I have my best ever result in a big free roll tournament online.

The first two hours of the free roll I have playing a cautious game just like normal. At one point I have only about 9 big blinds left. I have to move all in with my two hearts versus my rival’s small pair; a fifth heart on the river saves me.

The my luck starts to change at the two hour mark. Among the 7283 entries, only about 600 left.

I have a few opportunities to all in against my rivals and fortunately my biggest hands have held up. I climb to about 150,000 chips in total, and when I win a crucial encounter with another player with 170,000 chips, I have double up and suddenly I find that I am in the lead of the tournament with only 200 players left.

For about 30 minutes, the situation remains the same. I am quite surprised that there is no dominant player in the tournament and my stack ranks among the top few for the large part of the tournament. It is the first time ever I make the break at the three hour mark; I am lying in 7th among 70 players.

I have no good cards after the break and I slip to about 12th position with about 30 players left. I have very excited about the possibility of playing in the final table.

I have 7-9 with big blind when there is only one caller which allows me to see the flop. The flop is Q-9-7, an almost perfect flop for me. My rival reraises me and I move all in. He calls and shows Q-9; top pair and a good kicker, I do not blame him for calling me.

If I double up, I will have almost one million in chips and grab the lead once again.

The most unfortunate thing happens. A queen on the turn. I am crippled. My dream is over.

About one round later, I am forced to move all in with my pair of sevens; luck is not with me again when my rival shows a pair of kings. A very nice looking flop of 8-6-5 gives me some hope, but no help from the turn and river. I finished 19th out of more than 7000 players.

One day, I will win one of these tournaments, I promise.

I start playing online poker tonight with the idea of playing aggressively and see the result.

I play for about 30 minutes and I am down a bit; I am playing aggressively and betting out, and the other players are noticing this and many of them are playing more passively allowing me to bet out. I am waiting for the chance to take advantage of this.

Then in one hand, I have a pair of deuces. I bet out and two players called. The flop is a harmless looking 2-4-7; perfect flop for me. I bet out, one player folds and the other player reraise me. I move all and he calls quickly. He has a pair of queens. I think I am the best poker player in the world.

Until the queen comes at the turn.

You cannot win all the time. I get some more chips and I continue play. I now I will get my chips back.

I maintain my aggressive style and play a little longer. I am gradually losing some chips but I know I am setting my rivals up for the perfect play. And the play comes no too long down the road.

A player reraises my pair of aces preflop. I think he either has a pair of kings or queens or maybe ace-king. I reraise him but by just a little bit, pretending I am showing some weakness there. He thinks for a very long while and he goes all in. Of course I call instantly. He shows a pair of kings, exactly what I think he has. I am an over 80% favourite in this showdown.

A king on the flop, no ace at all. Incredible.

Poker is gambling after all, besides poker skills it helps if you have lots of luck.

I and my friend are discussing the differences between cash game and tournament playing. It is obvious that strategies for the two types of games are totally different. I am doing much better in cash game while Eric is doing better in tournament playing, and we are wondering why.

Eric spend a lot of time considering what is the optimum playing strategy in poker; he is a good player, he spends a lot of effects into ideas like pot odds and expectations on different poker plays. He has a set of rules and ideas on how to play each hand, what cards to play and what cards not to play. We think that this attributes to why he has more success in tournament play. In tournament playing, because of the huge number of entry and ever rising blinds, players are eventually forced to play a hand. Very often the decision is all in or nothing. Therefore the choice of hand to play is critical in successful tournament playing.

I spend a lot of time on the human side of poker; my poker theory is based on game theory. Humans react differently according to different situations, some players like to raise and bluff a lot, others play a very tight game and almost never bluff. They will react differently on poker tables, and I try to identify and play according to their different behavior. Sometimes it takes a long time to establish this reading, especially in tournament play when players enter and exit tables very frequently, which is making my job difficult.

We think this is like a science subject pit against a humanity subject; there is no who has a better strategy. Probably the best poker players need to be master of both subjects, but it is important for any poker player to identify and understand where in this spectrum one is.

I have the biggest success in my online tournament playing on canbet tonight; 151st among 6528 players.

Every night the website has one free roll tournament which is open to everyone that has an account; the other free roll tournaments are for players who have played on the website in the past 24 hours. Because it is free for everyone, every night about 7000 players will play in this free roll tournament, making it a very difficult game.

I know that I am better in cash games rather than tournament playing. The best poker players in the world all play in the big tournaments all over the world nowadays, and I think I need to sharpen up my tournament playing skills. So novice players like tournament playing than cash games; you cannot win consistently in high stakes cash games if you do not have the skills, but if you have a lot of luck sometimes you can go very far in a tournament. All experts say the main event at the World Series of Poker today is a lottery.

I am not sure if I will play in Las Vegas one day, but I want to do better in tournaments. The average player in general plays very poorly in tournaments, they rely very heavily on their luck to do well. Expert player plays tournaments very carefully and in a calculated manner, and I know I need to do well in this area.

Of course, the immediate reason for practicing tournament playing is the Asian Poker Tour and the APPT Macau in late August and September. I need to be there and I cannot wait to play in what is probably the biggest tournament event in Asia so far.

This hand happens at my table while I am playing at Macau. Imagine you are C, how would you feel? Would you have done something differently?

At the $10/20 table, two people calls the big blind including A. B then raises to $150, he has over $2000 in front of him. Two other players call the $150 before C. C holds a pair of fives, and he calls too. C has about $1200 in front of him.

Two players after C calls the $150 bet which makes the pot one of the biggest in the whole night already. A then does something no one expects: he raises to $300. A has about $500 in front of him.

B thinks for a long while then he pushes all in. The other players all fold to C; C folds his cards very reluctantly. The action folds to A who as expected calls the all in.

They open cards: A has a pair of aces, B has ace-jack of hearts.

The flop is K-Q-5; turn is a ten and the river is another ten. B has made his straight and A leaves the table without saying a thing. B wins a lot of money in one hand.

If C has called the all in bet, he would have won the hand with a full house. For the rest of the evening, the whole table has to listen to C complaining about how the hand is played out. C feels that A does not know how to play poker; if A has raised to $150 with his first bet instead of just calling $20 with his pair of aces, B would have just called his $150 just like everyone else, and of course C would be able to get into the hand with $150 and get his full house. Therefore, theoretically C would be the winner if A has not played his hand poorly.

Do you agree with C?

My friend Andy is in Macau today playing poker; using business as an excuse, I go to Macau to see him play there.

When I see Andy at Starworld, he has already visit the Grand Waldo poker room; he said there is no players there at all. The Starworld poker room’s business is better than I thought. Apparently there are two factors that I have missed previously: Starworld poker room has unlimited free drink including red wine and whiskey, and they use some pretty girls as service attendants to help the players to change chips.

I still do not like the Starworld poker room, it is too small and crowded. The tables are smaller than the usual size and there is not enough room for the players. After playing a while, I and Andy go to Grand Lisboa.

The Grand Lisboa poker room has made some changes too. They have moved all the tables from a part of the casino floor to a separate corner all by itself. I think it is a very good move, now the players do not have the other casino games playing besides them. They now have 11 tables in total, and they have changed all the tables to new ones with automatic card shuffling machines, speeding up the games tremendously. Now the players will not change their chips at the poker table; they will do all the money changing at the cashier window at the side. I think all the changes are good move.

I think there are less players at Grand Lisboa than before, probably some of them are now playing in the other poker rooms. It seems the battle between the three Macau poker rooms is heating up; all this could only be good news for poker player here.

I decide to stay in Macau to play at Grand Waldo one more day before returning home. I lose to the same guy at the same table.

The local boy is actually quite a nice guy, he greet each other when I sit down again at the same table. It seems he is playing here every weekend, and he is a winning player. It has been quite a good day for me at the table actually, I win two big hands against other players, knocking one of them out. Everything is well until the dreadful against the local boy.

My cards are A-J of hearts. I raise to $100 and two players call including the local boy. I and the local boy are the high stacks at the table, I have about $3700 in front of me and the local boy probably has slightly more than me.

The flop has two hearts and a diamond, ten high.

The lady goes all in with her $340, I call her quickly. The local boy then bets $1000. He is putting pressure on me once again, reminds me on my hand yesterday.

I know he probably has something, maybe a pair. There is no straight draw, I put him on two pairs the best. Even if he has a set, if I make my flush draw he will be pretty much dead. Of course, I will still worry about him getting a full house.

I have make my decision, I want to win this hand, at least to force him to gamble with me. I move all in with my $3700. He takes a very long time to make his decision, and he moves all in too. Luck is still with him. There is no hearts on the turn and river, and he has make his full house.

I do not regret making my move. I have the nut flush draw, I know I only have about 30-40% chance to win, but I have done what I need to do at the poker table, and that is to gamble. If I have make a mistake, it is that I choose to play against the wrong player. Maybe I should have play against a weaker player.

It is time for me to go home, but I will return.