting him "back online the game." My restraint apparently, knows no bounds.

This was about the time I was asked the most important question in all of Poker too. If the universal translator was working correctly I was asked, "bambam, is you a man or bitch?" Using all of my Poker wiles remaining, I decided to flip a coin and ultimately went with Bitch. I also managed at about the same time I think, to pick up a real railer.


His support of me quite naturally drew the wrath of the Turkish delegation and in fact, I believe he was cussed out almost immediately.

DrChako1: I was just cussed out in a new language. how cool is that!

I really wanted to chat with my Brudder for a bit, so I took advantage of the opportunity to send our new found pals over to view a few Frantic Fridays. Oh and by the way, if you need to increase traffic at your blog from Kazackawhackyland or a few Turkeys, I highly recommend this strategy! My readership went up 161% in just 15 minutes!

I only had a few goals going into this thing.

1) Have fun
2) Cash in a 1,000 player donkfest
3) Have fun
4) and most importantly, have fun

After 2 hrs. and 43 mins. of "play" I'm pleased to report, I met all of my goals for the night!


Brudder Chako asked me in the chat, "why do you subject yourself to this?" and at the time, my answer was for Falstaff. But despite never really understanding why anyone would take the time to register and then sit out the entire game I have to admit, I saw the funniest thing along the way last night. As I witnessed one sitting out player at a minimum, triple up. No not once, not twice, not even a fully Bracelet approved THRICE during the game, but four times in a row, when the blinds came around and they were all in.

Now that alone my friends, was well worth the price of admission! Because let's face it, if we can't laugh at ourselves, (and we have some damn fine material to work with!) what can we laugh at?

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....