How many times do I have to be on the edge of a breakthrough before I finally get a break? Seriously,I'm constantly trying to find leaks in my game and I keep coming back to the same one. I'm not a very lucky guy in key situations. In fact I don't need luck, I just need to not get unlucky once in a while. Well okay, that and I seem to be too willing to get it all in as a favorite. On occasion perhaps I should be trying to manage the pot size better. Why be greedy right? There has to be value in staying alive....
I have to wonder, perhaps even without admitting it, how often a pro might throw a good PF hand away just because its not the best time to mix it up.
2 weeks ago I'm playing in the Sunday million, I won one of the $11 double shootouts for a seat. I have crazy success playing in sat's, perhaps that should just be my thing. Soooo, I managed to wiggle my way through an obscene amount of players to get to within about 50 places from the money with about 30k in chips. I'm thinking blinds were 500/1000 at the time, so I have 30BB's. At this point I'm playing pretty TAG and I'm dealt AA. I'm ecstatic to get it all in for a 60k (60BB) pot AA/JJ. Give me (or any other donk I guess)60BB on the bubble and I'm pretty sure there will be some significant coin coming why way. Then...........bink......J.....and I'm out. But seriously how do you play this differently ?
Sure, even a cash here is good money to me but I refuse to play to min cash. I did that for years. I loved to play the game and my primary interest was to keep my head above water so I could afford to play again the next day. My ITM was as high as 23%. Even now I think after 2-3000MTTS I'm > 20% ITM. My ROI naturally isn't great. I'll have to go look to see what my numbers are like now. Last year I started reading up a bit WRT the more profitable players and they all seem to be in the 14% ROI range. Naturally it seemed that I need to crank up my aggression and be content to cash less but with better results when do. That has come with limited results. More on that later....
Last night in the $10RB it was basically the same thing, 329 left, pays 324, blinds at 1000/2000 plus an ante. I have just under 30k. I'm healthy but not a stack to do damage with. I get QQ in the hijack. The BB has me covered and I fully expect, this close to the bubble he is going to put me all in with any two decent cards. Now there may have been a time where I would raise PF here and fold to the AI RR, min cash and take my chances to get lucky later once in the money. All I'm thinking now is GRAVY>>.
I'm only worried about AA,KK, and to a degree AK. I lead out for 5,500 and as expected he puts me all in, despite having 15BB. This represents about a 1/3 of his stack so I get no read as to his strength from that. Everything is going as planned and I instacall. He tables AKo, could have been worse, but I did not expect a coin flip here. I expected to either be dominating him or for him to fold. GG me 5 minutes from the $.
This has to be the worst feeling, to play so long, do so well, and FAIL right at the edge of opportunity. Oh well, onward we go.
I continued my voyage into Rush Poker again last night. Tried the .5/1 NLH this time. This isn't my normal game. I like NLH MTTs/STT's, etc but rarely cash games. Actually NL cash is pretty much the only thing I don't play. I prefer PLO cash.
So I buy in short (42.50) as my BR hasn't had a decent donation in a while. Why 42.50 you say? Well the normal BI is $100, the option is set at $80, but the min I believe is $40. I chose an odd number so the table doesn't see me coming in short. They only see a guy who is down 1/2 a BI and who is likely on tilt, feeling unlucky or otherwise not playing well. As its rush, that works for all of one hand, lol.
So I double up in the first 5 hands AA/JJ AIPF. Then I overpay 2-1 to draw to my OESD and I hit on the turn. In 15 minutes I'm up to $160. I strongly consider ratholing here to get $100 off the table. Both so I can bump my BR but also so I can ramp up the aggression factor. I can't believe these things come into my head. I know better but when you start to get short and your confidence is a bit down that is how you think. Needless to say I didn't. Common sense reminds me "hey your catching cards and playing well, you want as much money as possible on the table".
After about 300 hands of back and forth a new player joins the table and is to my immediate left. How do I know he just joined (or re bought). $100 even on the table, lol ! see above.Then this hand comes alone.
I get KK, hijack again, villain is on the Button. MP player raises to $3.50, I call, villain calls. Flop brings two spades. Check, I raise 2/3 pot. Call, fold. Hmmmmm. Turn brings the K of Spades !!!! Yeah, you can see this one coming huh. I thought I bet enough to get a guy off a flush draw,,,,guess not. I try check raising the turn as now a J fills a straight and the flush is there. So why not try representing. Didn't work....now I'm down to 9 outs to fill my FH. Whifffff. Down to $40 again, lol.
I played a total of 500 hands, was nicely up 450 of them and ended up losing two min BI's.
I think overall with Rush Poker, I've played 1500 PLO hands and 500 NL hands and I'm down about $50. The most I've been up is about $100. Psychologically Rush is tough. If you think regular variance is hard, wait until you try this. I'm finding I get impatient at about 500 hands, maybe 90 minutes. I have also started to try slowing down while in a hand. You get so used to the speed you start to think that you have to rush during a hand too.
I understand that my writing isn't great at the moment, there is far to much whining, I'm not using proper hand history info or stats. I hope that will come. So far this is more of a diary and a way for me to rethink my results and objectives. I'm going to ramble for a while to get used to doing this and hopefully I'll continue and improve.
Tonight I'm going to go check out a new live poker league close to my house....see how that goes. I'm not a big fan of live poker to be honest but my results have been sick.
Later Skaters...
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