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Finally took the time to play some tournaments last night. I went online around 9pm central and signed up for a $5 on Cake Poker, a $5 on Full Tilt, and the 28K Guarantee on Full Tilt.
Even though my mtt game is very rusty I was extremely happy with my play last night. I found the Cake field to be full of very bad players that loved to overcall with second pair and the Full Tilt games were populated with better players overall, but still their were some pretty bad ones as well. In an odd but somewhat common occurence I busted out of both $5 events at about the same time. I was out in one after 78 minutes of play and 83 minutes in the other. The guarantee was a different story and I lasted 266 minutes, or 4 hours 26 minutes. Not long enough to get the win but I did manage to finish 29th out of 1,310 players.
I enjoyed a top ten chipstack for most of the latter stages but managed to have three hands that caused my downfall. The first hand in question I held 140,517 in chips with the blinds at 2,500/5,000/600. I was in the small blind with JcTc and a short stack who had 41,096 in early position pushed all in. It folded to me and I really considered folding my hand but then re-evaluated. If I lost the hand I would drop to just below an average stack, but if I won I could really solidify myself for a final table run. I decided to call considering his range could be large in this position and he showed me two Jacks. I was pretty well sunk but then I picked up an OESD on the flop and a flush draw on the turn. Alas I didn’t hit any of my 15 outs.
The very next hand I lost 13,900 more chips when I held AcQc on the button. The flop came 8KK and I really felt my opponent held a small pair so I couldn’t call his flop bet.
The death blow came at 4,000/8,000/1,000. I was in the BB with 66,021 and 9s8s. It folded to the SB who raised it up to 24,000. He was a player who had been playing tight earlier but had changed gears and had begun raising me on a regular basis when we were heads up. His range was big in this spot and I had a nice drawing hand so I pushed on him. To my amazement he instacalled me with KdJc. Granted he’s ahead here but I had tightened up substantially and his call put almost half of his stack at risk. I obviously don’t like his call here and the flop came out 5hKs3s. I liked my chances but the flush didn’t come and I was sent packing.
I wouldn’t have changed my play on two of the three hands but I probably should have pushed preflop with the AcQc hand. My opponent had about the same stack size as I did and he was capable of making a lay down. Overall I am happy with my play regardless of the outcome so that’s always a good thing. That also makes me up on the year and it’s also always good to start the year winning.
The Poker Grind.net presents… Date & Time - Nov 18th @ 10pm buyin - $20+2 Where - Full Tilt , click Tournament > Private Name of Tournament - The Poker Grind.net Bounty Password - thepokergrind
Even though I claimed the need to gouge my eyes out after my bad beat exit from the MATH last night, I did not follow through. Wanted to, just couldn’t put my family through it.
I can’t say I played as well last night as I did the night before, but I was still playing pretty good poker. I was well on my way to the final table when some player I’ve never seen before decided to make a monumentally stupid move that worked out for him by way of a three outer on the flop. Run on sentence withstanding this player was a pretty easy read. One of those players that was aggressive for the sake of being aggressive. Wanted to resteal at every opportunity and defended their blinds when it was completely unnecessary.
At any rate I went out in 14th and I can take solace in the fact that I played pretty well for the most part.
Before last night I hadn’t played a MTT since August. Beyond that I hadn’t seen action in a blogger tournament since June. (I did play the Pokerstars coop event for bloggers but I’m not counting that.) I expected a very rusty and poor performance but I can’t actually remember when I had played better.
Everything was clicking for me yesterday. I decided to play one token satellite to gain my entrance for The Big Game. I won the token.
When the tournament started everything progressed well and I managed to be among the chip leaders throughout most of the event. By the time the final table started I was the chip leader and I continued to build my stack from there. Within a few orbits I had a 2:1 chip lead over my closest competitor. I truly felt this was my tournament to lose.
As play continued I took a back seat to the action and tightened up. I saw no need in giving anything away and I watched on as TripJax began to make a big move. As we reached the final four he and I would swap the lead several times.
This is where things went horribly wrong. Four handed and in the SBTripJax raises to 4,200. Button folds and I decided to take a flop with A6d, the BB folds. Here it gets interesting as the flop brings 345 rainbow. I have the open end straight draw and an Ace for a possible 11 outs. I figure this is a good spot to take the pot down since if I get called I have plenty of outs, and if he is stealing the blinds with say KQ or so he will have to let it go. I make a pot sized bet of 10,400 and Trip goes into the tank for a few moments. When he decides what to do he fires back at me with a bet of 23,000.
I know I’m looking at an overpair at this point. The thing is I was really only dead if he had 22, 77, or AA. I believed I was left with only 2 choices, fold or push. Folding left me with 36,000 chips and second place, but just barely. It also would have made TripJax a very big stack and he was the one player I didn’t want to have chips. His bet was also an odd amount. If felt a bit like a “go away I don’t want to invest anymore money” bet. I believed that a push could be enough to make him fold if he felt vulnerable. After all, with that flop I could have a lot of big hands if I’m willing to push.
So push I did. He goes into the tank and then calls showing me one of the three hands I really didn’t want him to have. The 77. I can’t hit one of my remaining 9 outs and I’m sent packing in fourth place. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I didn’t stick around to see who won, although if TripJax didn’t win something went horribly wrong.
I had already spent the first place money in my head. I need a new laptop and I was going to take that money and get one. I’m calmed down now but I have to admit that loss bugged me for hours.
The one positive out of all this is my passion for the multi’s in rekindled.
I’ve been back from vacation for a while, I just haven’t had anything to blog about. Still don’t really but I thought I should make my presence felt. I’m still only playing 4 $24 turbos each day at Full Tilt so I can get my 50 points for Iron Man status. I haven’t played a MTT or a cash game in forever. It’s not that my interest is waining, it’s that I have non poker activities taking up my time.
My kids and I decided to do a short film and this has been very time consuming. I’m loving the process of writing, editing, and effects though so I may have found a new hobby. I’ll have to wait and see how it all turns out. My goal is to have the post completed by the 24th of this month.
Still no MTT’s played this week but I did start playing the $24 Turbo’s and the $50NL games by the end of the week. I’m going to see how things go and I may split time and different levels for a while. I’m not going to update the stats for SNG’s based on every 100 anymore. Since I may be switching out at varying levels it will just be easier to start doing the stats on a monthly basis, utilizing the stats from that month only along with year to date charts on occasion.
Speaking of year to date I was looking at my best and worst day of play since I started with the SNG’s this year.
After 1,048 SNG’s that ranged from $5 HU to $24 Turbo’s best day: $193.50 on February 1st worst day: -$410.40 on May 23rd
It would be so much nicer if those numbers were reversed. It’s amazing that I’m still up after such a big loss day. That day accounts for me having a 5.5% ROI overall for all money levels combined this year.
My enthusiasm for MTT play has been severely lacking lately. I played a total of five events in May and four of those were blogger donkaments. So far in June I’ve sat down for four tourneys. Again mostly blogger events. I’m in a MTT rut.
What was once my favorite game has been reduced to an effort in just throwing money away so I can move onto something else. I’m not sure what can be done to get the spark back. I’m tossing around the idea of putting some money on PokerStars and trying to qualify for the Sunday Million. Then I can just take the tournament dollars and play a bunch of events on someone else’s dime. At any rate I’m done with the blogger events, at least for the next little while. I don’t enjoy them and really just dump my chips anyway.
I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately. Last night playing in the PSO league and also in The Mookie I managed to final table both. In the league event I was a dominant chip leader through most of the tournament and then got unlucky at the final table. In The Mookie I held the chip lead as well for quite a while but then I tightened up to much when we were down to the final two tables. This left me without enough ammo to mount much of a fight at the final table.
The two events were eerily similar. PSO League: 71 entrants 180 Minutes of play 7th place
The Mookie: 73 entrants 182 Minutes of play 6th place
Pretty weird huh?
Anyway the $12 turbo SNG’s have also been going well and my bankroll has seen exponential growth this week. I’m now up to $908.70.
Last nights Riverchasers tourney was a very fun, and very educational experience.
Staying true to my word I began the event with a much looser range than I normally would. I did not stay as passive as I had intended as the players were allowing me to be both loose and aggressive. It was quite the eye opening experience taking this tact from the very beginning. It also helped that I had hoyazo at my table for most of the time. He stated that he would be playing tighter than a mouses ass till we reached the points so I took advantage of his big blind at every opportunity. He only played back at me once and I went ahead and released my hand. He then showed “the hammer”, but I’m alright with that. I took much more from him than I gave.
I found that in order to really play this style I had to pay much more attention to my opponents than I usually do. I always try to pick things up, but this time I really had to put my opponents on ranges. This worked out swimmingly and I was able to adapt to each player pretty easily.
There were only three hands throughout the entire tournament where I knew preflop what I wanted to accomplish, and how I was going to play post flop. Of these three hand I played one incorrectly and won, played one correctly and won, and finally played one correctly and lost. I’ve thought about discussing the one I played incorrectly but I’m going to wait and see if any other bloggers mention the hand before I address it. This is the first hand in the tournament that hoy actually used the chat window so it may be mentioned.
I hit a real rough spot near the end where I thought I would bust out before the money. I made a correct read and got unlucky. This left me last in chips but the same player later doubled me up to put me in the top 3 so it worked out.
When we hit the final table I decided to approach it like I would a SNG. This led me to make some plays that others may have viewed as reckless or incorrect, but I was shooting for first place and I was going to do what I thought I needed to get there. This worked out for me until we were down to the final three. I had 65% of the chips in play at this point
