The other night it was my son's 21 birthday party; lots of booze and crazy activity at my house. I'm downstairs keeping an eye on everything, and I decide to play in a freeroll Omaha Hi/Lo tournament. The top 27 players of this tournament win their entry into some other freeroll NLHE tournament -- with real cash payouts. Nearly 4600 people enter this tournament.
A few minutes into this tournament, I'm already 1/2 stacked. Every pot is raised and capped on every street -- with 4 to 6 players in it. So I ask myself: "are players in a freeroll really this bad?" Of course, the answer is a resounding: YES.
I wait a few hands, then play back at them myself. I scoop a pot, and go from short stack to biggest stack at the table. From there, I never looked back. Two hours later, I had over 80,000 in chips, and was one of the tournament chip leaders. Unfortunately for me, I had to walk away to go see a movie with my wife.
By the time I left for the movies, I was in 11th place overall. The field had gone from 4600 players down to 255 in less than three hours. I asked one of my son's friends ("KY") to play the rest of the tournament for me. After telling me he would, he apparently walked away as soon as I left. After all, how could poker ever compete against a party full of fine looking young ladies -- especially when alcohol is involved?
As it turns out, my chip stack was so large, that I was blinded out, and finished in 31st place -- just 4 people away from winning one of the 27 seats to the other freeroll. I walked away when 255 people were still in tournament, and had such huge chip stack that I was blinded out and lasted to 31st place.
Yes, players in a freeroll really are that bad.