Nothing is certain

I ended up playing 4mtts tonight, the aforementioned tournaments and the Early double. In EDB i got bounced early when i 4bet jacks, ran into AQ and couldnt win the race. In EDA i was grinding my shortstack for the entire tourny and eventually built myself a stack of chips. It wasnt meant to be. I lost a third of my stack 3betting AK and folding to the jam when i wiffed the flop. Then i lost the rest of my stack 3betting 88 and losign to KQ about 30 spots off the money (1200 runners)

Well, what i want to talk about right now is the fact that poker is a very interesting game. In a tournament where i started out with 14k good for 1st of 400 i thought that a cash was a near certainty. Im not really disappointed with my play, i think i navigated the tournament all right. My failing to cash just goes to show that nothing is certain. I have in the past thought that i would never be able to blow a big chiplead in an mtt and obviously i was wrong about that. It can be done.

One interesting thing that i have noticed is that all of my big scores (300+) have com when i entered the cash portion of the tourny in medium or bad shape. I have never approached the bubble of a big tourny with a really big stack as far as i remember.

The EDA is a perfect example of this, had my 8s held i probably would have cashed in about 140/200. That is what usually happens in my big scores, i weasel my way into the cash and then get something together and make a run.

Im not really sure if this is a coincidence or if its meaningful but it is interesting.

Well, ive updated this blog so many times today i doubt i will again. Forutnately i dont feel bad about poker today, im not disappointed, im not tilting i kinda want to play more. Im definately not in the mood to play an mtt right now though, thats for sure.

Maybe ill give some cash a shot.

BTW, make sure you catch some of the HORSE final table tonight, it should be fun

A new kind of dissapointing

I finished 85th/580. Busted on the last hand before the 3rd break when i shoved the button and ran into A10 and couldn't catch up. After such an explosive start to this tournament it is def dissapointing to finish 30 spots away from the money. For the past couple hours i have been very card dead and have run into a couple tough spots with marginal hands (the two snowmen hands). As far as overall dissapointment goes i think id rather endure this fate than finish 10th again. This was bad in the sense that there was soo much hope and promise that comes with having a giant stack early in one of these but Im not too disappointed with my play and carddeadness happens.

now i have 5 min to deciede whether or not to play the ED

Fighting

Gotta love the limp call w/ q9s

Jut doubled with 77.

This is not the way i wanted this tourny to go. Going to have to fight now and try to get my stack back

2nd hour

Well this hour didnt go quite as well as the first one lol.

I wasnt really able to play too agressive like i wanted becuase there were a couple maniacs with rather large stacks that i ddint want to go to war with. Here are the two big hands i played.

i think i played this hand well. I could have raised pre but with so many limpers i think limping along is fine. i checked the turn for pot control but that does set me up to get bluffed on the river. I was prepared to call a small bet but i didnt want to call the jam. Id really like some feedback on this hand.

This hand was standard. Anyways, im down to 11k whihc is good for 56/210 and 3k above average. I still have 50 bbs and a great stack for this stage of the tourny. I am going to take it easy i think and tighten up. Im going to try to grab a premium hand and get paid off. Hopefully it will go well.

Quick update

Boy am i glad i played these.

So far im regged for 5 $5 tournies. Two of them have fired, a doublestack and a turbo. The doublestack started with ~580 ppl and i am currently 2/480 at the first break due primarily to 3 hands.

I played the first level pretty solid, getting value out of my good hands but being tight overall. Then i made a pretty good (imo) call.

After getting to 4k this hand happened. On the flop i was saying "Please check around and turn the 8d please. Then with the action on the turn i was kind of nervous. I flatted the original better because i was honestly worried about the possibility of a better straight/boat. The big squeeze kind of felt weak to me, i didnt think a boat would do that. I have a ton of equity vs a hand like 75 or a better straight so i jam.

Then this hand happened like seconds later. I think it was actually the next hand.

I could have simply flatted pre and evaluated on the flop but this guy as a 40/6 over like 25 hands (not a big sample) but i felt comfortable enough that he could have an ace rag hand which i wouldnt mind folding here. He obv could have AA/KK/AK but i dont want to have to fold to any overcard. and AAKK are getting it in on the flop regardless.

God does it feel good to resuck every once in a while. (2 outers are so standard)

Well anyways, breaks over and im at 2k in the turbo and now 4/400 in the doublestack. Theres a TON of poker to be played but i really hope i can parlay this stack into a ncie run.

Im going to be trying to play pretty agressive, opening pretty light, 3betting light in good spots, but i am going to try to avoid putting large portions of my stack at risk.

Wish me luck yall!

Back at it

I was going to say that im sorry for ranting last night but im not. I was pretty pissed off at the end of that tournament and im glad that i got it out of me. Anyways, I dont really hate mtts, i love them. Nothing compares to going dee in an mtt and having the chance to play for a ton of cash. Navigating the final couple tables of a large tournament is the best feeling in poker to me.

After a good nights sleep and a nice long breakfast i think i have my head back on straight. I am going to win a tourny one of these days. It will happen. I know how to play well and eventually i will run well and take one down. Perhaps today will be the day.

I have the whole day to myself today and i think that i am going to try my luck with a nice heavy volume day. I am excited to play the Early Double in a couple hours and maybe ill be able to make something happen.

Hopefully ill have something good to report on later on today.

Good luck everyone

Tournament poker is so sick

Ok, Start this off......

I was going to post a trip report of my seabrook adventure but toots did such a good job i didnt want to just copy him.

Ive kind of dissapeared for the last week or so but thats becuse i havent played a ton of online poker for a couple of reasons....first was i had a couple bad sessions in a row which left a sour taste in my mouth. Secondly my good friend Jeff came home from FL and almost every day was spent chilling with him and my other friends.

Well tonight i came back to worcester and had the apartment to myself so i decided to play some online mtts. i settle in for a long night with a 3 dollar double stack and a 3 dollar ko turbo. I ended the turbo getting 3 outed about 20/40 spots from the money. standard.

In the double stack, which first place got 400 bucks btw, i started off great and got up to 6k. I bled down to 2k and fought back to starting stack by the first break. The rest of the tourny was me playing with 1/2 avj stack and trying to grind it and wait for a good spot to double up.

I was really proud with the way i played the entire tournament. I was doing a great job stealing and getting value whcih is key in a 6max tournament. Twice i got dealt AA and twice i got a player to put all their chips in with 99. Twice i held. Thats the highlight.

In the mid stages of the tourny i had a 20k stack which was 2/3avj and lost a big pot to go to 10k. I the turned on the aggression and fought back to 30k.

Anyways, with ~20 ppl left i have a 100k stack which is above average. I had just won a couple key pots. Then this hand happens.

Obviously i sucked out on him first but imo i played this hand near perfectly. My call preflop is standard i think with A8 and then when i flop gin im happy. When he bets out i put him on a good ace. I think i just 3 outed him. I really think he had AK,AJ,AT. I had seen him play for ~70 hands and i had a good feeling. When he calls my big raise i think, ive got this guy killed.

The turned kingmakes me put the breaks on becuase i was pretty sure thats what he had. And then when the river falls i basically cant beat anything. Luckily i was left with a workable stack which i promptly built back to 100k.

Well a little while later i was fortunate to ko the 14th player in one of the AA vs99 hands i mentioned above. Unfortunately this put my table at 4handed with two mainiac aggro players. They were 3betting often and making life difficult. I really wanted to tighten up and wait for a good spot but the shortys on the other tables kept doubling and i was bleeding chips with 2k/4k blinds. Anyways i was playing back at the aggros and eventually began openjamming to avoid getting 3bet.

Well my last hadn was 105o. i jam the button and the big blind calls with A9dd, Flop is 1057. The turn is the 8 of diamonds and go ahead and guess what the river was. If i had won that pot and doubled i would have been somewhere in the range of 5/14 with a 170k stack. But anyways i finish a heartbreaking 13th for 16 dollars.

Tournament poker is so sick. Not only do you have to play well and run well but if you lose one goddamn flip or cooler or bad beat towards the end your just screwed. A 3 and a half our marathon of playing really good poker is just wasted.

So goddamn sick. I used to be able to say, its ok b ecuase im just going to win the next one i play. But ive had enough of these near misses. I want to fucking win one of these tournaments. Its about time.

/end rant.

I was going to try and post a tourny report kinda deal but im def not in the mood now. Maybe later tomorrow. Anyways...im probly going to play some tomorrow i really hope it goes well.

Good luck everyone

Excited

What do you do when your feeling tilted and annoyed at poker?

Go play live poker in New Hampshire thats what!

Unreal

I started playing a little bit of plo cash. Ive been sitting at the micro stakes tables for a couple days and have seen some modest success. I managed to win back all of my losses and then some for all of the other games ive been playing.

When i first told Jake that i was playing omaha he said "I anticipate a lot of suckouts in your future" I assume referring both to the amount of donkeys infesting these tables (which is much more than in nlhe cash imo and the fact that we get 4 cards preflop and there are no clear favorite hands preflop. Obviously AAxx is ahead of most hands but its lead will never be 70/30 or 80/20 like in nlhe.) Well I told jake that the key to my strategy, and i assume a solid strategy for plo in general, is to not get overly frisky preflop and wait until you can establish a solid stranglehold of the donkeys before you push your chips in. There should, in fact, be very few suckouts and even fewer coolers becuase we should not be playing hands that are not draws to or are the nuts themselves.

Well my first couple hundred hands were an experiment into Plo. I was getting used to the game. I found myself stacking off with AAxx on paired flops...flops that would be safe in nlhe but in omaha the villain probably does hae the random deuce that paired on the flop. I also played hands like QQxx and JJxx way to fast preflop. When i lost large amounts of chips, or even stacks, with these hands i did not get tilted. I did not curse my opponents. They were my fault. They were playmistakes. In these hands i was a donkey. But its ok, I payed 5 dollars to learn that I should not be stacking off with AAxx on a 229hh flop. A valuable lesson.

The problem comes when the bad beats actually do fall. Ive been working on controlling my tilting for as long as ive played online poker. I thought i finally beat it. For the past few weeks ive been just getting crushed in ridiculous spots and im able to brush it off. Its almost as if i expect to run ridiculously bad so that makes the act of actually running bad more bearable. Unfortunately today and last night were the boiling point.

Last night I played a superturbo with toots and my roomate. I know these things are all luck and i know that of all tournaments i should not complain about them but i was making a goddamn run. This hand was for a 1k stack good for like 30/300

I know its a race preflop but give me a fucking break. I flop a set vs one pair. What the fuck. He hits the miracle 8h on the turn and everyone knows whats coming.

I dick around for a little while and fight up to 400 chips:

Oh lets go all in for a 800 chip stack which will basically secure a cash and open the potential for a deep run. Oh look hes dominated down to 3 outs. Thats great. Who gives a fuck. But hey its not like i can win my 80/20s so why the fuck should i expect to win my 70/30s. Especially for my tounament life. Who the fuck am i kidding?

Well, that brings us to PLO today!

I felt so good about how it went last night(payed for that superturbo and then some) so why not open up a couple tables of 10plo as well as 2 5plo. Give the higher stakes a shot. That was a mistake.

Im not going to bore you with a ton of hands here but i need to share these. I dont have a proper omaha hand reader yet so im going to have to do these by hand. First this jem of a hand that happened yesterday:

Ferocious Kitty: AdQcKd6h

Villain: QhJdJsTc

Flop: Qd8c3d

Villain decides to get 100bbs in here w/ a grand total of 2 live ten, 1 jack, and 3 nines. 6 outs twice while i have a redraw if he hits any of them. I missed the memo but apparently thats more than enough outs.

This morning i had already taken a few pretty bad beats: 9 card wrap vs my set all in on the flop (im a 70/30 favorite) when this hand happened to tilt the shit out of me.

Full Tilt Poker Game #12983535560: Table Rex (6 max, deep) - $0.05/$0.10 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 10:10:47 ET - 2009/06/23

Seat 1: B-Shefer ($10.52)

Seat 2: Ferocious Kitty ($10.42)

Seat 3: ($32.61)

Seat 4:($10.20)

Seat 5: ($12.83)

Seat 6: Bruingras ($21.63)

Bruingras posts the small blind of $0.05

B-Shefer posts the big blind of $0.10

The button is in seat #5

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Ferocious Kitty [Qh As Ah 6d]

Ferocious Kitty raises to $0.35

raginb_m folds

AlexTrebekIsGod folds

Johanne87 folds

Bruingras raises to $1.15

B-Shefer calls $1.05

Ferocious Kitty raises to $4.60 I am more than ok getting it in here. I have AA, the preflop nuts, and I have a suited Q to go with it so i am not drawing dead vs other AA hands. Squeezing pot here commits me to the hand.

Bruingras folds

B-Shefer has 15 seconds left to act

B-Shefer: nice reraise morron

B-Shefer calls $3.45 i think hes preparing to stop and go me. Maybe its a leak but im not getting away here.

*** FLOP *** [6c Ks 2h]

B-Shefer bets $5.92, and is all in

Ferocious Kitty calls $5.82, and is all in I guess this could be a fold...but i thought he was stop and going and I do have the backdoor flush draw, and if he has 2pair im drawing live....its unlikely he has set of 6s becuase i would have the case 6. Is he really chasing me down w/ a pair of 2s? AA22 what hand calls the 3bet. I also think if he has KKxx he either puts me on aces and should fold preflop or he jams. I dont think flatting the 3bet pre is right there. Its so big. This board is very dry....so i think his range is somewhat polarized to sets and bluffs. I really wouldnt put it past him to bluff here (complete the sotp and go) i had been very tight in the 10plo table.

B-Shefer shows [9h 6h 6s 8s] I guess i shouldt have ruled out a set of 6s. Yay for the 1 fucking outers (not really but pretty close)

Ferocious Kitty shows [Qh As Ah 6d]

Uncalled bet of $0.10 returned to B-Shefer

*** TURN *** [6c Ks 2h] [7c]

*** RIVER *** [6c Ks 2h 7c] [4c]

B-Shefer shows three of a kind, Sixes

Ferocious Kitty shows a pair of Aces

B-Shefer wins the pot ($20.53) with three of a kind, Sixes



I guess i was moronic for betting so large pre but isnt the idea to get rtarded hands like that to put money in the pot? who the fuck thinks 9668ds is good?

This hand came a little bit later after i was already tilting. And knowing that i was tilting.

Full Tilt Poker Game #12983541311: Table Calabria (6 max) - $0.05/$0.10 - $4 Cap Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 10:11:21 ET - 2009/06/23

Seat 2: tilt-johan ($23.35)

Seat 3: Ferocious Kitty ($2.54)I was not outplayed to fall to 2.5. Ill tell you that much

Seat 4: Let Us GoGoGo ($199.45)

Seat 5: samm52 ($10.22)

Seat 6: JJosie ($8)

Let Us GoGoGo posts the small blind of $0.05

samm52 posts the big blind of $0.10

The button is in seat #3

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Ferocious Kitty [7d 7s 8c Ac]

tilt-johan raises to $0.35

Ferocious Kitty has 15 seconds left to act

Ferocious Kitty calls $0.35

Let Us GoGoGo folds

samm52 calls $0.25

*** FLOP *** [8s 5c 3c] Tptk, set draw, nfd

samm52 checks

tilt-johan bets $0.55

Ferocious Kitty raises to $2.19, and is all in "Fuck this shit lets get all in"

Decano_adr sits down

samm52 calls $2.19

tilt-johan folds

Ferocious Kitty shows [7d 7s 8c Ac]

Decano_adr stands up

samm52 shows [9c Th 5h 7h] did not expect to be ahead here. What does he have, middle pair no draw? What the fuck?

*** TURN *** [8s 5c 3c] [6h] ohhhhh he had a gutshot, well in that case fuck it he has to call.

*** RIVER *** [8s 5c 3c 6h] [6s]

Ferocious Kitty shows two pair, Eights and Sixes

samm52 shows a straight, Nine high

samm52 wins the pot ($5.63) with a straight, Nine high

Ferocious Kitty is sitting out



Last time toots was at my house and we were playing cards he commented that he could not believe that i ran as bad as i did. I mentioned on this blog that it felt great to here him say that because it meant that i was not imagining what was going on. I actually do run really fucking bad. Well now i dont give a fuck if people see it or not anymore. i dont need people to believe me. You can think im lying. I know that i do run fucking atrocious. If i had holdemmanager, or omaha manager i bet my red line and blue line would be at opposite 45 degree angles.

The thing that i cant believe about thisis that getting sucked out on to come in 5th in my mtt the other day...(KJ hand) cost me a minimum of 40 dollars, and likely cost me over 100 bucks. All of the goddamn suckouts ive taken to finish 12th or 7th late in a mtt have cost me huge stacks and potential top 3 payouts in mtts. These suckouts cost me a total of like 30 bucks. My roll is still at 366. It was at 391 earlier today. Do the math, its not that bad. But for some reason this is it. This was the boiling point.

Im sorry for the rant, but really im not. writing this post ha done an excellent job of calming me down and allowing me to refocus on poker. Im probably not going to play any more at work today, unless i get the itch but i think that i am going to be able to handle the variance when i do play again. I just really hope i can start accumulating wins.

thanks for listening to me be emo for a morning and good luck at the tables

Getting Somewhere

So finally, after a week of deep runs and frustrating cashes I managed to final table a 2 dollar cubed. I busted in 5th which was very unfortunate and disappointing but it did provide a very nice boost to my bankroll.

116 is very nice but i freakin wish i could have snagged that 430 for first. Now I was getting all prepared to do a nice little recap today. Toots even showed my how to use the hand replayer so i was going to go crazy and do that. But when i went to import my hands this morning it obv decided to be difficult and not let me. So i guess we'll have to go at this the old fashioned way. Sorry :(

I did not realize that this was a 2c until very close to the add on break. I was under the impression that it was a 2r. Had i known that this was not an unlimited rebuy tournament i probably would not have played this hand the same way pre flop. I may have though. Luckily, ignorance is bliss and it worked out.

Full Tilt Poker Game #12895981123: $2 + $0.25 Rebuy (1r+1a) (95691757), Table 3 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:49:13 ET - 2009/06/18

Seat 1: Ferocious Kitty (2,904)

Seat 2: lady_luck04 (2,040)

Seat 3: Iceman_1215 (1,220)

Seat 4: Nidas1 (1,500), is sitting out

Seat 5: HoldingBullets7 (420)

Seat 6: Krazy Gringo (1,520)

Seat 7: dragao_31 (3,170)

Seat 8: tom121079 (3,975)

Seat 9: IV GOT DA NUTS (6,096)

lady_luck04 posts the small blind of 20

Iceman_1215 posts the big blind of 40

The button is in seat #1

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Ferocious Kitty [7h 7d]

HoldingBullets7 folds

Krazy Gringo folds

dragao_31 raises to 120

tom121079 folds

IV GOT DA NUTS folds

Ferocious Kitty raises to 375

lady_luck04 has 15 seconds left to act

lady_luck04 folds

Iceman_1215 folds

dragao_31 raises to 3,170, and is all in

Ferocious Kitty calls 2,529, and is all in

dragao_31 shows [Kc Ah]

Ferocious Kitty shows [7h 7d]

Uncalled bet of 266 returned to dragao_31

*** FLOP *** [5s Jh Qc]

*** TURN *** [5s Jh Qc] [2s]

*** RIVER *** [5s Jh Qc 2s] [5c]

dragao_31 shows a pair of Fives

Ferocious Kitty shows two pair, Sevens and Fives

Ferocious Kitty wins the pot (5,868) with two pair, Sevens and Fives

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot 5,868 | Rake 0

Board: [5s Jh Qc 2s 5c]

Seat 1: Ferocious Kitty (button) showed [7h 7d] and won (5,868) with two pair, Sevens and Fives

Right before this hand i got someone all in for 200 chips and lost a race with him. then seconds later I win a race for 6k. That just shows how important timing is in these tournaments. If i had won the first race and lost the second i am out of the tournamanet.

For the rest of the rebuy period i hovered between 9k and 5k never really dropping below 4.5k. I added on when my stack was around 6.5k so entering the second hour of play i had almost 9k to work with.

OK i just figured out that if i import one hand at a time i can get the replayer to work! Huzzah!

This Hand



That hand is what catapulted me to a nice size stack. I run good to catch the ten on the flop and even better to catch the 3 on the turn. Feels great to be on this side of a cooler for once.

No more really interesting hands happened for a while. I did a good job of stealing chips and playing tight/i was sort of carddead so i wasnt really tempted to play a ton of pots. Unfortunately due to the card deadness and increasing blind sizes my stack began to dwindle.

The next hand i want to show you is from the 300/600 blind level. At this point i really needed to accumulate chips. This situation looked like a great time to 3bet bluff. The villains statts and position led me to believe that he didnt need a strong hand and he very well might fold to my jam. Unfortunately he did now but i did manage to snag one of my 6 outs on the river. YAY suckoutaments!

After hovering in the low 20ks for a little while i turned a really strong hand and managed to get a villain to commit his stack with no pair/no draw.

That hand and the 4ok stack that came with it really gave me the chance to go deep into the money. As the field was narrowed from the 45 who cashed to 20 and below i was playing relatively tight. I really wanted to avoid another 10-15 dollar frustrating cash after running deep in a tournament. This actually got to the point where i was letting myself get to short for my own good. Luckily the blinds were getting so large that if i could just steal one or two pots per orbit i could keep myself afloat. I was fortunate in two ways durring this stage of the tournament. The player on my right was extremely passive and would love to limp the small blind and fold on the flop. Between his pretending to be an ATM and other steals I Kept myself in the game until i was able to cooler someone for a nice stack which gave me the lift i needed to reach the final table.

Eventually as my stack hovered around 70k the blinds continued to rise and i had less than 12bbs, I needed to steal as often as possible to stay afloat. Then on one of my steals I had a classic "oops" moment:

this hand put me up to 140k which was about 13 bbs at the time. a couple hands later i woke up with the fishhooks and put my stack in the middle to try and make something happen.

Unfortunately Blogger does not like these large full tilt pictures. In this hand the Villain called my preflop shove with KJo. The river was no help.

This was for a 250k stack which would have left dali anne at 10k. Had i won this hand i would still be in last place out of 4 (assuming dali anna couldnt miracle his last bb) but with the low ms and fast moving chips i would have been in position to go even deeper in this tournament. Obviously getting 3 outed in the final 5 people of an mtt sucks but i rally cant complain. I ran great in this tournament. I had a ton of moments where I just didnt get sucked out on which was awesome. My AJs were holding vs K10. I hit my fair share of sets...and lets not forget that i just cracked aces with 75 to be put in this position. Nope. I cant complain about how this tournament ended, but it would have been soooo much moe fun to get heads up and pwn.

Before i sign off id like to thank Joppy and Tootsy for the rail. Having buddies watching makes poker that much more fun, not to mention that the sounding board for hands which they provide makes it easier to not fuck up late in a tourny.

I told you a big score was coming, well, i still feel great and i can not wait until i get to actually win one of these ole mtts again. Soon. Very soon.

Good luck at the tables.

Profitable but dissapointing

Last night i had another winning session of online poker. It sure seems as if things are coming together now. Its nice to be able to string together some wins and try to keep increasing the ole bankroll. So last night me and my buddy get stoned and play some cards. I played a 2cubed, a 3drr shootout to a 55 dollar msop event, a 3 dollar knockout tournament, a 3 dollar turbo 6max tournament, and a sattellite to the double deuce.

I was simultaneously making very deep runs in both the knockout and 2c and really thought i was going to final table one or both of them. I finally busted from the 2c in 38th place with 45 cashing by jamming A4 and getting called by KJ who managed to river a straight. I did slightly better in the 3drr ko, a tourmanent that i was freerolling in due to 6+ kos. In this tournament i kept accumulating a big stack and then getting some guy all in and getting sucked out on, It happened when i was at 3k 8k 16k. Kept freakin happening. eventually i shoved my shortstack into QQ with A8 and busted.

I did manage to secure a seat to the double deuce for a cool $T22, and on the night i finished ahead, by something like 15 bucks. It was just hella dissapointing to go soo deep in two mtts and not get a big score. Both of these tournies had 300+ scores for first place and 100+ for top 4/5. I know my next big score (big to me is 300+ LOL) is right around the corner. I can feel it. It will be coming. You just wait cuz soon enough it will be here.

Good luck at the tables!

Great Night

I played some virtual cards last night for the first time in a couple days and it worked out really well. I really wanted to upload some hands to this blog and talk about them but im still having trouble with importing hands into a replayer so that will have to be put on hold for now and ill just see what i can remember.

The night started off with a turbo 2r which i was in for like 8 bucks and a turbo 3r satt to the 50+5 50/50 tournament. In the sattellite i got my stack up to like 2.7k when i pick up aces. I 3bet a villain in position preflop and he calls. He leads out on a Q55 flop and i jam...he calls and tables AQ0 for top 2. Im in great position to chip up to over 5k and be a top 4 stack in the early stages of this ~100 man satt. Obviously having a stack early is no guarantee of success but it does make it far easier to abuse short stacks and pick up small pots in these rebuy satts. Having a 1k-2k stack really limits your ability to play poker as you are forced to try to get your money in good and look for double ups. As a big stack you get be more selective and win many small pots. Anyways another Q fell on the turn for the 2 outer and i couldnt 1 out him right back so im left with a stack of just over 300 chips.

At this point the blinds are about to become 40/80 and i decide that i d0nt want to double rebuy + addon again if i bust. Risking 15 dollars to win 55 is not what i want to do here. I manage to steal blinds twice with shoves and then tripple up to around 1130 chips. At this point we are 2 minutes away from the add on break so i decide to weigh my options. Right now i have 6 dollars invested and i can

a. add on bringing my stack to 3k and having 9 bucks invested-this is a silly plan. A 3k stack after add ons will not be many big blinds and is probably a waste of 3 dollars.

b. not add on and basically give up on the tournament as i will enter the break with ~10bbs and 60 people left with only 17 cashing.

c. Somehow stack down to 1k or less, rebuy adn then add on. This option risks an additional 6 dollars, bringing my total to 12 but will place me in ~40th place out of 60. It will give me a 5k stack which has a number of blinds at the break but will be a short-stack very soon.

After analyzing my position in the tournament and my options i settled on option c. I quickly minraised to 200 and folded leaving myself with just under 1k in chips, rebought and added on. I knew that i would have a lot or work ahead of me as i would become a short stack soon but i was ready.

Entering the latter stages of this satt i had a couple hands go my way. the first was a hand in which there was a real straightforward player on my right who had a couple of very big leaks in my opinion. This opponent limped preflop very often and with what i can only assume to be a very large range. Postflop he played his hand very obviously. If he flopped a good hand (top pair) he would bet no matter what action happened preflop. I did not notice him to get out of line at all postflop.

Well, he limps and i wake up with JJ in mid pos and raise it up to 750. Blinds were 150/300 iirc. he made the call and checked a KQ4r Flop to me. At this point the pot was 2.1k and i had 3.7k behind. The villain had me covered. When he checked this flop to me i immediately removed any and all kings from villains range. Perhaps this was a mistake, but my read of the player told me that he would never check top pair to me on a flop even if he had something like K4s. Eliminating all kings from his range leaves him with suited low aces, suited connecters, small pocket pairs, and various queens like QJ-Q9 and perhaps like Q8s. I made the decision that i am ahead of such a large portion of his range which includes many many hands, and maybe i might be able to push him off a better hand like a queen. Therefore i decided to shove and take the pot down right now. My reasoning was that if he has the part of his range which i beat, he is never putting a nother chip in the pot unless drastically improves his hand. With a small suited connecter i doubt he is putting any chips in the pot if he turns 3rd pair and with an ace/pocket pair if he improves his hand he is now ahead. Therefore i should bet to fold out these hands. After thinking about this hand and talking with some other players i still really like betting in this spot. Unfortunately i think shoving is just dumb. I could risk a small bet like 700-1k for the exact same result as a shove (he probably isnt c/ring me light as a bluff on this board) and if he does have a hand that continues i could fold and still have 10bbs. Luckily for me he was not slowplaying a king and did not have a queen so he folded and i won the relativly large pot to out me at around 6k.

the next interesting hand happened when the table folded around to my sb where i looked down at K7cc. This hand is obviously a favorite against a random hand and my villain in the bb had a paltry 2k stack at this point for 7 bbs. I reasoned that he if i jam here he is calling with any ace/any pair/and a good chunk of other hands too like suited kings and queens and perhaps even a hand like TJs. Sometimes people like to make light calls when they are running out of chips. And also, if villain folds i win his 300 chip blind and the antes. So i jammed. Villain woke up with JJ but i luckily 3 outed him on the flop and rivered a meaningless straight. Winning this hand put me at over 8k approaching the bubble.

AfI dont remember a ton of interesting hands fromt he very late stages of this tournament so i will jump right to the bubble play. With 19 people left (17 payed) i was in 15th place with ~4 bbs and facing the blinds. The big stacks were making life hell at my table as they kept opening my blinds and i was running out of chips. Also shorties on the other tbales were constantly doubling and surviving. Luckily for me my Toots was on my rail and helping me curse out short stacks who survived and keep an eye on where i was relative to the others in the tournament. Thanks for the rail man! After paying my blinds i was left with 2 bbs but other people had even less chips and to my joy two short stacks were eliminated (one was all in blind) to give me the 55 dollar seat. It felt great to win one of these things, especially considering the beat i took early and fighting back from 300 chips.

During the rest of the night i played 4 12 dollar sngs and manged to win one and come in 2nd in all of the others. I also got bad beated on a 6 dollar superturbo a couple times to bust. It was like back to back to back 3 outers. heh. I was just happy that the beats came in my lowest buy in tournament. All in all i ended the night +100 dollars in profit which is pretty amazing for me considering the run ive been having the last couple times i try to play poker. My roll is now comfortably above the 300 mark which makes me feel great and i am excited to continue playing sngs and i know that one of these days im going to hit a nice little mtt score. Im getting close :)

Now i just have to work until 2:30, do some dishes and errands and then i get to go back to sharon for the weekend. Couple pretty exciting things happening this weekend: My uncle is getting married which will be a fun time and im also excited to potentially enjoy some cannabis with a friend of mine who i never thought i would get the chance to partake in that activity with. Hope everyone has a great weekend and good luck at the tables!

weekend/movies

So for this summer i have been and will continue to be working in Worcester at Clark, where i go to school. I have been fortunate enough to locate an affordable living arrangement in worcester so i am not forced to commute an hour westward every morning. I only have to drive out once per week and then i get to come home once per week.

the only unfortunate part of this situation is that i want to spend weekends in worcester with my school friends and people out here but i also feel the urge to come home and spend time with family/highschool friends/my bed/home cooking. suffice it to say that this weekend was very fun. On Friday my buddy tootsy came over, got high, and played a ton of full tilt with me while we read wayyyy too many old 2+2 threads. He ended up making a small amount of money while running deep but petering out of a number of 10 dollar tournies. I continued my theme of being brutally sucked out on in most of the events which i participated in. For example, i managed to get K9 all in v K8 on a K45 all spades flop. He bet out big and i thought he had a big diamond and so i called. He ended up turn/rivering an 8 high straight. It was nice to experience this sitting next to tootsy so i could assure myself that i was not merely imagining these beats.

My night was extended until around 3:40am due to my final table of a horse mtt which had ~250 entrants. I wound up finishing a frustrating 7th for like 30 bucks which paid for all my buy ins that night. This finish got me to thinking about something that toots brought up on his excellent blog, shoving with air: there is no middle ground in tournament poker. This is a very true statement in my mind. When i enter a mtt with more that 150 people there is very little middle ground as far as prizes are concerned. When paying a 5 dollar buy in i tend to feel that anything under a 100 dollar prize is failure. I suppose that in a large field event with a 600 dollar first prize there might be some middle ground but in a tournament like this horse mtt first place got 300 and 4th got 100. I felt going into that final table, and still do that anything less than 4th palce is a failure while 4th or better is a success. Obviously i would much rather win than come in 4th but i think that in my perception it is easier for me to handle placing 4th as oppose to first rather than 7th as oppose to 1st. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Im not really sure if i explained that as well as i wanted to. I may revisit it in a post or two and try to do a better job.

In other news i saw a phenomenal movie last week which i really enjoyed. It is called Sleepers and came out in 1996. It stars Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Kevin Bacon, and Demi Moore. Talk about a star studded cast. The movie (which is claimed to be a true story) is about four boys who spend time at a reformatory (jail) in new york and get abused by the guards there (kevin Bacon) and how this impacts their life and future goals and aspirations. This film is gripping, chilling but entertaining, and is one of those movies where i was sad when it ended because i wanted it to continue. All the actors and actresses in this film did great but by far my favorite was DeNiro. He performs his role excellently. In fact watching this film made me want to watch other deniro movies and so i stumbled upon Righteous Kill w/ al pachino which was not worth my time. Do not watch that movie. But do watch sleepers!

Swings

The past couple of days have been very swingy for me regarding the poker front. I have managed to play the 2r, both the full ring and six handed variety, about 5 times in the past couple of days. In all of those tournaments i have managed to build a stack of ~7-9k durring the rebuy period which promptly gets 2 or occasionally three outed as i attempt to double through another big stack with a large pocket pair or AK/AQ. I would love to be able to have a giant stack durring the rebuy period for the sole reason that chips are flying around furiously. With competitors shoving it in light big stacks are ripe with opportunity to simply absorb smaller stacks and increase.

I have still been playing sngs to some success. yesterday i began the day being stuck 50 bucks, 20% of my roll after failing to cash the 2r, other mtts, and 3 sngs. I proceeded to earn all my money back and ended the day only three dollars in the red. So far today i have played some sngs. I managed to lose 3 races in a row and have my qq busted by ak but managed to run like a kenyan in the last table and place second to secure a modest loss of ~10 bucks on the session. Hopefully i will play some more victoriously this evening and win some money.

Deep Runs

Just finished 14 out of ~225 in a 2r that took me about 5 hours to play. Damn its frustrating to win all of 15 bucks when first place takes home 300. On a positive note it is nice to see that i have had back to back days with deep tourny runs. Hopefully my next big score will be right around the corner. 

Im gonna go play some more sngs right now and if i feel up for it i might load up some mtts later on this evening. Hopefully i can bring my bankroll on the plus side of 300 by the end of the day

Recap

I wanted to try and recap my win in the 3 dollar turbo from yesterday but cardrunners doesnt seem to be working too well. The video replayer isnt displaying bets or villains cards. I tried to fidget with it for a while and i even tried to use a new site called pokerreplayers or something which seemed to be working fine and then just died on me. Well, im frustrated and tired of trying to import the same text files over and over again so i guess there will be no recap/tourny report :(

Maybe ill try again later on or in a couple days.

Anyone know any other painless replayer tools?

Nice Score

Well my little sng experiment has been going pretty poorly. Over 52 sngs im up just 4 bucks. I keep feeling like if i just started to run a lil better i would be seeing better results. Im not sure yet. I definitely want to keep chugging away at the sngs and see if i cant get a nice steady climb up one of these days. 

In other news i won a 3 dollar 126 man turbo mtt today for 105 dollars.

This little victory shoots my roll all the way up to 260. 

Now that my roll is on the positive side of 240 i have decided that its high enough  to start playing 12 dollar sngs. Obviously i wish that this profit had come from me beating the 6.50s because as of now i might be rolled for the 12s  but i havent proven that i can beat the lower stakes. I dont anticipate a problem with the 12s being much harder than the 6.50s and they will provide the possibility for immediate changes to my bankroll. Winning one sng will now be worth just under 50 dollars.

If it turns out that the 12s are much harder than i anticipate or i continue to skid i will be cutting myself off and moving back down as soon as i hit 200. This gives me ~5 buy ins of wiggle room to navigate before i cut myself off and move down. Hopefully i will never see the underside of 200 again.

Gl at the tables

Guess Who's Back, Back Again...

Well, its been a while. I guess this is the part where im supposed to give a bunch of semi-legit reasons why i stopped gracing the internet with my literary prowess. well...im not going to. sorry. lets just say that i promise to post religiously and it wont happen again.

actually, lets not say that, because i cant promise that and i dont want to lie.

Ill post as much as i can, and if i feel like posting alot i will. Hopefully, this will mean that i will post religiously.

So, where have i been the past couple months?

I finished my second year at school, Im a junior now! and in just about 3 months i will be living in london. I got a job for the summer to try to make some money. unfortunately being a rake even poker player will not pay for the luxurious life of a college student trying to go abroad. 

As far as pokers going?

I guess right as i stopped posting i started going on a downswing again. Somewhere in there i started playing 10nl and that went well, until it didnt and i went on a multiple thousand hand downsing. i managed to not nuke my bankroll but it never really got much higher either. 

what im getting at is that while one of  the points of this blog was to document my play and create a sort of accountability for my play it didnt really do a good job of that. I guess i didnt really want to write about me losing. Thats no fun to write about, or think about. Its much more fun to just bitch at whomever is on AIM. 

Well back to now, my friend toots just created a blog in which he writes a novel about how he lost a chunk of his roll one night so i saw that it can be done. And deep down ive always known that i should be thinking and writing about my losing so its time to man up and do it. Im going to make a full hearted attempt to write in here, be it about poker or not, as much as i can. promise. 

Ok crib notes on my poker for the past couple weeks.

got back into cash for a little while and started losing. Played some tournies and kept losing. Lost at everything in sight. Then my buddies Jeff and Toots, aka the fucking men, decided to play some sngs with me and stake me for half my profit. Well, i went on a heater and cashed like 7 straight 12 dollar turbo sngs makeing us all a tidy sum. I proceeded to destroy 5nl Deep tables and then 10nl deep tables making ~70bucks in a couple days. I catapaulted my roll from a depressing low of 30 all the way back up to 200. For the past few days ive been playing 10nl deep which i have found that i enjoy much more than regular 10nl for various reasons i may or may not delve into later but ive been grinding. The rolls been pretty stagnant and i was getting kind of bored. 

Today while talking to my roomate OES we started talking about grinding 6.5 sngs. hes been doing this for a while to pretty high success and i felt like i might give it a try. A couple things excited me here:

1. sngs are exciting. they contain the most exciting, and heartbreaking, part of poker -the bubble. and you have to confront this period more times than anywhere else. 

2. this one is kind of nerdy but i really liked the idea of being able to carefully track my progress. I developed a chart on excel which allows me to keep track of exactly how i am doing in terms of average finish, profit, expected value, after each session (set of 4 sngs) It is really exciting to me to be able to fill out this chart at the end of every session and see just how well or poorly i am doing. This is the same sort of thing that attracted me to poker copilot at first, nothing is more fun than watching yourself perform better and better all the time. the true test is to still be excited about such charting systems when performing poorly. 

Well anyways, this is getting kind of epic so i think i will wrap it up.

Today i played a total of 28 sngs. I cashed a measly 1sng in the first 12 and was stuck close to half my roll but then went on a tear cashing 8/the final 16 to end the day down only 5 bucks. Ive definitely learned some things, and ive become excited about playing again which is a plus. It is definitely -ev to sit down and grind cash if you are not excited about it so i think i will play these sngs for a while, or until i want to kill myself due to bubble frustration.

Good luck at the tables, and ill see you in sooner than 3 months!