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.


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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:


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Giveth, Taketh Away, Giveth Again

Big swings today

Good Beat

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Bad Read

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Nice Hand


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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.