Many of you probably already know, but last year PokerStars started the
Asia-Pacific Poker Tour. Season 2 has been announced and since the first two events are close to me and during my school vacation I thought it would be a good idea to try and qualify.
Of course the real question is how ...
PokerStars has several qualifiers and I happened to be playing when they announced a $2 + $0.20 2x turbo re-buy satellite to a $475 qualifier. What I didn't know, or maybe I just forgot, was that "2x turbo re-buy" is poker speak for gamble! The first couple of hands are played like normal poker, but the blinds go up every 5 minutes so after a few rounds you pretty much just find two cards you really like and push.
Any two cards of course!
At one point I tripled up by pushing when I flopped a straight draw and a flush draw. (The flush came on the river.) However about 30 minutes later the antes and rising blinds had bled me a bit and I found Queens in the hole. Two people push in front of me, which I knew wasn't good, but these things are decided by some heavy luck so I went in with them.
My opponents had 79 and 7J. I was pretty happy.
The flop was 799. Suddenly not so happy.
There was no Queen for me.
I decided not to rebuy since I would have had to push and win twice in a row fairly quickly to even have a chance at keeping up with the blinds.
It was an interesting experience, but I don't think I'll be spending my money on that kind of satellite again. It's easier just to earn the full $475 buy-in the old fashioned way.
If anyone has any suggestions for how to qualify for one of these events I'd love to hear it!
