PokerStars is a great place to work and you get significantly more out of it if you are a Poker enthusiast. Feeling part of the company's tremendous success is rewarding in it's own right but Stars certainly reward their staff well financially also. I couldn't be happier to work for anyone else and I'm looking forward to dragging you all kicking and screaming into my 5th year with the company.
That said, there is one eternal drawback to working for Stars, which is.... not being able to play on PokerStars! So when the chance presents itself, I like to try and remedy that situation with a little game as and when they present themselves.
Last saw the local Isle of Man casino hold a £10 rebuy.. anyone who knows me will realise this was irresistible to someone who originally cut their proverbial teeth playing £10 rebuy games back in 2004. I was excited to the say the least and couldn't wait to delve back into what I hoped would be a throwback of sorts to the good old days!
The set up was simple enough, 2000 chips, 15min levels and rebuys for 1hr with the clock extending to 20mins after the rebuys to allow a bit of room for maneuver. I used to consider myself a very tight-fisted £10 rebuy player, I could make £30 go a long way. That when was I was broke-ass! Now I'm not so broke-ass I went a little bit crazy in the pursuit of eternal happiness (or some chips).
I'm all in on the first hand with AKs versus Joan's baby-suited rags (same suit!) and she hit and I didn't, 1 down! I continued to dis-regard sense and chase value and threw away my 2000 chips time and time again in multi-way pots with some less than premium junk. Saying that, the amount of time that 10-high was good pre-flop made me question whether I was doing the right thing or not! Ultimately I flopped the best hand almost every time and was quashed by the river. I won one pot in £70's worth of buy-ins and ended up with nothing by the end.
I begrudgingly took the £10 add-on for 4k and took a stab. I doubled up on the first hand when some very strange older dude called off his whole stack after limping in for 300 with 10,9 suited and my AQ held. Up to about 9k and a bit to play with. I get moved and the blinds go through me a couple of times and I'm hovering around the 7k mark and find what I thought was a good spot to shove following a few 400 limps. I jam my 5,4s expecting universal and unconditional surrender. However a chap who looked like Danny Zuko from Grease in his leather jacket and greased back hair, decide he'd rather not let go of A10 for 50% of his chips :-/
I bump 2 pair and he's royally pissed off with me. I'm up to 14k and find a great spot to get a real stack together in the very next hand, couple of limps for 400 again, 7k stack jams, I tank up on AQ and decide this guy is bad enough to do this with far worse and he tables A8 and I'm feeling tremendous. The 8 on the flop was less tremendous however and Danny Zuko is cheering on his comrade in arms. Not one to keep my mouth shut I calmly inquire 'what is your problem, buddy?' and he sinks back into his leathers.
I'm back to where I started and the blinds will soon be going up so I'm looking for another spot. I try to UTG to steal with 7,4s... probably a mistake as I know Danny Zuko wants my blood at this point, just turns out that he picks up a hand this time and makes the call for my stack with 99, I don't even get a sweat and that's the night over.
On the whole, it was a very fun game.. even Danny Zuko didn't dampen my spirits, but he might be my new Lester on IOM in terms of bloodrivals! 'll be looking forward to the next one in 2 weeks time whereby I hope I can exercise a little more sense and perhaps even win me some monies...
