First cash with free account

Today I managed to cash in my first free tournament playing under my "no deposit" account on Full Tilt. The part that I feel the best about is the fact that I was able to get 3rd place out of the 1270 entrants in a game that I have never played before. That game is Pot Limit Omaha Hi. I have played lots of Omaha Hi/Lo but Hi only was still a mystery to me.

In terms of my play I feel that I did well. I know I got really lucky on two hands early on in the tournament but for most of the tournament I have just been playing the hands I feel are solid and hitting strong boards. I played aggressive and I didn't get check raised very often so when that did happen I was very sure that I was beaten. Near the end I also got lucky and hit my flush draw on the river, but we were all in on the flop when I had top pair and, the nut flush draw and a back-door straight draw. Poker can sometimes be about catching draws, and with the number of outs it was a great chance for me to double up at a key moment of the tournament. Once we got to the final two tables I just coasted to the final table without much difficulty. The two hands that knocked me out were basically well played by both of us. My two pair with straight and flush draw was beaten by a set, and my Flush was then beaten by a full house. It was a very good way to go out, compared to a bad beat. I won't be losing sleep about my play tonight.

So now I have some real cash in my account ($20.00) and I've pulled off the first goal in this experiment, get a cash. Goal two, start playing in micro limit cash games. I'll do this if my buy in for that micro limit is less then 5% of my overall bankroll.

The lowest limit is $0.05-$0.10. At that limit, $10 is my buy in for that limit. So, $200 is my bankroll goal before I'll be ready to hit those micro tables with the proper bankroll.