O-Poker

I am trying to see if I can turn nothing into something on UB.

When I first started playing online poker a few years ago (early 2003), I played at the original World Sports Exchange Poker, then migrated over to Pokerstars and eventually Ultimate Bet. After winning my way to Aruba in 2003, I started playing a lot more on UB. It had a great community that some people described as a "home game" feel. The player base wasn't huge and you really got to know a lot of the other players since you played with them daily. I had even met quite of few of them in Aruba - some are still good friends. I played a lot of tourneys and SNGs on UB in 2003 and 2004, but then things at UB started to go south. The customer service went downhill. They completely changed their tourney schedule that wiped out a lot of the tourneys that fell within the stakes that I was playing and the times that I could play. The site started crashing a lot. When I say a lot, I mean several times a week. All this led, to me playing more on Party Poker and Pokerstars. I eventually landed on FTP and play 95% of my poker there now.

I just checked the pokerdb and I have played a grand total of 6 tourneys at UB this year. I had only played 3 this year until June 30th. About a month ago, I received a "special offer" from UB. It was different than a lot of the other "special offers" that they send out. This one offered a free entry into their Sunday $200 buy-in $200k guarantee. I emailed them back asking for the free entry even though I probably wasn't going to be able to play in the tourney. They registered me for it and I promptly attempted to unregister. It worked. My account was credited with $200 tourney dollars.

My plan was to try to turn the T$200 into some real money. Shortly before heading to the WSOP, I played one of the nightly $129 bounties tourneys and donked out early. I had almost completely forgotten about the remaining T$ until the other night when I opened UB and jumped into the next tourney that was starting. It was a $20 6 max. I busted out with AK vs KQ.

This left me with T$62. It didn't look like I was going to be to successful with turning $0 in my UB account into something. I logged on last night and saw a $20 rebuy satellite to their Sunday Night(8:30 PM) $530 $75k guarantee mtt. I decided that I would spend my last T$62 on that tourney even though 3 total buy-ins is a horrible way to go into a rebuy tourney. I used all of my buy-ins up a few hands into the satellite and was sitting on about 2,400 chips with no money to add on at the end of the rebuy period. I somehow managed to have a huge chip lead by the break and wound up 3rd in chips after everyone but me added on.

I was the chip leader after knocking one player out at the final table. Then the perfect situation came up. I was dealt Aces on the button. A player in mid-position made a large raise. I raised enough to almost put him all in. To my surprise the SB (who I barely had covered) re-raised all-in. Mid-position folded. I called and my Aces held up against SB's Kings. I was now chip leader by more than double the 2nd spot with 6 or 7 players left and 2 seats being awarded. I managed to hold on to win my entry to the $530.

So, on Sunday night I will see if I can turn nothing into something. Hopefully, there will be more to this story.