Free money is always the sweetest money, and this week I managed to claim a little of the sweetest money when I played in the inaugural Gambling Tales Podcast Freeroll on Full Tilt Poker. The kind folks at FTP put together a freeroll for us, and Special K and I promoted it to the best of our ability (which means that he did a lot of work, and I sent a couple tweets and emails, which is about the same division of labor as we have on the creation of the podcast, but that’s beside the point). All our efforts resulted in the freeroll filling up before it even started, with 1,000 people registered!

Now if they’d all showed up, I’d probably still be playing in the damn thing. But fortunately for my time commitment, only about 25% of the people that signed up actually played. A big part of my hated that, because there were some people who would have happily played that couldn’t get registered, but since I can usually outplay a ghost stack (only usually) I attribute my deep run to the fact that only two people at my first table were actually people. I managed to not get into any confrontations with the other live player at my table, and built up a decent little stack for myself by the time most of the ghosts were blinded off.

After a little while I finally got moved to a table with some real live people, which was a lot of fun, because the whole point of playing for me was to interact with our listeners and have some fun with my friends. I ended up at the same table as Special K for a while, then got moved, then got moved back, and hung around and hung around until the money bubble burst, guaranteeing me at least a $.06 return on my time! Ok, leave me alone, it was my first tourney cash of the new year, a real milestone. I played around, trying not to get involved with anything too embarrassing, and after a while I realized that being one of the hosts of the show actually was making me play better. Even though I’m a terrible poker player, and did get into one big hand with a guy where I called a preflop raise with suited 8-9, caught an 8 on the flop and then went runner-runner boat on him to send him home, I generally didn’t play too stupidly. So maybe I should host more tournaments if they’ll make me play better? Nah, one a week is plenty.

So this Thursday we’ll have another Gambling Tales Podcast freeroll, and this time we will not be releasing the password anywhere but on the show, so go listen and register! Congrats to DeeBakes for being the inaugural GT Podcast Freeroll winner! I had a blast playing and chatting with Dee, and hope that he can make it to a WPBT gathering sometime soon (like December)! So if you want to play poker with me, listen to the podcast and sign up!

Then last night I signed up to play the PokerSluts Tour Stud Hi tournament, with such stud geniuses as myself, BamBam, DocChako, VeryJosie, and GadZooks. At least one of those players is actually good at stud, and if you need a hint, I guarantee that it isn’t one of the men! That should narrow the field for you a little, huh? I built up a big stack early by being a ridiculous card rack, picking up trip 6s at least three times in the first three levels of the tourney. Just like I said to Doc early on, I caught cards early on and went card dead once the blinds got high, losing a big pot to Gadzooks when she made a flush on 5th and I played bad, then losing another big pot to SmBoatDrinks (or something like that, I don’t take notes and pay very little attention because, as I have said time and again I am a bad poker player) when I played bad again. So then I missed a big draw, I think I had a flush and a straight draw, or maybe a pair and a flush draw, or something that felt like it was a good draw that missed, but I might have mentioned that I don’t take notes so I don’t really remember, so gimme a break, I drink a lot and forget things, okay? So I bubbled, and that sucked, but it was a lot of fun seeing those folks again, and Zooks puts on a great tourney series, so check that out sometime!

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