Yeah baby!

     In my previous post I told you all how I was ITM in a $5K guarantee on Stars and maybe I'll be posting on how I went deep? Well ladies and gentlemen, I went deep. Took 2nd for $600!

     What a night. I initially entered the tourney to kill some time before bed, and wasn't expecting to make it that far into the money. The payouts (as in all MTT) were very heavy on the top end. For example, 9th place was only $45 compared to $800 for the winner. I played a tight, solid game, got paid off big on most of my big hands, and coasted until there were 18 left. Then I started hitting a few snags. JJ lost to A9 aipf, taking 1/3 of my stack. Then all my steal attempts were met with 3-bet shoves from the opposition. By the time we were down to 12 players, I was well below average and sitting 10 out of 12. Still I had a good stack to blind ratio and plenty of patience. I doubled up with 10 players left to put me in 7th with QQ vs AK. Squeaked by the FT bubble with 8BB's. Again the ladies were kind to me and I doubled up again vs A4. (Don't ya just love being called with rag Aces?)

     After I doubled up, I went on a tear. I was not intending to just cash, I was going for the win. I got aggro! 3-betting 4-betting, squeeze plays all over the place. There was one poor player who was on the BB every time I had the Button and I pounded the shit out of him. Every time he stood up to me I had JJ or better. I'd beat him down to almost nothing, he'd double up through another player and I'd beat him down again. Play went from 9  handed to 3 handed pretty quickly. It was probably almost 2 hours, but it felt like 20 mins to me.

     The overall chipleader finally woke up by the time we were 3 handed, but suffered a cooler when he ran his trip 10's into the FH of our other opponent. Soon enough we were heads-up. This didn't last more than half an hour. I was at a 4-1 chip disadvantage. I worked it back to a 2-1 over the course of a couple dozen hands, and was feeling pretty good about my chances to take it down when I ran JJ into KK. K on the flop and it was good night. So @ 5:30am I was $598.75 richer. Had a smoke, took a leak and went to bed. I was still kinda wound up and stoked over the cash that I just layed awake in bed until my wife got up for work.

     So with that last win, and despite of my horrible downswing that I eluded to in earlier posts, I am now sitting at $899.70 profit overall, over 346 SNG and MTT's. So far, so good.

    

     Hey everyone! It's been a bit since my last post. Frankly I really have not played all that much since Saturday. I played a live game Saturday night. 11 players, $25 buy-in SNG. Top 4 got paid. Well 4th got their entry back then the rest of the prize money was split 50/30/20. Anyways, I had a blast. I honestly havn't played a serious live game in months. I mean I've played one or two homegames with family over the holidays, but those games were just fun games with $5 entry to sweeten the deal.

     So back to the live game. Like I said, I had a blast. It was good to see some of my friends again and have a good conversation and some drinks with them. Overall I played pretty good. Took the chiplead with 9 remaining, held it for a little bit, then lost most of my stack against a bad suckout. My 2 pair KJ was beat by a set of Q's. I lost the minimum for the situation though. Built back up again, but I ended up getting a bit drunk and sloppy and ended up in 4th. Still was fun.

     I've only played about 4 SNG's all week, for a loss of about $12. I have a few other things going on right now and poker has been getting pushed aside. I've been making traps in anticipation of the upcoming minnow trapping season, my car has been acting up requiring trips to the shop and I've found myself wanting to study more than play.

     Oh, and I have also played in a couple of Cards Chat Winter League games. So far my team, Team MVP is in the lead after 8 games. It's still very early in the season though so anything can happen. In my last two games I took 7th and 2nd respectively. Oh, I guess I should mention the format: 9 teams, 5 players per team. Each player plays one game per week. Points are awarded based on finish position. My teammate tpb211 has scored himself two wins already, and my other teammates are doing great as well. I gotta say, these games are fun. We're all competent players and these games require the right balance of skill and luck in order to make it very far. A great way to have fun, hone your skills and make new friends.

     As I type this I am in a $2 buy-in, $5K guarantee MTT on Stars, sitting 75th out of 320 remaining. Money bubble was @ 351 players so I'm at least going to break my no-cash streak in MTT on Stars. Mayhaps I'll be posting again tonight about going deep. We'll see.


    

Flu Be Dammed!

     I'm so fuckin sick of being sick. I've been fighting this flu for over a week and I think I'm finslly getting over it. Unfortunatly I have not been putting in nearly the volume I want. I have been playing roughly the same hours, but I can only seem to concentrate on up to 2 tables at best.

     Despite of this, I am still on the upswing, cashing in most of the games I have been playing. Small gains, but gains none the less. I have been on a steady climb since I started after my holiday break on the 5th, and have nearly erased that horrible defecit I incurred just before the holidays. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to add a few more tables and increasy my hourly rate a bit. I am almost feeling like my old self again when it comes to my health.

     So here's to good health to myself and all of you!

Update and Multi-Entry tourneys.

     Just a quick update. I've been slowly climbing my way back up. Playing mostly SNG and MTT SNG in the $5 range. Doing alright. Been sick the last few days so I've been only playing one or two tables at a time. Can't seem to focus enough on 3 or more. Medication is making me fuzzy.

     Looking forward to getting better so I can try out the new Mulit-Entry tourneys FTP is now offering. An intriguing idea. For those of you who don't know (and from what I can figure out ATM) these tourneys allow you to buy in multiple times into the same MTT. You play your different stacks at different tables, and as you get closer to the FT your stacks will merge. So say the tourney pays 18 players and you have three stacks in play. One 2K, one 3.5K and another at 3K. SInce you can't be playing two sopts at the same table your two lowest stacks will be merged and you will aoutmatically be paid 18th place money. If you get to the final table your last two stacks will be merged and ou will get 9th place money. At least I believe this is how it works. Like I said, havn't tried it yet.

     I guess there are upsides and downsides. Downsides: Lots of Reg's buying up spots and sitting on lots of tables making the games potentially harder (not a problem for me though). But I guess the upside would be more fish bloating the prizepool and negating the effect of mulitstack regs.

     Lke I said, could be interesting. Now my only hope is that FTP doesn't make all tourneys into this format like they tried with Rush and On Demand. Call me old school on this, but I still like the idea of having a cap on player entries in SNG's and I'm a believer in "One tournament, one entry". I feel the idea of multi entries kinda negates the whole idea of sites being against multi accounters in MTT. I dunno. Too much Sudafed I think, can't think clearly....

On the up-and-up!

     Well I think I may have put my slump behind me (fingers crossed). In the past three evenings and over 20 games (7 MTT and 13 SNG) I have made a comeback of $100. Still leaves me $150 or so short of my peak in mid December, but I am still more than happy with it.

     Last night and today I took some time to play some SNG Madness. I already told you about my win in last night's session. Todat I played three more. 2 wins and one early exit. Oh, that early exit was horrible. Not by me, I feel I did alright considering the situation, but another horrible call my my opponent ended it for me. Well, you can tell me what you think:

Full Tilt - $5 + $0.50|30/60 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3: http://www.pokertracker.com/
UTG+1: 2,100.00
Hero (MP): 1,365.00
MP+1: 1,410.00
CO: 1,260.00
BTN: 1,025.00
SB: 2,765.00
BB: 1,970.00
UTG: 1,605.00
SB posts SB 30.00, BB posts BB 60.00
Pre Flop: (90.00) Hero has Jh Ah
fold, UTG+1 raises to 180.00, Hero calls 180.00, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold
Flop: (450.00, 2 players) Jc 3c Th
UTG+1 bets 240.00, Hero raises to 1,185.00 and is all-in, UTG+1 calls 945.00
Turn: (2820.00, 2 players) Tc
River: (2820.00, 2 players) 8s
UTG+1 shows 8c 8h (Full House, Eights full of Tens) (PreFlop 53%, Flop 16%, Turn 25%)
Hero shows Jh Ah (Two Pair, Jacks and Tens) (PreFlop 47%, Flop 84%, Turn 75%)
UTG+1 wins 2,820.00

This was the first hand of the second level. UTG gained his stack by 3 barreling a 10 high board out of the blinds early in the game. I had no previous stats on this player, but at the time he had a VPIP of 65. When the flop came down I seen his bet as a standard c-bet. My first thought was to smooth call, but that would have left me with t945 in a pot worth t450. Still plenty of chips for turn and river play, but I would be committed on the turn anyways, so I thought it was best (and unexploitable) to shove the flop. Even if he folded it would be a 1/3 of my stack gain, which i would have been plenty happy with.

What made me deside to shove was the two clubs on the flop, the fact that I had seen Villian raise UTG twice and show KJ and KQ respectively, coupled with his known ability to barrel the turn, and compounded by me wanting him to get his money in bad if he were to get it in at all. So I shoved. Villian didn't think for more than a moment before calling. Sure enough I got him to get it all in bad, and there came the 2 outer. Mayhaps I could of floated the flop and shoved the turn, as I was pretty sure I was ahead, but I also wanted to make a "don't fuck with me" statement to him and the rest of the table. Also another club would have been a great card for him to barrel the turn with. Or a K or Q which would help many draws that he could possibly have had, or even made him 2 pair. I wonder what he was thinking. "Gee, it's obvious I'm beat. I call!". Nah, more like "I gots cards, I call!" or no thinking at all. lol. Checked him out afterwards. apparently this player has lost 4 figures over roughly 4200 games, most of it @ 5 and 10 SNG. I almost feel sorry for him. But not really.

     Anyways, after another good session tonight, I'm just going to relax, play some XBOX, and enjoy tomorrow with my lovely wife. Then it's back on the climb Monday.

     No title for this post. Couldn't think of anything revelant or clever. Had a break-even night. Played a few SNG's as art of FTP's SNG Madness promotion. Started with 7 $2.25's. Horrible. The play was akin to a bingo game and I was never able to find my rythim, or a decent hand. ended out early in all of them. Disgusted with myself at that point, but eager to shake it off and move on. So I then regged for the $2.25 doublestack tourney. All went fine until I took a punishing beat for 2/3 my stack when my KK fell to J9 suited APIF. Opponent raised 5x, one caller, I re-popped it from the SB to all-in. Origional raiser called and so did the caller. Pre-flop it looke good for me KK vs J9 vs QK. Unfortunatly the turn and river were both 9's. Ah well, I still had just under average stack and I thought I could easily rebuild.

     Then I got moved to a nother table and to my dismay I was sitting between 3 of the top 5 tourney chipleaders. And they were aggro. Still I thought "no problem, be patient, pick your spots and don't challenge the big stacks unless you got some heat." Well, sad to say I got no heat. I mean none, zip, nada. This coupled with the fact that at least one of the leaders were raising/3-betting nearly every hand and I started to get dwindled real fast.

     Now this brings me to something that I have a hard time with. Not being short stacked against monsters, but the fact that I refuse to just shove a 8-12bb stack because "I'm suppost to". I just cannot bring myself to shove with marginal (K10, A rag) hands into stacks more than 5x my own. Esp when they are calling wide trying to take out anyone who tries to rise against them. If i were in their situation, I would have done the same thing. Anyways, I eventually found myself folding every hand from 55 players on until thr bubble which was 36. My intention was not to just fold into the money. I really don't care if I bust first hand or on the bubble. Busting is busting. But like I said, I refused to just shove atc out of, I dunno, pride I guess. I blinded myself down from a bit over 14K until I was 2 off the bubble and had 2.2K, which at that time was just over 2bb's. Sad, I know. Fortunately I did catch a break when I was in the SB and miraculously the pot was not raised pf. I completed with Q 9, and the BB checked. Flop came Q high and I shoved. BB called with bottom pair and I got my double-up and then some with the antes. Now sitting on 6.5K or so, I shoved the button with AK (about damn time!) and doubled up again against A4. The bubble burst, a couple of hands later, but I was still only 16BB's deep. Short by a mile. Folded a few more rag hands and finally looked down to see the two most beautiful ladies I've seen in a long time. Shove it!

     Now this is where you think I tell you about another double-up that catapaults me to the final table. Not so. AK snapped me off with a K on the turn and I made myself a whole .96c. Sad. But then again, any profit is good profit, so at least I got something, if only a small pittance.

     So at that point in the night I was still down about $20. Still feeling good about my play in the doublestack (aside from my unremarkable finish, I did play well and was above average from the first rotation till that J9 beat), and feeling a need for vengance against the SNG Madness, I desided to play one more SNG for the night. But not the $2.25. I went to the $5.50.

     I played tight at first, feeling out my opponents. I recntly re-configured my HUD ans low and behold I had stats on most of the table. Lovely. Started slow, picking up a few small, uncontested pots. As we got down to 7 players I opened up m game a bit. My stats showed that my opponents sitting directly to my right folded over 90% to 3-bets so I took full advantage of that whenever I had A10+, 77+ KQs. Chipped up nicely for a while until finally one player had enough. Too bad for him I had 3-bet JJ to his K10 raise. Poor guy picked the wrong time and went busto. I kept on the aggression through the bubble, raising and shoving wide, (been reading alot on ICM and bubble play and wanted to put that into effect hard). Popped the bubble second in chips. CL on my left was mostly passive but overvalued and Ax hand, and the poor schmuck to my right was too scared for his own good, and I was able to take the chip lead without much fuss. Long story short it was a quick heads-up battle and I was able to end the night where I started it with the big W.

     As well as the cinfidence I got from cashing in a MTT and winning that SNG, I now only need two more wins in SNG between now and Sunday evening to quailfy for the SNG Madness freeroll. I must say I am not doing it just for the freeroll, the money from the wins will be nice too. I also found by applying a more aggressive ICM based approach near and through the bubble, I had more confidence in my plays. I will do good to remember that feeling next time I am the pitiful shorty in an MTT.

     Well, it is now nearing 6am, so I will say goodnight flolks, and good luck!

Back in the Saddle Again (I think)

Well, after a long holiday poker hiatus, I’ve been getting back into the groove. Started slow Monday, just a couple of SNG’s, didn’t play Tuesday, and banged out my first profitable session since December 10 last night.

                I found I was getting (again) too impatient, trying to make things happen instead of observing the situation before me and making the best possible situation. I was expecting all my flips to hold up and when they didn’t, I would make a dumb tilt play. This is odd for me, because usually I don’t tilt. But I suppose that going on a 3 week downswing would make even a Buddhist monk tilt some bit. So instead of going back to SNG, I decided I needed to re-learn my patience so I played a couple of $2 On-Demand tourneys.

I felt the larger fields would help me be more patient and choose my spots more carefully. Apparently something clicked, because in my third game of the night I fell back into my groove. Went heads-up in a 290something player tourney and took second for almost $80, putting me up $70 for the session.

Going in, I admit I was a bit frustrated about busting out of my last tourney to a runner-runner straight to my 2 pair. Got it in good, made my opponent make the mistake of putting in his money thinking I was on a bluff and still got spanked. Oh well, fire up another…

So there I was, still steaming a bit, but determined to put it behind me and focus on the task at hand. I decided to only play this one game (I usually play 3 or more at a time) in order to help keep my composure and get myself back on track mentally. Started off good, picking up a few small pots to build my stack nicely. Doubled up roughly 70 hands in, to 5.2K, which was double the chip average at the time. I was happy, patient and focused. I got moved to another table, and was pleasantly surprised to see a player named dufferdevon. This player is a member of CC so we got to chatting. We ended up making a last longer bet to the tune of $5. At the time he was sitting on roughly 15K to my 5K, but with the blinds only 30/60 the stacks didn’t matter that much and I felt good about my chances.

Not too long later duffer busted to another maniac bingo player at our table and I was freerollin’ the rest of the game. So three short hours later I made the final table as a short stack (24BB’s), picked up JJ in back to back hands, tripled up the first one, busting the shortest stack at the table, doubled up against another player the second one and found myself in the top 3 in chips. The rest of the game went smooth, and I soon found myself heads-up, which didn’t last too long. 13 hands later my opponent min-raised the button, I shoved with AQ (I was covered) he snapped with 88 and it held up. The win would have been nice, but it felt great to get back in the saddle with a solid 2^nd in a MTT.

So tonight is another night, and I think I’m going to play some more MTT before getting back into SNG. Good luck out there everyone!