My Best Moment Playing on Pokerstars

My best moment playing on Pokerstars I feel hasn't arrived yet but strongly feel it will be happening very soon! (maybe this coming weekend in the 7million Anniversary Sunday tournament). Up to this point my best moment playing on Pokerstars was actually just a short while after I had begun playing online poker back in June 2008. And it happened during a private forum freeroll of all things. It was a Saturday afternoon and I had been playing since early in the morning. Earlier in the day I had taken first place in a large-field (~nine hundred players) private forum freeroll (Railbirds) on Fulltilt Poker. Later in the day the same forum held another large-field freeroll on Pokerstars and a few hours later I was running deep in it too. I had only been dabbling in micro buyin tournaments and sit'n goes online along with a bunch of private forum freerolls for the first six months of playing online as I had made a plan when I got started to only play in micro buyins and to always stick to good bankroll management. I had been a winning player up to that point but just barely and mostly due to a decent score in my very first micro tournament where I took secondd place. This day though in June 2008 it felt like all the time I had spent learning the game was finally paying off,.... even though it was only a forum 'freeroll' there were some experienced players on the table (compared with myself) and I was holding my own against them. Another couple of hours goes by and we were approaching the final table. I was short-stacked, sitting on only around fifteen big blinds. I opened up my range, shoving allin over the other passive limpers and when I finally got called it was when I had a monster hand (which held up!). We popped the final table bubble and I continued on my winning spree and managed to acquire a decent-sized stack. Just five players left now. I was fourth in chips when two of the other big stacks got it in which eliminated one of them, leaving me fourth of four players left. Even though I was the shortstack on the table it suddenly dawned on me that there was a good possibility that I could win this tournament and then would be the only member/player who had ever won two railbird freeroll tournaments on the very same day! I doubled up through one of the forum administrators, moving into second spot in chips. The adrenaline was beginning to really flow now. I called out to my wife who was sleeping on the couch, telling her "I'm still in this freak'n thing! I think I'm gonna win it! I think I'm going to win back-to-back Railbird freerolls on the very same day!!" Now we were down to three players left. One other and myself were about even in chips with the other being shortstacked now. A moment later and the shortstack was elminated. We were now Heads Up!! It was hard to reign in the adrenaline flow but knew I would need to if I wanted to maximize my hopes of taking this tournament down. "Patience" I kept telling myself. "You can do this!" It was all over in a flash as I managed to flop top set with pocket 'KK' on a A-K-4 rainbow flop and villain stacked off vs. me with their AQs. All the remaining chips slid across the virtual table on my screen and I was the winner! Two large-field private forum freerolls, back-to-back on the very same day! I am pretty sure I was in shock. It took me awhile to come back down to earth but when I did I began to realize that if I continued to put in the time and effort to work on my game, I had be able to continue to pursue this hobby as a winning player. With all the micro buyin tournaments available to play on Pokerstars, I knew I had have a ton of oppurtunity to continue honing my skills in my newfound favourite pastime. That one day was the turning point in my online poker play and I continue to play this game four years later. Still waiting for the 'next' most memorable moment though, lol... maybe this time it will be when I manage to wade through a large-field higher buyin major on a Sunday afternoon. Hmm.... Pokerstars Sunday Million seems like a good prospect. Maybe the $7million guarantee has my name on it?