Well I am finally back into action at Full Tilt Poker, this is where I am going to build my $200 bankroll into $10K. I have been jam up lately with my sites, so it took me a little longer than antcipated to start my journey to $10K. I chose Full Tilt because it is my favorite place to play online poker. Not only do they have the nicest software imo, but it is one of the few US Online Poker Rooms we can play at. They feature a smoking 100% deposit bonus up to $600, and you can log in at any time and most likely see any of the regular pro poker players at the table to include Phil Ivey, Mike The Mouth, Chris Jesus Ferguson to name a few. Just so you know, my username is offyourface if you care to watch me in action.

I really thought hard about what I wanted to accomplish my first night back at the tables, so after making my $200 deposit, I decided to go to my strongest game, a sitngo no limit texas holdem tournament. I really wanted to start my journey off on the right foot, so it only made sense to play my strongest game which are the nl tournaments. Well not to toot my own horn, but this was the first tourney in a while for me and I snapped it off with ease. I am not going to bore you with every single detail. I started off a little loose as I always do at the beginning of a tournament and tried to see as many flops as I could that were not raised. This is something I strongly recommend for all poker players at the beginning of a tournament. I am not saying call every flop with anything. I am talking more less the mediocure hands like 10-J, 7-8 suited ect. These are not the best starting hands, but if you flop right they will make you alot of money. You should also consider that if the pot is not reraised and your holding one of these hands, you could literally see 8 flops and not have even risked 10% of your stack. My point here is if you sit around in a tournament and wait for the nuts to hit, before you know it you will be short stacked, and forced to push a hand that you normally would not push because if you don’t hit a score soon the blinds will eat you up.

Ok, back to my game. It was early and I doubled up quick, I had A-5 suited and flopped a set of fives. The flop was Jack Diamonds, 5 hearts, 5 diamonds and I was holding A-5 of clubs. There were no preflop bets so there were 5 people in the hand and I was in late position. First player checks, next bets $100, third and fourth guy fold, I call and first player drops out. I put this guy on top pair, possibly a flush draw. Very seldom will anyone lead out if they flop a set, something to be aware. Turn was a dud, he pushed a little harder and bet $500. I figured he put me on a flush draw and wanted to protect his hand. Little did he know I was sitting on a set. I opted to raise him $500, there were a couple of reasons for doing this. One is there was already alot of money in the pot, so I felt he was already pot committed and would put in what ever I decided to bet and I was pretty sure I had the best of it going into the river. The other is if he was on a flush draw, I wanted him to pay for his draw. If he was in fact on a flush draw and the river was another dud which it was, chances are I have no more chances to get any more money from him and he would check to me and fold when I bet. So this was an important raise for me to get as many chips as possible before the end of the hand. That was how I doubled up early.

I managed to win a few more good pots and found myself heads up playing for the cheese. Last hand was really nothing to write home about, I hit the pocket rockets and it just so happened my opponnent pushed all in preflop with KQ, so my aces held up and that was that. My $11 won me $49, a $38 profit in my first session.

In my future posts, I will be getting much more detailed in my strategies and I trust if you are an intermediate poker player, you will pick up many things to take your game to the next level. As for my first day, I quit after I played that tournament. I thought about playing another tournament but I figured if I quit, what better way to end my first day of this journey to $10K. One tournament and I snapped it off and raised my bankroll by over 15%. Not bad folks. Remember, this is going to be a real grind, and I am curious with the proper bankroll management how long it will take me to get there. Remember, my username is offyourface, so you can look for me at the tables, or if you want to play with me at