Hostess Musical Chairs

Much in the same way Chris Moneymaker fueled the online poker explosion, the World Poker Tour fueled the TV poker scene. Aside from the table action and entertaining commentary the primary reason to watch this program was Shanna Hiatt. Her girl next door looks and charming demeanor won the lustful hearts of many youthful (and dirty old) viewers. It also didn't hurt that Shanna was a former Playboy model with photos easily accessible on the internet. Unfortunately the end of season three also brought the end of Shanna's rein on the WPT.

Cue Courtney Friel. With big shoes to fill Courtney never quite managed to fit in. She was a stiff interviewer and always looked like she was trying too hard. The players as well as the viewers never warmed up to her and after only one season she was gone.

Hopes were high when Sabina Gadecki stepped in for the fifth season. Bringing back the girl next door charm and free spirit she hasn't had enough airtime yet for the fans to make a judgement. Conversely the players had a full season with her and many, if not all, really liked her.

The WPT apparently did not and have replaced her with yet another hostess. Layla Kayleigh brings some television experience to the table via her stints on the G4 network. With knockout looks and a british accent the fanboys should be aplenty. Time will tell if she fits in but I'm thinking she won't. Early interviews seem to point to this just being a stepping stone she can use for exposure. Also having seen her on G4 in the past she has a tendency to let her bitchy side through on occasion.

I don't believe the music has stopped playing so look for a new hostess next year as the game continues.

So You Had A Bad Day

Let's see... 29 SNG's played, 26 Out of the money, 18 in a row without a cash.

I now have a new single worst day ever.

At first I thought I was playing bad, then I thought I was getting sucked out on. I turned to Poker Tracker for the answer and loaded up the 18 consecutive losses. Nine losses were a result of me being behind when the money went in. Two were lost coin flips. Seven were losses where I was at least at 70% favorite.

Lost the ones I should have, couldn't call a coin flip, and lost the ones where I was a heavy favorite.

Bad day indeed.

I've gone from a 30% ROI at the $24 level after 69 tournaments, to a -4.1% ROI after 111 tournaments. I'm not going to bother with the graphs like I usually do because it's just to depressing.

For the immediate future I'm going to step down to the $12 SNG's until I can right the ship.

What Have You Learned

There are a few things you learn about poker from playing a decent amount of SNG's:

1) How to take a beat - Since SNG's are primarily a preflop game you really begin to develop a deep understanding of hand probabilities. Everyone who studies the game knows that there are few preflop dominant hands and nothing emphasizes this more than SNG's. The beats can really seem sick sometimes but if you can't handle them, you won't be a long term winner.

2) There is great value in mid range connectors - This relates back to number one. Do to the preflop nature of the game you will often be seeing all five cards. With this knowledge drawing hands gain value since you cannot be "bet" off your hand on later streets. This has also led to the opening up of my MTT game. Almost every tourney I play now (which hasn't been that many lately) I'm able to effectively trap my opponents and gain a decent chip stack early. This leads to the security needed to play more flops in the mid to late stages.

3) Aggression matters - Although aggression matters in all forms of poker, the SNG is aggression taken to the next level. I would never dream of limping into a pot in a SNG. Fold equity becomes paramount in the later stages and that fact must be exploited at every opportunity.

4) Being a Donkey is a good thing - Ok, hear me out. I don't mean that actually "being" a donkey is a good thing. I mean that if your opponents are incapable of understanding your play and often "call" you a donkey, then that's a good thing. To go along with this... never explain your actions to an opponent. You may have a completely valid reason for playing the way you did, but if his notes on you simply say "donkey", you have an advantage.

These things are paramount to success. Without the knowledge to wield them properly you simply cannot survive the SNG jungle.

We Actually Got Along

What an incredibly nice weekend trip with the family. In fact we were having such a good time we extended the trip a day. Mount Rushmore was nice but I'd have to say I liked the Crazy Horse exhibits better.

Anyway I have a few things to cover here today. First some poker, then I've been "tagged" with that 7 things you didn't know deal.

Poker: A few days off is exactly what I needed. Since getting back I've moved up to the $24 turbos and I've been doing pretty well. When I manage to hit 100 of them I'll post the usual stats.

Tag: Slimeface tagged me and I've decided to actually put some thought into these seven items people probably don't know about me. I try not to post too much personal stuff on here since it's supposed to be a poker blog but here we go. (oh and this could be kinda long winded in spots)

1. When I was younger I was considered to be a talented singer. In the summer of 1986 (the summer after my high school graduation) I toured with a group called America's Youth In Concert. This is an annual tour group that travels across Europe performing concerts. Sadly for me 1986 was also the year that Muamar Quadafi was threatening all Americans traveling outside the US. As a result we toured the east coast and Canada. It did afford me the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall and at the 100 year anniversary of the Statue Of Liberty at Ellis Island.

I recieved music scholarship offers from several schools but eventually decided to attend the University Of Wyoming with my friends. While in college we performed Carmina Burana at Lincoln Center. I was also a founding member of the Centennial Singers. After college I never performed again. I think my Dad was always disappointed about that.

2. I once helped a guy who had been shot. After leaving home for college my parents moved to Denver, Co.. So I could havespending money my Dad began delivering the Rocky Mountain News in the mornings. When I got home for Christmas break I took over the route. To deliver the papers I would recline my passenger seat all the way, stack the papers on it, and then stop in front of the houses and chuck the papers from my car.

One morning I saw someone sitting on a porch and they began stumbling to my car when I stopped to throw the paper. I assumed the guy was drunk and had locked himself out of his house. I rolled down the passenger window to ask if he needed help and he immediately opened my door and collapsed into the seat. He told me he had been shot and asked me to take him to the hospital. Problem was I didn't live there and had no idea where a hospital was. The guy also reeked and kept punching the roof of my car from the reclined seat. He also kept calling me "Curly" for some unknown reason. If I had curly hair or was even bald it would make sense, but I had long straight hair at the time.

Not having a clue where I was going I just went to the first major street and started flying down the road looking for a cop. The whole time the guys screaming, "Help me Curly!", and bleeding all over the papers. I eventually blew by a cop traveling in the opposite direction. I was going about 40MPH over the speed limit and the cop didn't even hit his brakes and try to pursue me. I had to turn around and chase him down. When the cop finally stopped I got out and ran to him. He looked over to my car and since the passenger seat was reclined he didn't see anyone. Eventually the guy punched the roof again and the cop saw his arm. He called for backup and waited for them to arrive before getting out of his car.

It turns out the guy had been shot five times by his girlfriend and had wandered for about two miles banging on doors trying to get someone to help him. After the Ambulance took him away I drove the police to the house where I found him. The woman in the house told the police someone was banging on the door. When she looked out she saw two men push a guy into a sedan and drive away... So much for credible eye witness reports.

Afterwards I salvaged all the non bloody papers and finished the route.

3. I was kicked out of college after the first year. During my first semester I pledged to Sigma Nu fraternity and quickly discovered alcohol, partying, and smoking. Since I have an addictive personality this took over my life and I quit attending all but two of my music classes after about a month. At the end of the semester I had only passed four classes. These were my two music classes as well as Macro Economics and Political Science. I had the option to make the final count for 100% of my grade in the later two classes so that's how I passed them. (yeah, I'm that smart)

I began the second semester on academic probation. This didn't matter to me though because I had now discovered drugs. Not hardcore drugs but weed and mushrooms mostly. These began to consume my life and during the second semester I only passed my two music classes.

I was summarily booted from college and pissed away all of my opportunities. Two years later I attended a business trade school specializing in computer courses. I graduated that with a 4.0. Since then I haven't done any drugs and I don't drink but maybe twice a year at social functions. I also quit smoking in 1999 for the birth of my daughter.

4. I tried cocaine once. I liked it so much I knew I could never do it again.

5. I don't like people. Most of this stems from the fact that I am now an introvert. This flies in the face of my youth as I was very outgoing and personable. I believe it all stems from the fact that after my first marriage ended I traveled for about a year with the company I work for. Most of this time was spent in South America and Spain. Since I don't speak Spanish, when I wasn't working (with an interpreter) I would be sightseeing and wandering alone. I spent so much time alone and in hotel rooms that even now I believe as long as I had my laptop and internet access I could live alone on a deserted island and be perfectly happy.

6. I am now on my second marriage and have three wonderful children. If I was ever to get divorced again I would never remarry. (see post above).

7. My current wife thought I was gay when she met me. Since I don't go out of my way to talk to people my wife had to approach me to ask me out (she thought I could be her safe gay guy friend). Let me explain: I lived in a town house community at the time and my roommate was also a coworker. He was also somewhat of an introvert and neither of us talked to our neighbors or got to know anyone. Everyone would just see two guys who were always fairly well dressed who were in their early thirties living together. They just assumed we were gay. Had they ever seen the inside of the town house they would have seen the carnage of a typical bachelor pad, but of course no one ever did.

My son from my first marriage lives with me during the summer and my wife was the lifeguard at the complex pool. She would see us at the pool together all the time and since everyone told her I was gay she just believed it. She invited my son and I to go the the county fair with her and her son. Two weeks later I was practically living at her place and the rest is history.

I guess that about does it.

The Other Shoe

Have you ever known things were going so well that something bad just had to happen?

It's really inevitable. The good side of variance leaves you wondering when things will finally swing to the bad side. I've often felt this way, but not on the magnitude that I've felt it lately. I've wondered about it so much that I've been very tentative about playing. I have this fear that I'll go on this horrible run and lose all the scratch I've built up over the last few weeks. It's resulted in my pushing some edges I just shouldn't be pushing.

I'm down. Not a whole lot mind you. I've been burning about $50 a day so I'm not bleeding out, just steadily losing fluid. My mindset is kinda screwed right now. Fortunately the family is taking a weekend trip to Mt. Rushmore (paid for with poker winnings) so I'll have 3 days of no poker play. That should help clear things up and I can start fresh next week.

Statistical Anomoly

Even after mentioning my incredible run it has continued. Deep down I know I'm running on the very high end of variance but damn I hope it last forever.

With the completion of my first 100 $12 Turbo SNG's I present the stats:

Ran: 100
ROI: 57.6%
ITM: 56.0%
Profit: $690.90

Told you I was running well. That works out to $36.17 an hour, by comparison I should really be at around $12 an hour based on my performance at the $6.50 SNG's.

It's not all blind luck and winning coin flips. I've really felt that I've been on top of knowing when to switch gears. I've adapted very well to my tables lately and that has really been a boost to the confidence level. Confidence fuels ones innate abilities and that's always a good thing.

The Screenshots tell the tale.

Superstition

I almost hate to post this. I'm running so incredibly hot in the SNG's right now I'm afraid if I tell anyone I'll crash and burn.

My sample size is still low for the $12 turbos. 60 tourneys to be exact. In that 60 I've managed a 53.3% ITM and a 44.4% ROI. That comes out to over $26/hour when I'm playing. That's a slight bit more than I make in my real job.

When reality decides to snap back I should settle down to a more believable 20% ROI. The run is nice, and I hope it lasts, but all good things do eventually come to an end. The players are a bit worse at this level than they were at the $6.50 turbos. I suppose most recreational players play the $12's and those that are struggling to really learn play the $6.50's. It's not all that suprising that it works out that way.

Anyhoo, my good fortune has resulted in some good bankroll building and I'm now at $1,038.08. It took me 49 days to go from $300 to just over $1,200 (I withdrew 200 a few weeks back). That is certainly a lot faster than I did it when I started this blog way back when. I will therefore consider this bankroll building experiment a success!

Recent Success

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.

Let's see how long it takes to give it all back :)

300

No this is not a review of the movie. I haven't even seen it. Instead I've reached the 300 milestone in $6.50 Turbo SNG's. Things have gone well so far and I think it's time to take a shot at the $12 SNG's. I've played a few already and I don't see a difference in the quality of play so I'll expect to maintain my previous results.

Stats:
Ran: 300
ROI: 18.5%
ITM: 42.3%
Profit: $361.20

Both my ROI and ITM have increased slightly over the last 100 SNG's so that a good thing.



I've also managed to lower my 4th place finishes and picked up the slack with 3rd place finishes. First is where you want to be but I'm glad to get over the 4th place finish hump.



Here is my winnings graph just because it looks purrty.

I'm Back?

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

Dry Patch

In consideration of my recent MTT drought I've decided to completely rework my game.

Up until this point my strength has been preflop play. I've done an adequate job in the past and posted some decent yet moderate results. I also believe this is why I tend to play the SNG's well. They are primarily (especially in the turbo's) a preflop game.

My admitted achilles heel is postflop play. Although I've admitted this before nothing was ever really done to correct the issue.

Now I'm taking drastic steps. I'm going to adopt a preflop strategy that would be considered by many "experts" to be that of a donkey. That is to say I'm going to become a loose passive preflop player. Or as I like to call it, "Starting Hands By Gavin Smith". Now I'm no expert, but I'm also not an idiot. I'll try my best to avoid total domination situations unless of course I feel I can get paid off when my hand hits.

This new line will force me to become more comfortable with postflop play in MTT's. The structure of online tournaments generally does not leave much wiggle room in stack to blind ratios. If I can build a stack early I should be able to exploit more situations. This will also more than likely lead to earlier exits than I'm used to. Of the rooms I currently play at UltimateBet offers the best early round structure. They also offer a decent quantity of low buy in events so I'll mostly play there.

As always wish me luck and we'll see if I can learn something along the way.

Really

Upon reading Negreanu's latest blog post I said to myself, "Gee your life must suck."

Change of Pace

My rakeback payment was deposited into my Full Tilt account the other day. I knew it was going to drop since I had dropped my limits but I didn't realize the extent of the... ummmm... droppage?

A glorious $26.22 in rakeback was all I mustered last month. It would probably serve me better to work on my UltimateBet bonus than work toward the rakeback.

The SNG's have continued to work well for me but I'm dumping all my profits into losing MTT's, so I'm not making much progress. I'm also starting to grow weary of continuous SNG's and I've been feeling that itch to play the cash games again.

With that in mind I decided to play at UB and clear some of my bonus playing NL. I wanted to control my bankroll and considering my previous cash game records I decided to play a single table of $25NL. After 569 hands I had lost $7.44. Actually not to bad considering I was down about $50 at one point. I've forgotten the frustration of grinding out the small pots only to make one mental error and lose it all. Fortunately I cleared $5.89 in bonus so it was close to a break even endeavor.

I think I'll still play the cash game one or two days a week though so I can have some variety.

Oh, before I forget. Due to my oldest boy getting a myspace page I decided to get one as well. I'm going to use for personal blogging and the poker content will stay here. Feel free to check me out at my MySpace page.

bankroll: $357.92

Don't know why I bother playing this stupid ass idiotic fucked up poor excuse for a game anyway.

One Of Those Days

Today was one of those days that you wish would never happen. Every move is wrong, every dominant hand is cracked. It happens, It sucks, Get over it.

Bankroll: $285.87

I hope the Mookie turns out better

Hoy Lesson Learned

Never Ever... Ever... believe that your opponent might actually not make a donkey move just because it's a blogger tournament. Always think of your opponents in the lowest common denominator and you will be fine.

Lesson Learned

Disconnect Blues

I've played several MTT's this week with little success. I haven't played any in a while so it took a little adjustment switching from the SNG mentality.

In the short term my journey back to the MTT realm has been negative EV. Last night marked my first cash of the week and I did it in true grinder fashion as the best hand I saw preflop was pocket nines. It took everything I had to not get impatient and blow away my chances. In the end I went out 74th in a field of 826 for a small cash.

The SNG's continue to treat me well but I've been bitten by the MTT bug. As much as I'd like to play some every night I'm going to stick to the Blogger tourneys for the most part. At least until my bankroll is to a more comfortable level.

bankroll: $351.77

Current Build - 200

I've gone over the 200 mark in SNG's since restarting the bankroll. So far things are running very smoothly. I've mixed in a few $12 and $24 SNG's when I was rushed to make my full tilt points a few times. These are still outside my bankroll but I was fortunate enough to not lose to much when I played them.

I spent a bit to much on tournament entry fees over the last week so I gave back about a $100 in bankroll that I really couldn't afford. I am still up though from my last bankroll entry on March 27th so I can't complain too much.

Stats:
Ran: 207
ROI: 16.6%
ITM: 41.1%
Profit: $259.80

My ROI and ITM is down just slightly from my 100 SNG mark but I'm staying pretty consistent. Consistency is good.


The finish distribution is flushing out a little more now. My wins are increasing but so are my fourth place finishes.

Answers

I haven't played much poker over the last few days. I had to take my mother to the hospital on Friday. She has chronic back pain and she was having pain which was more severe than usual. She's still at the hospital but I should be able to take her home tomorrow.


I've gotten a few comments that I would like to address in lieu of poker content.

First up was Grinder who posed the following comment:

"I'm surprised your ROI is only 17% when you ITM is 42%. Seems you should be winning more often. I wonder if you are playing too tight so you are getting ITM with a small amount of chips instead of begin the whale."

I will admit to playing a bit tighter near the bubble than I used to. A year ago I would have been attacking as much as possible at the bubble but I've since felt a slight adjustment was needed. That's not to say I am a nit who has the smallest stack when the money hits. I would estimate that about 75% of the time I am not the short stack when the final three are left. With that said I am not the biggest either most of the time. The majority of the time I am in second place and I'm quite comfortable with that.

In the post the comment referred to I had a frequency of finishes: 1st=14.4 2nd=13.5 3rd=14.4
This is pretty flat, but now that I've added another 80 tourneys it looks a bit different: 1st=16.1 2nd=11.7 3rd=13.9
My current ITM is 41.7% and the ROI is 19.6%

Brian then posed the following:
"Good stuff, but one thing I might suggest is that you worry a little bit less about your day to day results."

hmmm... I'm not. I would consider this blog to be of the "diary" variety as opposed to a "strategy" one. If you look back through the archives to the beginning of this blog you would see that I often posted daily results in the beginning. Since I've made a point out of starting over with my bankroll and "beginning again", I've decided to follow in the same vein and try to post a "diary" of the play on a daily basis.

I can see how this might be misconstrued as results oriented. I will admit that after a brutal day of losses it is difficult to look at the big picture, but I've been around long enough to know that it's the cumulative that matters, not the immediate.

Well that's it. Go read one of the guys I mentioned above. Go on. Scram. Git. Scidaddle.

Business As Usual

Since my last update I've managed to maintain a decent ROI. Today I had to throw in some 11+1 SNG's to make my nut. I managed to go 1 of 4 in these for a small profit. It looks like the play is comparable to the 6.50's so when my bankroll is ready I should be able to make the transition easily.

I have to say I was very disappointed Sunday that the WPBT event was at 8pm and not 9pm. I could have played at 9, but I wasn't home from work yet at 8. I know it wasn't the organizers fault but RAZZ is my second best game so I was looking forward to it.

Bankroll: $333.25

Stat Time

After todays session I've gone over 100 SNG's so it's time to reveal my status.

On the bankroll front I finally had to withdrawal $200 so after play today I have $286.85. It was basically like giving up my rakeback so that's not too bad. Sadly my reduced play is going to result in very little rakeback for this month.

Onto the numbers:
Ran: 111
ROI: 17.5%
ITM: 42.3%
Profit: $126.30

The ROI and ITM graph is looking good. The bad streak I had at the beginning is rather accentuated but I've made a nice comeback.



The finish distribution doesn't look to bad. My ninth place finishes were boosted a bit today as I saw a rather large number of 3 outers hitting. The graph for these turbo's is a bit different as compared to the ones from my outings at the "regular" SNG's. Previously I was seeing a bump in the 6th place finish position but now it's in the 4 spot. I'm also looking a little flat when I get to the money. It appears as though I could end up in any position once I hit the money.

A Beautiful Day On The Felt

A very nice day. Ran my 16 SNG's for a 81.7% ROI. Unlike yesterday I managed to cash in all four tables on my last set. 68.8% ITM to go along with it.

Down Day

Ran 16 SNG's today for a -22.1% ROI. I was holding my own and running close to break even for the day when I failed to cash in my last set of four. When I was heads up in one of my SNG's my opponent criticized my heads up play. I started down 3:1, got a little ahead, and then managed to lose.

I let it get in my head and then I pressured myself to do well in the last set.

That never works out for me.

I won't know how much of my bankroll I'm going to have to withdrawal until Friday. So until then, no bankroll updates.

P.S. I redesigned the blog. If your just reading the RSS feed go check it out and let me know what you think.

All A Twitter

I have to withdrawl $250-$300 from my bankroll today to cover some unforeseen expenditures. I'm not sure where that is going to leave me but I'll have a little bit of bankroll left. I'll update more on it tomorrow.

In the mean time I've set up a twitter account. This will allow me to do the things I've wanted to do but don't have the time for on this blog. Think of it as microblogging with the cellphone. This will be little blurbs or thoughts that I have that don't require the thought of a full blog post here. Check out my profile page and join my followers list if your interested.

If you have a twitter page let me know so I can join yours.

A Good Day

After taking yesterday off from the felt I waded through 16 SNG's today. I'm really liking these turbo's. I wish I would have tried them earlier. Now that I've written that you can expect horror stories to follow in the next few days.

Today's ROI: 29.8%
Bankroll: $411.84

Count The Ways

Let's see... I spent $34.80 to win one $26 token and then couldn't convert it into anything. Then I spent $8 on a $1 rebuy tourney and was kicking ass and approaching the money when the only player that could bust me at the table did. (AA vs. flopped set)

To finish up the day I played 5 $6.50 SNG's and managed a 99.4% ROI. If only that was possible over 500 of them.

Bankroll: $387.34

Quick Note

I have played virtually no poker since Sunday. I decided to try out the 10 day demo for World of Warcraft and I can report that it's just as addictive as you've heard. I can easily see how people have lost themselves in the game. The quests are quick and you can always look forward to the next challenge. If you could get paid for killing beasts... it could be the next poker.

Speaking of poker, I'm getting back in the saddle today. I'm going to try to collect a few tokens and play a few tourneys. Nothing to involved but I'd like to play in the Big Game tomorrow night so I need to token my way in.

After some more ad money and rakeback payment my bankroll sits at: $397.84

Eleven In A Row

Eleven in a row. That would be the number of SNG's that I consecutively did not cash in today. I then had two firsts and a second to end the day with fourteen played and an ROI of -22.9%. Use yesterday SNG's and I went sixteen without a cash. That's got to be close to the worst streak I've ever had.

I've got the Anti-Midas touch.

Bankroll: $223.16

Best Article In A Long Time

This is by far the best article on poker that I have read in a long time. It rings especially true for me considering my last few months. Go read it.

A Magical Mind

Progress

Stayed away from cash games entirely today and it makes me wonder why I even bother with them. I've been so fixated on maintaining my iron man status at Full Tilt I've let my play suffer. I had to grind out the hours... get the points.

So I took a break today and played nothing but SNG's and a Razz Tourney. Finished very well in my 10 $6.50 turbo SNG's managing a 24.6% ROI. Played a $1 45 man SNG and final tabled but was bad beated out in 8th. Used my token today to try for a $75 token but went out ninth. The Razz tourney went poorly as I finished 30/49.

Bankroll: $238.66

Disaster

Wow...Wow...Wow

Words can't describe the depths to which I fell today. The reraises I saw with nothing but flush draws on the turn (which hit of course), the calling down with Ace high (which hit of course), gutshots, open enders, you name it, they chased it (and hit of course).

At this rate I'll be broke in two more days. Game over. Thanks for playing.

One turbo SNG played for a fourth place finish. 583 hands of shorthanded .5/1 played for -$105.45. My only profit was a $50 payment received for an ad.

Bankroll left: $229.41

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tighten up, or loosen up at these small shorthanded tables. The big winners I've tracked seem to be suckout artists at this point. Perhaps just SNG play and some forum research on these shorthanded tables will be in order for tomorrow.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now

How Many times have you said that? We all have. If we could just go back in time, things would be different.

Over the last few days I've been looking at my poker game in those terms. Could I start over and have even greater success? I looked back at my very first blog post and saw that when I started this blog I had a bankroll of $300. I managed to build that up to a nice sum over the years and I wonder if I could do it all again. Just start over.

The state of online poker is still largely uncertain and I want to challenge and enjoy myself while the ride still lasts. With that in mind I have emptied my poker accounts and left myself with $292.11 (and a $26 Full Tilt token). Not quite exactly $300 but with the odd amounts I had sitting in a few sites that's what was left after making withdrawals.

Things will certainly be different this time. Jumping to new sites to take advantage of bonus opportunities are no more. I do have pending bonus money at Absolute and UB due to reloads that are there. I also have the rakeback with Full Tilt now and a small amount from blog advertising. I can also trade in my iron man points for tokens or bonus money if I choose to so all that should offset the bonus whoring. It's probably even more than the bonus whoring yielded way back when.

So what's the gameplan? How will I use the money? For grinding out the Full Tilt iron man points I'm going to make .50/1 limit short-handed my grinding game. That allows me to play within the 300BB bankroll guideline. It does leave me a little thin playing 4 tables at once if I have a bad day on all tables at once. I should be ok with it though. For SNG's I'm going to follow a 45:1 guidline and for MTT's a 40:1 limit. That means with the current bankroll I'm at $6.50 for SNG's and $7.00 for MTT buy-ins. I'll try to collect tokens to play in higher buyins when I can.

Well that's it. Let's see what the future holds.

PPA Commercial

I think a better commercial could have been produced, but it's a step in the right direction.

Swap

I have $25 on Poker.com that I can't get access to since I don't have a click2pay account. I am looking for someone willing to accept a $25 transfer from me on Poker.com in return for a $25 transfer on Full Tilt. If you can help me out, and I know of you (ie. a fellow blogger) please email me at (lifesagrind at gmail dot com).

T.G.F.O.

Thank God February's Over

For everything I gained in January, February wiped it off the map and then some. I played 15,635 hands of NL Holdem and managed a loss of 4.47BB/100. For the life of me I can't figure out what my issue is with the NL cash game. If someone out there was willing to help me out I'd be willing to listen.

Playing 1,000 hands a day really did lead to a grinding mentality. I played at times I really would have rather been doing something else and I missed the tournament action. I can play limit holdem and get my 200 full tilt points in fewer hands so I might give that a shot.

I'm going to enjoy today and maybe things will be clearer tomorrow.

ePassporte To America

The recent and well covered turmoil regarding online funding has left many poker players in a quandary. When the news first broke and neteller pulled out of the US market I researched my options and decided on Click2Pay as my payment processor of choice. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I complete my sign up they decide to leave the market.

Left with only one viable alternative I sign up for ePassporte. I wasn't looking forward to the fees but beggars can't be choosers. I was however pleasantly suprised over what I've discovered so far.

The current landscape is very rocky for payment processors and last thing I want is to have my money tied up in someone else's bank account. There is no guarantee that the money is any safer with the online poker rooms but fool me once, yada, yada, yada.

My current plan is to leave my bankroll with the rooms and only use the processor if I have to transfer money between sites, or I'm ready to make a withdrawal. To facilitate the withdrawal portion of my transactions I decided to get a physical visa/atm card from ePassporte.

The fees mentioned on their site left some room for interpretation so I set out to lock in what I'm in for. The whole process begins with the sign up which was not without its snags. I decided to fund my account with my visa check card. This should have, and to be honest would have been painless If I hadn't messed things up. I originally was going to deposit $300 in the account and when I clicked on the accept button to move onto the next screen, the "Verified by Visa" screen came up. At this stage I decided I didn't want to put $300 in the account. I felt better with only $100 to start with so I clicked the back button on the browser and reentered the smaller amount. I was again presented with the "Verified by Visa" screen but lo and behold Visa wouldn't verify. A quick call to the fraud prevention section of Visa and I was able to complete the transaction. Turns out by navigating away and back again with different amounts throws up red flags and my account was locked.

My account was now funded with $95. Ninety-five you ask? Didn't I deposit $100? Why yes I did but here we encounter our first fee. Five dollars for every one hundred deposited is removed as a funding fee when using a credit card. The fee for depositing with a checking account is $2 but I didn't want to wait the two weeks for my account to be verified before depositing. (My checking account has since been verified so I can use this method if I so chose in the future.)

When the account was established I was issued a "virtual" visa number that could be used for online purchases at any retailer that accepts visa. Since my Verizon bill was due I decided to test out this feature and was able to make the payment with ease, and without any fees.

Depositing to Full Tilt, PokerStars, Absolute, and UltimateBet went without a hitch. Again no fees. Full Tilt claimed there would be some fee involved with the deposit but I've deposited twice and have not paid any.

Withdrawals worked from all sites without any fees as well. From Full Tilt the withdrawal took about two hours while Absolute and Ultimatebet took closer to twelve.

Getting my money out in a timely fashion was very important so I paid the $35 fee to aquire a physical visa card to use in stores and at ATM's. The card arrived after about 2 weeks and I headed to an ATM to make a withdrawal. The ATM machine charged me a $2 fee for the withdrawal but I would have had that fee even with my checking account ATM card. ePassporte claimed on their site that there would be a $2 fee to use the ATM function of the card but I was not charged this. I then took my card to a store and made a purchase. Worked fine and no fees from ePassporte.

Overall I've been very happy with the experience. I've had to pay much less in transaction fees than I had anticipated and I'd recommend ePassporte if your still undecided on which way to go.

“The best things in life are free
But you can give them to the birds and bees.
I want money, that’s what I want.”

--Barrett Strong

If Mr. Strong plays online poker, he might be surprised to find out that he can get both free things and money quite easily. All he would have to do is join Poker Source Online.

Poker Source Online (PSO) will actually pay you to play online poker. Sure, you can go directly to the online poker rooms’ sites and get their traditional deposit bonuses, but if you sign up through PSO, you will get those same bonuses (sometimes better ones), PLUS free gifts or free money. And all you have to do is play some poker.

PSO’s 100 percent, zero risk option is its free money promotion, where PSO will actually give you money to start playing. You will not need to deposit a single, solitary penny. The only money you stand to lose is PSO’s. Thousands upon thousands of players have taken advantage of this promotion already, receiving a total of well over a million dollars in free poker money.

But if you already have your poker bankroll ready to go, a better deal for you would be to sign up for one of PSO’s free gift promotions. Poker Source Online created the original poker promotion back in 2004 by giving away poker books and poker chip sets, and now there are even more gifts from which to choose. Poker table tops, Copag cards, Poker Tracker software, and a wide array of gift cards are yours for the choosing if you create an online poker account through PSO, make a minimum deposit, and complete the play-through requirements. And if you aren’t sure exactly what gift you want, just choose “PSO Points” as your gift and spend them later in PSO’s store.

And then, for those of you who are set with your bankroll and have all the poker gear you need, you can still get good, old money from PSO in the form of rakeback. Again, sign up for one of PSO’s rakeback rooms, and instead of paying the full portion of rake hand after hand after hand, you will get a chunk of that back at least once a month. Use it to build your bankroll or treat yourself to something special, it’s up to you. It’s your money.

The best things in life are really free. Get them all at Poker Source Online.

Third Century And A Rework

Netellers holding of funds is causing me to change my online play. More on that later but first I'll do my 300 SNG update.

The last 100 SNG's have really been a heartbreaker for me. I went from having my single biggest day ever (14 tables = 70.5% ROI) followed immediately by my worst day ever (13 tables = -74.8% ROI). Sadly the losing day was bigger than the winning. Overall I was about break even over this span of tourneys.

Here are the numbers:
Ran: 325
ROI: -2.5%
ITM: 36.6%
Profit: -$149

As you can see I can't seem to get a break out on the ROI and my ITM has gone flat.


It looks like I can finish in any position at any given time. That is except for sixth. I'm having trouble getting over that hump. The players have gotten very tight and it's getting harder to wait them out sometimes. I know that means I should get more aggressive when we get down to six players but that doesn't seem to be helping. My opponents don't seem to want to be first in without a big hand, yet they are willing to call you with just about anything. Very odd and very confusing/frustrating.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now onto other news.

Having the same problem as most other online players my bankroll is now depleted due to Netellers stranglehold on my funds. This leaves me in a bit of a quandry with how to proceed from here on out in regards to game selection. Initially I was just going to keep playing what I always did and just hope I hit a winning streak. This has led to a $339 loss so far just this week and I simply can't sustain that. I'm unwilling to add funds online so instead I have to start practicing tighter bankroll management.

The first issue to address in my SNG play. With the funds I have left online I'm only funded to realistically play the $10 SNG's. This isn't a problem unto itself since I've been struggling at the $20 level and been profitable at the $10 level. The problem arises with the accumulation of Full Tilt points. I've begun collecting 200 points a day and I want to continue that so I can take advantage of the monthly freerolls available through the Iron Man Challenge. Playing $10 SNG's I'd have to play 30 a day and that's just not possible.

MTT's are still my most profitable option but again, the bankroll is not where it needs to be. I'm going to try to play the 2pm $26 double stack 11K Guarantee a few times a week but I'm going to have to cut out buying into the $75 tourneys. I'll try to play a couple of the Token Turbo SNG's to accumulate $26 tokens and try to parlay them into $75 tokens. MTT's might be my most profitable option but it still doesn't solve the 200 point threshold I want to maintain.

That brings me to cash games. I've been a sucker for the cash games in the past and I've bled money in the process. This is the way to go though if I want to accumulate the necessary points on a daily basis. Over the last two days I've experimented in a little risk/reward as far as cash games are concerned and I've come up with the following. In order to protect my bankroll I've decided to 4 table the 25NL tables on Full Tilt. If I can do this for four hours a day I can reach the 200 points. That comes out to around 800-1,000 hands a day. My rakeback should increase because of this as well so hopefully I can get my bankroll back in shape within the next month or so.

That pretty much sums it up. Cash games and a few tourneys are the short term future for me.

February Goals

First lets do a little review of the January goals.

1) Qualify for Gold status Iron Man on Full Tilt: SUCCESS - I didn't make it until the last day of the month, but I made it.

2) Get my SNG ROI to at least 10% playing $10 and maybe $20 SNG's: FAILURE - Started hot, ran cold, then warmed up to finish the month with 267 played for a 3.38% ROI.

Now a look into the future.

1) Qualify for Gold status Iron Man on Full Tilt

I really debated going for the gusto and making Iron level but if I did that I wouldn't have enough time left in the day to play any MTT's. I'm actually still waffling with this so I won't commit to Iron but I may try for it anyway.

2) Get my SNG ROI up to 10%

In order to make it worth my while I'm going to need to get there. Also the cash game bug is biting me again so I need to make the SNG's worth it right now.

3) Play in at least two 300K Guarantee tournaments on Full Tilt

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In December I finished in 249th place on the SNG leaderboard. For January I ended up in 195th place. If I decide to shoot for the Iron level this month I'm fairly confident I can make the top 100. I'm not going to make this a goal though because I'm still undecided on my approach this month.

Poker Gods Spit On Me To Teach Me A Lesson

So after looking forward to the WPBT event tonight I decide to donk off all my chips after only about 2o minutes of play. I tried to outbully a player that held pocket Queens. Not too brite. I wasn't paying attention to the tournament though. And at the time I didn't mind giving away my chips.

Why you ask. Because I was doing very well in the 300K on Full Tilt, that's why. Shortly after the tournament started I doubled up when my quads beat the nut flush. From that point on I managed to stay about twice the average stack until deep into hour three. The competition either got a lot better or my cards got much worse but with about 20 spots to the money I was down to an average stack.

After getting endless amounts of crap and having all my steals played back at I finally found AK in the big blind. It folds around to the small blind who pushes all in. I have him covered by a little over 3,000 chips. So far the few times it's been folded around he has pushed all in. I know he doesn't have a hand here so I make the call. I hit trip A's but the other three cards are 10,9,8 to give his J7 the straight.

I'm devastated. I'm left with 3,000 and the blinds are 500-1,000. I'm royally screwed now. I check the tourney info and I'm now in 304th place with 310 left. I know I have to get chips quickly now because the money starts at 301 and that's all I can play for at this point. Two hands later I pick up JJ and am called by KQ. A King hits the flop and I'm out in 307th.

Looking at the tourney window I see that the money didn't start at 301. It started at 306. I went out on the bubble when I could have at least salvaged my buyin by folding that one hand. You see the game froze when I was eliminated so it could finish all the tables. When play resumed they were down to 305. That's twice now I've cost myself by not taking a moment to look at the tourney window and figure out what's going on.

Hopefully I've learned that lesson.

P.S. Yes I know playing the pussy at the bubble is bad. But considering what I had left that was all I could play for unless I got extremely lucky.

Called Out

I haven't played in a blogger sponsored tournament in quite some time. In fact I don't remember the last one I played in but it was probably in October some time. I really haven't had any plans to play in any in the near future but then I was alerted to this. Miami Don has posted the odds on the 2007 WPBT season and I found myself listed at 10:1.

Now I feel compelled to prove his prognostication as either correct or incorrect. (Incorrect meaning I should have had even lower odds. :) ) So you'll find me at the inaugural event planned for this Sunday night.

In other news the SNG's have started tracking upward again and I have successfully satellited into the FTOPS event #1 after three attempts. I have also played in one qualifier to multiple events but was busted near the bubble when I ran into a cooler.

On a personal note my son's pinewood derby race is Saturday night and we've built our fastest car ever. We're shooting for the win this year so wish us luck.

2nd Century

Things haven't gone as well with the 2nd 100 as it did with the first. I decided to play the $20 SNG's during the last 100 and I've managed to give back my previous winnings and then some. My ITM% has dropped down and with it went the profits. I'm not getting the wins anymore and my 4th place finishes have increased dramatically. It's a small sample size in the great scheme of things and I really won't get a good overall look at my play until I get to around the 500 mark.

Here are the numbers:
Ran: 202
ROI: -4.1%
ITM: 36.1%
Profit: -$136

The graphs tell the tale. My finishes have started to level out across the board and that's never a good thing.



In other news I have slowed down my SNG play to pick up a few MTT's. In the last week I played in seven tourney's and had nice results. I finished 11th in a Full Tilt 11K Guarantee DS, final tabled a $20 Razz tourney on Full Tilt, and final tabled a 2K Guarantee on UltimateBet. Add another lower money finish in an 11K DS and I monied 4 out of 7. Not too shabby.

I'm also going to start a Heads Up SNG challenge. I'm going to take $52.50, which translates to 10 buyins at the $5 heads up level, and play on that. I'll move up when I have 10 buyins for the next level, and drop down when I have lost 10 buyins. Should be fun and give me valuable info at the same time.

Pain In The Ass

The previous pullouts of the US by poker rooms really didn't have much of an effect on me. The only real loss was Paradise's tournaments and I didn't play on Party much anyway. But now, with Neteller pulling out, that really bites the big one.

It looks like the choices being touted by the poker rooms as replacements are epassporte and click2pay. After doing a little research I've decided to go with click2pay as my new funding choice. I don't like fees and epassporte is all about laying on the fees. With click2pay I can set it up to work like I did with Neteller and live fee free.

Easy choice.

Final Table Full Tilt $25K

After taking about a month off from the nightly Full Tilt Guarantee I came back with a vengeance last night. The first hour was a roller coaster as I hit a high of 4K in chips but was down to 2K at the first break. I was then moved to a new table that was a dream. I was able to get a quick read on the players and they played the way I expected them to the entire time I was there. This particular mix of players offered some nice opportunities for me and I chipped up by the second break.

The third table I was moved to wasn't as forgiving as everyone had decent stacks and the pot was raised every hand. Fortunately I wasn't there long before being moved to a table with Surflexus. I was able to take the chip lead for a short period of time here when in the big blind I picked up and OESD. It was a battle of the blinds and I called the small blinds all in check raise when he had top pair. I made my straight and enjoyed a nice cushion of chips. Sadly I dealt the death blow to Surflexus when he called my early position raise. I held presto and he couldn't improve his A9.

I began to rest on my laurels a little at this point and that cost me. I started checking my Bloglines feed for updates and surfing around the web. In general, not paying much attention to the game. Before I knew it I was down to just above an average stack and shipped off to another table.

A few hands into the new table I made the critical mistake of the tourney. Not in that it cost me chips, but for another reason I hadn't considered.


Click here to view a larger version.

Now let's break it down. I've only been at the table a few hands and I really don't have a read on anyone yet. When the table chip leader raises I'm not interested in my hand, but when a shorter stack smooth calls I instantly saw this as a good steal opportunity. At this point I don't care what the original raiser is holding. I have enough chips to make him think long and hard about a call here, especially with someone to act behind him. The short stack only had 39K in chips to begin the hand. With the blinds at 2,000/4,000/500 if he likes his hand he should be pushing. I read the call as a descent flop worthy hand but not something he wanted to go broke on.

So with that I attempted the steal. The original raiser does as he's supposed to but after thinking for a while I get the call from the remaining player. I hit the flop but he catches a four flush on the river and now I'm crippled.

Interestingly it's not the loss of chips that hurt me. In fact I manage to suckout twice right away for double ups and then hit a few good hands to put me in better chip position than I was before the steal attempt. What hurt me was that everyone got to see what I did, and what I had. After my quick mini run I found that two players at the table (one of which was the player who called my steal) were not going to let me have anymore pots without playing for my stack. By the time I realized this I was back to an average stack and running card dead.

I had to hold on and be very precise when I tried to pick up a pot from that point forward. This led to being the short stack when we finally got to the final table. I held on till 7th place before pushing with a weak Ace and getting called by KK and an Ace better than my own. Had I taken the time to look at the payouts I would have tried to hold on another orbit to see if the other short stack would bust (The JJ guy from my steal hand). If I could have held on I would have made another $300 or so but I'll take the final table finish and $986.

First Century

I hit the 100 mark in $10 SNG's this month. I've decided to post stats every 100 games, so let us begin.

Stats:
Ran: 102
ROI: 15.5%
ITM: 40.2%
Profit: $174

ROI graph looks good and the ITM is very steady.


I'm not getting the overwhelming number of firsts I was getting last month. I'm a bit disappointed in that but I'm outdistancing the third place finishes big time which is the most important thing.


You'll notice that if I can get past the middle stages I do pretty well. There are some definite strategies that can be followed now that I'm back in the groove. I'll post more on that later.

The More They Change, The More They Stay The Same

"MINORITY BILL OF RIGHTS (H Res 6): Voting 222-197, members blocked a Republican bid to add a “Minority Bill of Rights” unveiled in May by then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. They noted that although Pelosi called last year for “open, full and fair debate” on most bills, as the new House speaker she was denying GOP amendments to the rules package."

So when the Dems were the minority they wanted this... but now that they have the power, they don't.

This Is Not A Poker Post

I couldn't sleep last night. My mind was focused on a short story idea that seemed to come out of nowhere. I kept running it over and over in my head and eventually had to get up and put it on paper. I submit it here for your hopeful enjoyment. It's not long, more of a creative writing exercise.

As the covers slowly rise and fall with the rhythmic sound of her breathing. Her face is so peaceful, so perfect. Watching her sleep is the one thing that always keeps him grounded. His love for her is unconditional, without bounds, the way a fathers love should be.

It is that memory, the thought of her that always gets him through. No matter where his work takes him or how far he has to go, knowing she’s safe and waiting for him to come home makes everything bearable. It’s been difficult. After her mothers death it became even harder for her to see him go. Being left with the Grandparents for weeks, even months at a time was hard. She was strong though, a strength that he could be proud of.

He has much to be proud of. Not only of his daughter, but of his own accomplishments. He was good at what he did. No… He was one of the best. He should be able to take pride in that, but pride is a weakness. He can’t have a weakness. It’s a liability. She is his weakness. They know this. The puppet masters. The dark figures from on high who manipulate not only him, but countless others. Determining the course of world events. Deciding who lives, who dies.

Not that they ever needed her as leverage. He had always followed orders. Done as he was told without question. A soldiers place is not to question but to follow through. Excel at your given task, do it for God and Country.

No, he never questioned orders. Not until now. This was different. This was his country. His home. This presidential candidate was someone special. Never in history had one candidate won with wider margins during a primary. Their views on everything synced with the American public in such a way that everyone had hope. The future would be bright. Hell, maybe even peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

It was his job to end that hope. To silence the one person that even the Corporation feared. Even as he sits in this vacant apartment, rifle ready. He has doubts. A choice has to be made. The life of someone with the capacity to change the world, or the life of his daughter. A choice he shouldn’t have to make. A choice he has to make.

They’re coming out now. The butt of the rifle slides to his right shoulder. Left hand steadying on the stock. He can see her now. As she exits the building her image comes to focus in the scope. She can change the world. Her father must love her. Take pride in her accomplishments. Pride is a weakness.

Forgive me.

Day Off

Today was my day off so no poker was played. I did play yesterday though and had a nice run at the $10 SNG's. Played 16 of them and ended with 50% ITM and an ROI of 17.6%. Could only manage one win which is a little troubling but I had four seconds. I think I am just not used to being down in the money in 3 or 4 at one time so my attention was divided. That will improve with time. On a side note I ended the day 113th on the leaderboard. Since I didn't play today I've slipped to 418th.

Another Year

Hope everyone had a good new years eve. I was at work, as always. The 80hr. weeks are starting to drain on me. If I don't get relief soon I may just crack.

On the poker front I continued to nose dive and ended the month with a -6%ROI.

Looking Forward...

January Goals

1) Qualify for Gold status Iron Man on Full Tilt

2) Get my SNG ROI to at least 10% playing $10 and maybe $20 SNG's

That's it, short and sweet for January.

Blame It On The Chocolate Factory

Fellow blogger and December SNG player WillWonka stopped by and left a comment two days ago. Immediately after rec. said comment my SNG game went in the toilet.

Coincidence... I think not.

Wonka managed to send his Bad SNG mojo my way and I now have experienced an abnormal amount of 3rd, 4th, and 5th place finishes. I also expect him to post about how spectacularly well he has been performing over the past few days since transferring his hex to me.

I present the following graph of my last 30 finishes as proof positive.

(The preceding post has of course been in jest, I don't really blame Wonka for my downswing... or do I?)

Snap Back To Reality

I'm going to chock it up to a combination of variance and bad calls but I crashed on the SNG front yesterday. Not the worst day I've ever had but I struggled constantly. Only one win on the day and a few thirds couldn't make up for all the losses. My ROI has now dropped down to 9%. I should be shooting for between 10-15% so I was running hot anyway.

I'll fire out some more today so I can stay on pace for the Gold Level Ironman. I might even throw in a MTT or two and mix things up.

SNG Good

It's been a little while since I last posted. I hope everyone had a joyous holidays. It was nice to kick back and relax with the family as we were relative free this holiday season. The whole family is now down with a cold but hey, at least were in it together.

I've continued to play the SNG's but I decided to try out the $20's because I wanted to clear my 100 Full Tilt Points each day in fewer tournaments. I've found the $20's to be a bit softer than the $10's which is a little surprising. I even managed to make it onto the Low Limit SNG Leaderboard before Christmas. I didn't play for two days and that was enough to bump me off but I should be back on the Board by the end of the month.

I also was gifted with $10 yesterday during the 12 Days of Christmas promo. Free money is always nice.

Anyway... Onto the new numbers

Stats:
Ran: 78
ROI: 19.6%
ITM: 37.2%
Profit: $336

My ITM has stayed pretty steady throughout.


I'm still managing to win a majority of the tournaments I make the money in. That makes for a nice looking graph.

True Dat

I stuck to my word for once and played no cash games. Played a few MTT's but nothing dramatic. The only one I managed to cash in was the Gold Freeroll. It wasn't for much money but it was nice to cash.

Based on my current bankroll I settled into the $10 SNG's. I haven't played any for a while and it took some time to adjust to the play. The players (in general) are better in the early stages than I remember. Fortunately there is still weakness in the end game.

I want to continue to qualify for the Gold Freeroll this month so I have to pay at least $15 in tournament fees a day. That means 15 SNG's per day and I'm playing 4 at a time. That usually means I have to play for at least 3 hours a day. This hasn't been to difficult to attain but the final set does feel like a grind.

I played 113 SNG's this last week and at one point I went 14 consecutive without cashing. That was harsh but I always felt I'd fight back.

Stats:
Ran: 113
ROI: 5%
ITM: 36.3%
Profit: $62

Here's a graph of my ROI. You'll see that I struggled to stay even in the beginning, hit my bad run, and since have steadily built up.

And here is the finish distribution. I'm very pleased with my ability to seal the deal when I get heads up. I really feel that I have improved in this area. When I ran SNG's before I had a higher ITM% but I wasn't winning as often.

Wits...Meet End

The frustration level has reached a peak never before seen during my 3 years of play. The rate at which my bankroll is being decreased is beyond anything I could comprehend.

Look up "lost" in a dictionary, and there I am.

Mike Matasow has his blow ups in tournaments, I'm having them in cash games. I'll grind and grind and grind then make a stupid move for my entire stack. It's like I can't help myself.

Looking at the numbers for the year so far they show that I'm a cash game loser. It's not a huge number, It's at right about $1,100 for the year and that is at different levels. In fact I'm only profitable at the 100NL tables. Everything else, including limit games, I'm down.

My tournament cashes are what save me. I'm still up over last years profit, but only by a meager $100. I really thought I would at least double last years figure. I haven't played a tournament in a month and maybe that's what my problem is. I'm not getting any diversity, and I'm not playing my best game (MTT's).

Maybe I shouldn't be playing cash games at all. The numbers say that MTT's are my best game. They were last year, and they are this year. I've always wanted to build up to being a high(ish) stakes cash game specialist.

Perhaps I just don't have the skill set for it.

Damn it's difficult to admit that.

Could be for the best though.

At any rate the cash games are going out of play for a while. I'm going to start getting into the SNG's again and the MTT's. If I continue to lose, then I'll probably take the rest of the month off.

I just don't know, it's kinda depressing.

Of Little Consolation

Remember a few weeks back I mentioned that my wife was going to miss a few paychecks? Well it caught up to us this week and I had to withdrawal a $1,000 from the bankroll this morning. That combined with the huge downswing I've had (the upswing last week didn't cover it) and the 2.5 buyins I've lost this week, means I will be dropping down to $50NL for a week or so.

I can take heart in the fact that my losses this week have not been due to bad play on my part. Just the usual array of bad beats. I've also qualified for the Gold Freeroll on Full Tilt but all of that still doesn't make up for the fact that I'm bankroll poor right now. It sucks!

What's Changed?

This week of play has seen a vast improvement for me compared to the past few. I wanted to take a look at the numbers and see if I could pinpoint what areas had changed and determine what areas still needed change.

I chose to do a comparison between the week of Nov. 5-11 (week A) and the past week of Nov. 19-25 (week B). I chose the week of the 5th because that was my biggest losing week during my downswing.

Hands:
Week A = 2,493
Week B = 1,256
That's twice as many hands but I think the numbers should translate well between the two. I've begun to base my sessions on the number of Full Tilt points I earn. My goal each day right now is to accumulate a minimum of 100 points a day. This allows me to earn entry into the iron man freerolls as well as give me a gauge. If I'm playing well and I want to continue, I do. If I feel I'm struggling I can use the 100 point mark as a way to call it quits for the day.

Money:
Week A = -$581.00
Week B = $624.95

Vol. Put $ In Pot %:
Week A = 22.34
Week B = 26.83
My play was a little looser preflop and I tried to take advantage of position a bit more. Opening up more from the cutoff is working nicely.

Vol. Put $ In From SB:
Week A = 31.76
Week B = 28.63
This is the single most obvious leak in my game right now. I'm seeing way to many flops from the Small Blind. Since this is the worst position on the table it needs to be at about the tightest position. Blind defense is not as important in NL as it is in Limit and I believe a majority of players have this problem. I need to work on cutting the number above in half.

With that said (because in poker it always depends) I have found that post flop stealing from the SB can be very effective against players I have a good read on.

Att. To Steal Blinds:
Week A = 31.05
Week B = 43.16
This has been a product of my increased cutoff play. I've also began to open up my preflop raise requirements which has helped.

Won$ When Seeing Flop %:
Week A = 41.91
Week B = 53.18
The increase has been a result of a few factors. My willingness to raise more Preflop has aided my continuation betting postflop. My post flop aggression has also increased which translates to more pressure on my opponents.

Won $ At ShowDown:
Week A = 40.41
Week B = 59.74
One of the big adjustments I made to my game over the last week was to not pay off river bets. I actually wrote down at the beginning of the week "QUIT PAYING OFF RIVER BETS". I took heed to the warning and it translated into money in the pocket.

Preflop Raise %:
Week A = 14.56
Week B = 21.18
I touched on this earlier but being the aggressor pays off in NL.

Total Aggression Factor:
Week A = 2.79
Week B = 4.4
An obvious bump there. I made a concerted effort this week to try and isolate the weaker players at my table. When I was successful in that I made sure they had to pay whenever I felt they were on drawing hands. This worked out nicely but could also cause large losses when variance kicks in.

There you have it. I'm going to continue to work on the above while backing off from the SB and see if I can have another stellar week.

Silver Man

This week has been going considerably better than the previous few. I have managed to actually be up a bit so far and when I have a losing session I'm keeping it to a minimum. I've have found I'm not stacking other players as much this week. I'll take it though considering the alternative has been losing my ass. I've made silver in the Iron Man this month and I'll have Gold in a few days. I won't be making Iron status but I don't expect to until I move up in levels.

Slow play Aces

Reason #1 to not slow play Aces:


Click here to view a larger version.

Giveth, Taketh Away, Giveth Again

Big swings today

Good Beat

Click here to view a larger version.

Bad Read

Click here to view a larger version.

Nice Hand


Click here to view a larger version.

Rakeback > Bonus

I received my Full Tilt rakeback for October and I was a little shocked. With most (and I thought all) sites the rate of clearing bonus is greater than the rakeback rate offered. When I actually had earned rakeback on top of the bonus cleared I realized just how anemic Full Tilt's bonus policy is.

I am getting 27% back at Full Tilt right now and that seems to be the best rate going. If your serious about using poker for some amount of income generation you owe it to yourself to look into rakeback offers. With the number of sites available dwindling for U.S. players the days of bonus whoring are quickly fading. Rakeback offers you the ability to maintain income generation for the life of your account, just like a recurring monthly bonus.

I've done business with several sites and I recommend you check out RakeBrain, PokerSourceOnline, or RakeFreeze.

(If you sign up at Rakefreeze please use lifesagrind as your referal.)

I am Iron Man

Well... not really.

I have managed to qualify for the bronze man tourney on Full Tilt though. I'll make the gold level before the month is out so that's at least something. I also managed to have a profitable session of poker. It was only half a buy in and I only played 109 hands today but I managed to stay out of trouble and avoid some familiar pitfalls.

Baby steps everyone... baby steps

And The Beat Goes On

Things have not been looking up this week. In fact my spiral continues as I am now down 12.5 buy ins since October 27th. This has caused my overall numbers after 27,965 hands to be a total 0.35BB/100. It's not put me in the red but I need to continue to figure out what's happening.

On a brighter note I did manage to figure out that I'm calling too many river bets from calling stations. I had a guy at my table last night who played 61% of his 109 hand and never raised once preflop. His post flop aggression factor was also 0.00. He managed to river me an uncountable number of times last night. It really became frustrating. I do believe that it didn't affect my overall play but I'm losing the big pots. This is what's killing me.

I feel confident in my preflop play but I'm paying off too many players. It hasn't been uncommon for me to have a swing of several buyins both ways during a single session.

I'm going to enlist the help of Cardrunners.com for some insight. I've been a member for several months but haven't been utilizing the resource. Maybe if I can work through some hands here as well it will help.

Stay Tuned for further updates to the devestation.

Abondon Ship!

If my poker game was a ship... right now it would be plummeting to the bottom of the ocean floor. Just when I thought things were going alright this week I've managed to have an eight buy in swing to the negative over the last two days. Half of it was not my fault, but the other half was. It's not the obvious version of tilt, you know, the one where you get pissed and throw things, but it's tilt none the less.

This ship has got to be resurfaced soon or all hope may be lost. In an effort to do that my play is being reduced to only one table at a time. The plan is to find the post flop errors I'm making before I make them. That sounds rudimentary, and it should be, but it's an iceberg size hole in the side of my game right now.

More Picks

Filed Under: Sports

Coming off a losing week and now I'm 14-14 on the NFL season. At this point I would recommend that you do not use my picks as any sort of guage for your own picks.

Let the mediocraty continue:

Texans
Giants -13

Saints -1
Bucs

Falcons -5.5
Lions

Dolphins
Bears -13.5

Raiders
Seahawks -7

Confession

Filed Under: Poker

I'm an action junkie.

It started about 3 weeks ago and it first infected my tourney play. I recognized it and cut tournies out. Now it's my cash games. The session starts ok, then I lose complete control like a priest in a boy's shower room. I'm averaging a buyin and a half loss a day for the last six days.

My hope is that by writing it down here I can find the will to take back my game.