I've been feeling really good about my game and my bankroll is pretty flush so I wanted to play a few larger buyin events on the weekend. Friday night and Saturday where write offs and I only managed a couple hours of ring game play.
On Sunday I played a Sat for the $55k and 3 or 4 for the Sunday Million. All were rebuys, 8.8 and 11's. After taking a number of ridiculous bubble beats I finally qualified for the Sunday Million on Pokerstars. I was very stoked to take this on as I've only played in it 2 or 3 other times and I did pretty well. I don't remember cashing but I remember the fields to be pretty weak in general. I've made the mental note to be careful playing in unraised pots as a lot of the players will limp any 2 cards.
To make a short story shorter, I checked my balance to see just exactly how much did I spend to win this seat. The results were not great. I spent $160 on Sats' and only won the single $215 seat. Not a terrible result but still profitable.
As the day unfolded I started to make commitments for dinner time and I was beginning to rationalize to myself why I should just take the T$ and not play. Which I did. I chose to book a $55 profit and skip the big game. I want to play this game, who doesn't, but booking off from 4:30 to 2am on a Sunday is almost impossible for me to do. I'll gladly sit out extended periods of time in a $10mtt but not $215.
Later in the evening I did manage to blow off my days profit in the $3rebuy, the $27.50 and 1 more Sat for the $55mtt. Basically $220 in buyins today, nothing lost nothing gained.
I felt like I played really well yesterday but ran into a number of unfavourable situations. My rebuy tables were incredibly tight and you really need some action to build up that stack.
In the $27.50 MTT I played ABC TAG poker, tossed in a check raise with rags, floated 2x, and stole the minimum in blinds really. I found myself in decent position because I doubled up twice in the second hour. The first time was 22 vs AK and held. As we approached the money, play started to tighten up a bit and it became a game of blind stealing, blind vs blind, or with the occasional short stack push. Pretty standard stuff.
I was eliminated about 100 spots from the $, with about 8k, 200/400 blinds(I think), Button(me) vs BB,. It was really my own fault, I limped from the button and he flopped a straight with J8 offsuit on a board of 10,9,7. GG me.
I also watched a fair amount of poker on Sunday as I've taken to railing some of the better players to get tips on how they play. Honestly, it was a waste of time. Fishbones11 and a couple others I watch seemed to get zip for cards and did nothing to get creative.
Tonight I'll likely only play in the $10rebuy as my main game. It starts at 10pm here in Ottawa. I like the game, the price is good, the start time suits me, but I hate that I have to put in 4-5 hours to make any money.
I 've been wondering if there is anyone who plays Sat's exclusively...... Given the structure of the pay out you would have to think it could be lucrative.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Whole day, no play ! and last weeks FT !
Whole day, no play !
OMG, it actually happened......... I went the entire day without playing a single hand of poker. I'll bet it hasn't happened 10 times in maybe 5 years (not including vacations). Although I will admit that there was a 15 minute window where I opened up PS's and watched a 25/50NL cash game.
Speaking of vacations I was just thinking about my trip to the East coast last year and how I managed to survive. In hindsight I wasn't quite the angel as I did spend a lot of time thinking about where all the underground games are. I didn't get to go but I planned to. Then there is that WSOP game I bought and used regularly on my son's PSP. Its not real money but you can still get a tourney fix in.
Since I have nothing to report from last night I have to tell you about a game I played last Friday, May 16th. Due to my wife being out of town I was at home for the day. Naturally, given a chance to play early in the day, I'm all over it.
So I get the kids to school, fire up the coffee pot and my laptop. I search around and I find an $8.80 rebuy starting at 10am. Eventually I hope to post some stats and stuff and you will see I play a lot of rebuys. I've never played, ever, an $8.80 though. Kinda weird price. Never the less I joined and started grinding away. Like most players with rebuy experience I take the double up right away. A rebuy is always at least 3x the buyin for me.
At the break I'm looking really good with about 20k after the addon. I always take the addon no matter how many chips I have at the break. Especially in the $10r as its for 4k chips.
I'm writing this from memory so its going to be a bit thin, I'll see if I can get some good hands from HH later. But that's not the story. The story is me sitting out forever and still making a final table.
So now its 12:00 and I'm still doing pretty well but I'm not running away with any thing. My daughter and another little girl we look after only go to school for half days. Now I'm making lunches and playing at the same time. For the next 3 hours I'm doing everything I can to keep the girls occupied so I can keep playing. The bubble finally breaks, I have to take the girls out for a while so I hit the sitout button. We had previously made plans to play date with some other kids and parents. If I remember correctly I have 85k chips and I'm maybe 30th out of 160 or 170.
Off to the park I go... blinding away.... deep in a $30k+ rebuy.
Now I'm thinking; 1) I wonder how deep I'll go just blinding away? 1) You idiot, making the money is hard enough let alone getting there with chips! 3) Maybe I'll actually still be alive when I return. The later was more hoping that thinking.
45 minutes of Super dad later, it was time to leave the park. Mainly because we showed up late. No fooling around at all.......Lets Go Girls........Home in less than hour after leaving.
Well low and behold I'm still alive, with about 22k and there is only about 30 left now. Blinds are high and I have nothing to loose so I start pushing hard. I have to find this part of the hand history because in no time I'm up to almost 500k and deep again.
6 hours after signing up, I have 500k, 2 tables left, monster payouts ahead, I've sat out well over an hour total and I have to go again! Its 4pm and I have to meet more kids at the bus stop. This would normally be a pretty easy situation as the stop is in front of my house but today is Friday and two of the dads came down to shoot the breeze. Can you imagine......I'm almost sick sitting out hands at this point but I have to be social. We have a beer, small talk, 16 left, 14 left, 12 left, 9 left..........OMG, I just made a final table sitting out.
By the time I get in the house I'm down to 200k, in about 7th of 9 and I can't believe I'm still around. I wish there was a better end to the story but I went card dead and when I finally pushed it was KQ vs 10's. 2 overcards.......decent situation late. But alas no help came and I was out in 7th for just over $1k .
This is a very good result for me, but I have to wonder what would have happened if I actually played the game. Would I have undone myself? Would I have kept chipping up and gone deeper? Who knows...........
I also made a final table on Wednesday, it was also an $8.80 game but it was a freezeout. I think these are the first 2 $8.80's I've ever played and I hit 2 FT's? Wild! I don't think I've ever had 2 FT's in the same week.
OMG, it actually happened......... I went the entire day without playing a single hand of poker. I'll bet it hasn't happened 10 times in maybe 5 years (not including vacations). Although I will admit that there was a 15 minute window where I opened up PS's and watched a 25/50NL cash game.
Speaking of vacations I was just thinking about my trip to the East coast last year and how I managed to survive. In hindsight I wasn't quite the angel as I did spend a lot of time thinking about where all the underground games are. I didn't get to go but I planned to. Then there is that WSOP game I bought and used regularly on my son's PSP. Its not real money but you can still get a tourney fix in.
Since I have nothing to report from last night I have to tell you about a game I played last Friday, May 16th. Due to my wife being out of town I was at home for the day. Naturally, given a chance to play early in the day, I'm all over it.
So I get the kids to school, fire up the coffee pot and my laptop. I search around and I find an $8.80 rebuy starting at 10am. Eventually I hope to post some stats and stuff and you will see I play a lot of rebuys. I've never played, ever, an $8.80 though. Kinda weird price. Never the less I joined and started grinding away. Like most players with rebuy experience I take the double up right away. A rebuy is always at least 3x the buyin for me.
At the break I'm looking really good with about 20k after the addon. I always take the addon no matter how many chips I have at the break. Especially in the $10r as its for 4k chips.
I'm writing this from memory so its going to be a bit thin, I'll see if I can get some good hands from HH later. But that's not the story. The story is me sitting out forever and still making a final table.
So now its 12:00 and I'm still doing pretty well but I'm not running away with any thing. My daughter and another little girl we look after only go to school for half days. Now I'm making lunches and playing at the same time. For the next 3 hours I'm doing everything I can to keep the girls occupied so I can keep playing. The bubble finally breaks, I have to take the girls out for a while so I hit the sitout button. We had previously made plans to play date with some other kids and parents. If I remember correctly I have 85k chips and I'm maybe 30th out of 160 or 170.
Off to the park I go... blinding away.... deep in a $30k+ rebuy.
Now I'm thinking; 1) I wonder how deep I'll go just blinding away? 1) You idiot, making the money is hard enough let alone getting there with chips! 3) Maybe I'll actually still be alive when I return. The later was more hoping that thinking.
45 minutes of Super dad later, it was time to leave the park. Mainly because we showed up late. No fooling around at all.......Lets Go Girls........Home in less than hour after leaving.
Well low and behold I'm still alive, with about 22k and there is only about 30 left now. Blinds are high and I have nothing to loose so I start pushing hard. I have to find this part of the hand history because in no time I'm up to almost 500k and deep again.
6 hours after signing up, I have 500k, 2 tables left, monster payouts ahead, I've sat out well over an hour total and I have to go again! Its 4pm and I have to meet more kids at the bus stop. This would normally be a pretty easy situation as the stop is in front of my house but today is Friday and two of the dads came down to shoot the breeze. Can you imagine......I'm almost sick sitting out hands at this point but I have to be social. We have a beer, small talk, 16 left, 14 left, 12 left, 9 left..........OMG, I just made a final table sitting out.
By the time I get in the house I'm down to 200k, in about 7th of 9 and I can't believe I'm still around. I wish there was a better end to the story but I went card dead and when I finally pushed it was KQ vs 10's. 2 overcards.......decent situation late. But alas no help came and I was out in 7th for just over $1k .
This is a very good result for me, but I have to wonder what would have happened if I actually played the game. Would I have undone myself? Would I have kept chipping up and gone deeper? Who knows...........
I also made a final table on Wednesday, it was also an $8.80 game but it was a freezeout. I think these are the first 2 $8.80's I've ever played and I hit 2 FT's? Wild! I don't think I've ever had 2 FT's in the same week.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
One mistake kills another session
One mistake kills another session
So last night I get in quite late from a 10:30 PM hockey game with an itch to play for a few minutes. I haven't played all day and I need a fix. I grab the last beer out of the fridge and fire up the laptop. Its already 1:00am and there is no time to really even play a sit&go so I go to the cash tables. Now, you should know that I'm pretty much sworn off the cash games. I can hold my own up to 1/2NL & 2/4L but in the long term it doesn't seem to pay off for me. There are the inevitable bad beats but primarily its because I eventually make one bad move that will ruin my session. Last night was no different.
I did make 2 good decisions last night, I sat at a low limit game and since I was pretty much playing for fun I went for PLO. A very fun game. I found myself at a pretty social table. There was a lot of preflop limping and a lot of first bet folding. Even the action hands were tame for this level of buy-in.
I bought in for the max and started limping into every pot. After about 45 minutes of ABC High-Low PLO I was up about 10%. Not much, but decent considering how many flops I had seen and how many flops I folded. It seemed like I was the only one even bothering with playing the low. The table is playing really straight forward and because its PLO with very little money going in preflop there was no real point in trying to bully and bluff.
As closely as I can remember here is the had that killed my session. It was going to be my second to last hand of the night. I had already turned on the "sit out next blind" button and I was feeling very proud of myself for being patient and booking a small (very small) profit for the day. Especially since it was late and it was a very small buyin for me. Normally a recipe for some very loose play. I'm dealt Ac3cXdXh and there are 4 limpers in front of me. I follow suit as that has been the norm and I'm really only drawing to the nut flush and a possible low if the deuce hits. Flop comes 2d,4s,K. I'm liking my nut low/wheel draw so when the min raise comes around I bump it up 3x to get some $ in the pot. It folds around and I get only one caller, 2 spots to my right. Turn completes low hand (2d,4s,K,7c). He bets, I reraise, he calls. At this point all I'm putting him on is the high hand. Maybe trip K's, I'm not positive, in fact my thought process never really went past the fact that I have the nut low. The river brought paint, didn't fill in my wheel and only reinforced my assumption that my opponent was playing the high end of the hand. After he called my All-in 3 bet we flip em over and I see he has the A3 as well to split the low, but he also had 2pr for the high. I was sick. A split low never even once entered into my mind. It should have. At the very least I could have slowed the betting. I ended up losing half my buyin. Again it wasn't a lot of money but this is very indicative of the brain fart that costs me in cash games and sometime in MTT's as well. I get so hungry to get paid off when I get a good hand that sometimes I forget to stop and think it through.
If the other player is not showing weakness, seems willing to get a lot of chips in the pot, and most likely is also out of position, what kind of hand range can I really put him on and can I beat it? At least once in the majority of my cash sessions and to a lesser extent in my MTT's I miss the boat here and completely forget to consider the possibility that he has a monster. This is generally a very expensive for me. Its a full buyin problem. Now, I'm not saying that I should play with fear or with the "look out" mindset. Playing fewer hands harder has been one of the good changes I have made recently to my game. What I have to be working on is my ability to dodge the big loss hand. If you see enough hands you are going to run into trips, flopped straights, the works. So what are the clues..........
Against about ½ the field I don't think there is any protection other than a commitment to playing small ball.
So last night I get in quite late from a 10:30 PM hockey game with an itch to play for a few minutes. I haven't played all day and I need a fix. I grab the last beer out of the fridge and fire up the laptop. Its already 1:00am and there is no time to really even play a sit&go so I go to the cash tables. Now, you should know that I'm pretty much sworn off the cash games. I can hold my own up to 1/2NL & 2/4L but in the long term it doesn't seem to pay off for me. There are the inevitable bad beats but primarily its because I eventually make one bad move that will ruin my session. Last night was no different.
I did make 2 good decisions last night, I sat at a low limit game and since I was pretty much playing for fun I went for PLO. A very fun game. I found myself at a pretty social table. There was a lot of preflop limping and a lot of first bet folding. Even the action hands were tame for this level of buy-in.
I bought in for the max and started limping into every pot. After about 45 minutes of ABC High-Low PLO I was up about 10%. Not much, but decent considering how many flops I had seen and how many flops I folded. It seemed like I was the only one even bothering with playing the low. The table is playing really straight forward and because its PLO with very little money going in preflop there was no real point in trying to bully and bluff.
As closely as I can remember here is the had that killed my session. It was going to be my second to last hand of the night. I had already turned on the "sit out next blind" button and I was feeling very proud of myself for being patient and booking a small (very small) profit for the day. Especially since it was late and it was a very small buyin for me. Normally a recipe for some very loose play. I'm dealt Ac3cXdXh and there are 4 limpers in front of me. I follow suit as that has been the norm and I'm really only drawing to the nut flush and a possible low if the deuce hits. Flop comes 2d,4s,K. I'm liking my nut low/wheel draw so when the min raise comes around I bump it up 3x to get some $ in the pot. It folds around and I get only one caller, 2 spots to my right. Turn completes low hand (2d,4s,K,7c). He bets, I reraise, he calls. At this point all I'm putting him on is the high hand. Maybe trip K's, I'm not positive, in fact my thought process never really went past the fact that I have the nut low. The river brought paint, didn't fill in my wheel and only reinforced my assumption that my opponent was playing the high end of the hand. After he called my All-in 3 bet we flip em over and I see he has the A3 as well to split the low, but he also had 2pr for the high. I was sick. A split low never even once entered into my mind. It should have. At the very least I could have slowed the betting. I ended up losing half my buyin. Again it wasn't a lot of money but this is very indicative of the brain fart that costs me in cash games and sometime in MTT's as well. I get so hungry to get paid off when I get a good hand that sometimes I forget to stop and think it through.
If the other player is not showing weakness, seems willing to get a lot of chips in the pot, and most likely is also out of position, what kind of hand range can I really put him on and can I beat it? At least once in the majority of my cash sessions and to a lesser extent in my MTT's I miss the boat here and completely forget to consider the possibility that he has a monster. This is generally a very expensive for me. Its a full buyin problem. Now, I'm not saying that I should play with fear or with the "look out" mindset. Playing fewer hands harder has been one of the good changes I have made recently to my game. What I have to be working on is my ability to dodge the big loss hand. If you see enough hands you are going to run into trips, flopped straights, the works. So what are the clues..........
Against about ½ the field I don't think there is any protection other than a commitment to playing small ball.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
One year later !
Its hard to believe its been a year since I decided to start and subsequently forget about this blog.
I think I chose at the time to not continue because I wasn't sure that I had a unique angle about the game that people would find interesting. I'm not a pro, I'm not a traveler, and I can't afford the bigger buyin games. Yet! I'm working on that. I'm also an avid blog reader and I can't stand blog's that are never updated. I never wanted to be that guy.
So why am I here now? I guess its because I feel like I'm turning an important corner. I feel like I have made important changes in my game. I have the confidence to play with the better players. I'm having more fun playing again and I'm making a little money (very little). Poker is a lot more fun when your bankroll isn't on tilt all the time.
What I'm hoping to do in the coming posts is to analyze and write about what it is I have been doing to improve or change my game that has changed me from a 5 year straight B/E player to being a slightly profitable player. A trend I hope will continue until I can hit that big cash which will float me in big games for the year.
Principally I think there have been 3 main contributors.
1) Harrington on Holdem 2 (completely renewed commitment to the "M")
2) Playing in higher buyin games
3) Watching better players play and watching the finish of games I've just been knocked out of.
I've also been playing on the Myst Poker Tour (MPT). Its a series of freeroll live poker events held at The Lone Star Bar and Grill on St Laurent St., here in Ottawa. Congratulations to local poker pro Marc Karam, his sponsor Eurolinx, Niko, etal for a doing such a great job. The series consists of 10 weekly events with the best 10 players advancing to the VIP tournament (week 11). The weekly prizes are good thanks to Marc and Eurolinx but the final prize of a trip to the WSOP is the real plum. Check out Marc's sick web site for more info.
I played my first game on week 2 and somehow made my way to the final table so I have my seat in the VIP final. This was only my 2nd or 3rd live multitable event. I have nothing to brag about, I didn't play particularly well nor not did I catch great cards. I just folded, folded and then folded some more. Later, when the blinds went up I pushed over and over from position keeping myself afloat. I doubled up a couple times but nothing exciting. In fact when we found ourselves down to the final 13 or 14 I lucked out a few times. Not the standard type of luck ....weird type luck. On two occasions I found myself in decent sized pots with Niko and a 3rd. I missed the flop both times, Niko bet the flop (standard C-bets) 3rd folded and I reraised about the minimum putting myself Allin.I was toast both times but I was so short I wanted to at least give myself a chance to get lucky. Thankfully and to my surprise Niko folded both hands to me, giving me enough chips to advance a few more positions. He folded both hands quickly, apparently he had already decided his action if he was reraised. He really must have been playing with air as the odds were easily there for any two cards and I couldn't bet anymore.The other weird thing that happened is that I actually miscounted my chip stack. No crap, when we had about 12 left, blinds were sick and I kept folding in obvious push situations. I thought I had about 6k with 500/1000 blinds. With only 1 or 2 positions to go I was making real tight folds. Little did I know how tight they really were as I actually only had ½ that many chips.
So after final tabling my first decent sized live event, you can imagine the confidence I was feeling when I went back. Last night was week # 9 and it was my 4th try since I qualified. I've lasted 1 hand, 4 hands and maybe 15 min 2 times. KKvsAA, runner runner straight, runner runner flush, and last night TPTK vs flopped trips. Poker is so humbling. Oh, I forgot to mention that if you get to more than one final table you get extra chips to play with at the VIP.
WOW, that's a long post.......to long. More to come very soon. I've had some decent results lately I'll to post some interesting hands.
Ifoldallday
I think I chose at the time to not continue because I wasn't sure that I had a unique angle about the game that people would find interesting. I'm not a pro, I'm not a traveler, and I can't afford the bigger buyin games. Yet! I'm working on that. I'm also an avid blog reader and I can't stand blog's that are never updated. I never wanted to be that guy.
So why am I here now? I guess its because I feel like I'm turning an important corner. I feel like I have made important changes in my game. I have the confidence to play with the better players. I'm having more fun playing again and I'm making a little money (very little). Poker is a lot more fun when your bankroll isn't on tilt all the time.
What I'm hoping to do in the coming posts is to analyze and write about what it is I have been doing to improve or change my game that has changed me from a 5 year straight B/E player to being a slightly profitable player. A trend I hope will continue until I can hit that big cash which will float me in big games for the year.
Principally I think there have been 3 main contributors.
1) Harrington on Holdem 2 (completely renewed commitment to the "M")
2) Playing in higher buyin games
3) Watching better players play and watching the finish of games I've just been knocked out of.
I've also been playing on the Myst Poker Tour (MPT). Its a series of freeroll live poker events held at The Lone Star Bar and Grill on St Laurent St., here in Ottawa. Congratulations to local poker pro Marc Karam, his sponsor Eurolinx, Niko, etal for a doing such a great job. The series consists of 10 weekly events with the best 10 players advancing to the VIP tournament (week 11). The weekly prizes are good thanks to Marc and Eurolinx but the final prize of a trip to the WSOP is the real plum. Check out Marc's sick web site for more info.
I played my first game on week 2 and somehow made my way to the final table so I have my seat in the VIP final. This was only my 2nd or 3rd live multitable event. I have nothing to brag about, I didn't play particularly well nor not did I catch great cards. I just folded, folded and then folded some more. Later, when the blinds went up I pushed over and over from position keeping myself afloat. I doubled up a couple times but nothing exciting. In fact when we found ourselves down to the final 13 or 14 I lucked out a few times. Not the standard type of luck ....weird type luck. On two occasions I found myself in decent sized pots with Niko and a 3rd. I missed the flop both times, Niko bet the flop (standard C-bets) 3rd folded and I reraised about the minimum putting myself Allin.I was toast both times but I was so short I wanted to at least give myself a chance to get lucky. Thankfully and to my surprise Niko folded both hands to me, giving me enough chips to advance a few more positions. He folded both hands quickly, apparently he had already decided his action if he was reraised. He really must have been playing with air as the odds were easily there for any two cards and I couldn't bet anymore.The other weird thing that happened is that I actually miscounted my chip stack. No crap, when we had about 12 left, blinds were sick and I kept folding in obvious push situations. I thought I had about 6k with 500/1000 blinds. With only 1 or 2 positions to go I was making real tight folds. Little did I know how tight they really were as I actually only had ½ that many chips.
So after final tabling my first decent sized live event, you can imagine the confidence I was feeling when I went back. Last night was week # 9 and it was my 4th try since I qualified. I've lasted 1 hand, 4 hands and maybe 15 min 2 times. KKvsAA, runner runner straight, runner runner flush, and last night TPTK vs flopped trips. Poker is so humbling. Oh, I forgot to mention that if you get to more than one final table you get extra chips to play with at the VIP.
WOW, that's a long post.......to long. More to come very soon. I've had some decent results lately I'll to post some interesting hands.
Ifoldallday
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