O-Poker

I can't remember the last time that I played at pokerstars. I don't have anything against PS, but I just haven't had a reason to play there. You basically have to become at least supernova to even get close to the rakeback that you would be missing out on by playing on other sites with rakeback.

Fuel made a post the other day about WSOP sats starting at pokerstars including the WSOP steps. I'm a sucker for the money pit that is the steps, so I moved some money over from FTP to pokerstars. I decided to only move $100 over (I'm not that much of a sucker). If I moved more over, I would probably just jump into the $200 steps and that would add up fast. I decided that I am going to build up as many step tickets as I can at each level until I move to the next.

I four tabled the step 1s at the beginning of the night each of the last two nights before starting to really play for the night. Holy crap, these things are soft. I know these are step 1s and a lot of people don't take them seriously, but some of the things that people did left me saying, "WTF?" One guy berated me by saying, "Great F*cking call. What the hell are you thinking making a call like that?" after he busted in 3rd or 4th. I had 8k chips and was in the BB. A short stack UTG player went all-in for like 950. The button (3.5k) called. A shorter stacked (900-1k) SB (guy who berated me) called with A5. I had 49 and had to call like 550 more into a 4 way pot with two people all-in. I made a boat on a 449K2 board and ended the sng. The SB searched me out at another table to try to berate me some more about my horrible call.

I ran into a good thread in BBV on 2+2 about the steps. Some of the stuff in the thread is pretty basic, but ImNoSoGood has some good thoughts throughout the thread on the WSOP steps including the following:

I start at both steps 4 and 5, I've just been playing these steps while doing schoolwork. I just run PT, and sharkscope people prior to the sit and go. I don't join tables with a bunch of very good regs (though I have by accident).

There's alot of scared money in the step 6's and I just abuse that, and I did a bunch of ICM work on SNGPT for these kinds of steps. People tend to crack, and tilt when 3 handed and HU, and I just take advantage of it because I don't care nearly as much as they do.

If you're someone starting at step 1 I suggest following a system where you have to have multiple tickets to the next step before you play it. Say you start at step 1 - I'd say have 7 step 2's before you play Step 2, 6 Step 3's, 5 Step 4s, 4 Step 5s, and 3 Step 6s. You'll be far more confident, and you're likely to play much better when the stakes get very high. Also, you yourself should not take the small bubbles into account @ Step 6(0-500,500-1000,1000-1500), they matter a bit, but they are insignificant compared to 1500-12500, and alot of decent SNG players have a hard time disregarding money bubbles almost completely.

I think I am going to play 4 of these steps each night and stockpile a ton of step tix at each step before moving to the next. Hopefully this won't be a huge black hole and I'll end up with a WSOP seat.