Bye Bye BBT3

**This blog has moved over here**  Updates will cease on  March 21

Alas I simply no longer have time to spend playing tournaments.  Getting the business off the ground is my primary concern and I'm spending all of my free time doing that.  I am playing SNG's during my scheduled live times because I enjoy that but I won't be playing much else for the foreseeable future.

I've placed a new post up on the Poker Tech Reviews blog welcoming EasyCure as a partner.  He has proven to be a hard working person who embraces the entrepreneurial spirit.  Please stop by and help me welcome him to the team.

Streaming The Big Game

Join me in the chatroom.

Changing the Rotation

I've got to put some bankroll building back into my play. The MTT's have been slowly draining my resources so it's back to SNG's play. They can be a grind but I've got to play into my strength and that is the turbo SNG. I'll be working a new rotation which will cut down on the MTT's.

Started this by playing a few steps SNG's last night at Full Tilt. Took me two step one's to win a step two token. Turned the token into a third place finish for a little profit. Feels like my game hasn't dropped off too much so I should be able to hop back in without too many growing pains.

The steps will be my focus for the short term.

A Misunderstanding Spouse

My wife asked me what my bankroll was at last night. So I told her.

She was confused as to why it hadn't changed since the last time she asked me. I tried to explain to her that I had been playing mostly tournaments and not the cash games that would slowly build up.

Her response:

"What happened to winning a tournament every month? You used to win one every month. You need to win another cruise. It's time to go on another one."

If only it were that easy.

Input Wanted: Conclusion

I want to thank Klopzi, Fuel, and $mokee for replying to my call for input.

I wish Fuel would have expounded a little on his reason for folding.

In the moment of play I had the exact same thought process $mokee had. So exact it's scary. I decided to push to force out the other two players. The original player had pocket 5's for the flopped set. I hit my K on the river for a bigger set. Still didn't manage to win though because the chip leader called preflop gambling it up with Ad7d. His flopped nut flush was enough to win the hand after he called my all in re-raise.

Second guessing myself afterwards I was convinced I made the wrong play here. With four of us seeing that flop and since I wasn't re-raised a set or straight draw is very possible. That flop should have been scary even if their wasn't the three diamonds. Since I had the second nut flush draw I figured it was worth the play at the time. I'm still a little undecided on what the right course of action should have been.

I guess that's why this game hasn't been solved yet.

Input Wanted: Hand Decision

This is a hand from a tournament I played in the other night. I've been debating with myself whether I played this hand right postflop so I've decided to ask for input.

The hand occurs after were already in the money but it's still early after the money bubble.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5221922500: $5 + $0.50 Tournament (38945611), Table 16 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:00:58 ET - 2008/02/12
Seat 1: delmop (25,759)
Seat 2: Dannydm (39,903)
Seat 3: williams1 (82,255)
Seat 4: Jhouse1968 (38,512)
Seat 5: Montezuma67 (29,326)
Seat 7: dooce_kikker (32,450)
Seat 8: Jordan4523 (29,720)
Seat 9: lifesagrind (34,505)
antes 150
dooce_kikker posts the big blind of 1,200
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [Ks Kd]
lifesagrind raises to 3,600
Dannydm calls 3,600
williams1 calls 3,600
dooce_kikker calls 2,400

As you can see my raises were getting plenty of respect.

*** FLOP *** [9d Td 5d]
dooce_kikker has 15 seconds left to act
dooce_kikker bets 28,700, and is all in

This guy took all of his time to make this play. I'm next to act so I have a tough decision to make.

What do you do?

I have plenty of options here and I'm not sure I made the right one. I'm not troubled about the decision because of the outcome. I'm troubled because it was a tough spot. I also feel a little lost on what the correct play is in this position.

Indicators

Indicator that your playing above your comfort level: How about losing 2 1/2 buyins in 621 hands. I then dropped down 2 levels and have since gone up 2 buyins in 687 hands.

Indicator that your finally hitting your groove: MTT's can be a drain on the psyche as well as the bankroll. The level of variance is well documented and my experience has been no different. The key is to feel secure in your own play and believe that you are making the correct decisions. I finally reached that feeling this week. It's taken a few weeks of play but I definitely feel I'm back in form after my extended MTT absence.

Indicator that you didn't play much in January: I received my rake back payment for January, it was $6.41. 'nuff said.

January

After a month (well two weeks anyway) of nothing but Multi Table Tournaments I have 39 played and an ROI of -51.53%. In Satellites I have 3 played for an ROI of 321.49%. Overall that means I lost money this month.

I've managed to learn something about the low buy in events. I learned my "normal" style of play is a losing style. I have a tendency to be very erratic overall in my play. I can move from tight to aggressive and vice versa very quickly and I do so often. Presently, that's a recipe for disaster.

I would surmise that in order to consistently cash in these events, and thus give myself a shot at winning them, I'm going to have to aquire a very rigid straight forward approach. This approach is three pronged.

First, during the initial hour of play I will need to be tight and play straight forward ABC poker.
Second, during the next hour I will step up the aggression and begin open raising more liberally.
Third, If I make it into the money I will look for large trapping opportunities.

I'm not sure this will be a good final approach but over the next two weeks I will give it a try and see how everything is meshing out. I'm also going to start rotating some cash game play into the mix. I keep trying to deny that part of my game since I suck at it but I simply can't fight the urge. My work schedule for the rest of the week will also prevent me from playing tournaments so I'll need cash game play to take up the slack. I've resigned myself to playing only one cash table at a time and also stepping up stakes. I'm hoping that will force me concentrate more and take the game more seriously.

That last sentence sounds stupid, but it's true. My brain is just fucked up that way.

On The Poker Docket

My sporadic vacation from poker has been nice but it's time to once again join the fray. Starting this week I'm going back to five days of play but I'm going to start with nothing but MTT's. I will be looking to play four tournaments at a time and joining new ones as I bust out of earlier ones. I will not be playing all of these events but this is the schedule I plan on using each week.

Schedule:
Sunday
(varied) Sundays are a family day and I don't plan on playing any of the majors so the tournaments I play will be random whenever time permits.

Monday-Thursday
8:00 pm - UltimateBet 5K bounty
Full Tilt Daily Double A & B
PokerStars $5.50 NL

8:45 pm - UltimateBet $11 NL
Full Tilt Token Frenzy

9:00 pm - PokerStars $16.50 NL
Cake Poker 2K
Full Tilt 28K

Friday-Saturday
OFF

Blogger tournaments will be thrown in sporadically whenever the mood strikes.

See you at the tables.

Asshats - The New Cool

I decided to play 6 MTT's at the same time last night. This was the online poker equilavent of throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The results were well below expectation as I managed to cash in the lowest buy in I played and I managed to win the one with the smallest payout.s
During The Math event I noticed a trend that I'm becoming very concerned with. I believe that as a "community" poker bloggers should be supportive and cordial to each other. Instead the trend has fallen to, who can berate and belittle the most effectively. If this was merely a form of trash talking or good natured ribbing I wouldn't care. Sadly it just doesn't seem like this is the case. There are even polls where everyone is vying to be the most "hated" blogger. Do you really want to be the biggest Asshat? Is this something to aspire too?

I don't get it. Then again, I'm probably not supposed to.

It won't stop me from playing the events. I'm secure enough in my belief, perhaps misguided, that I have game. None of it gets to me on a personal level. My concern is for the new players wanting to join in. My wife is a nurse and they have a saying that "Nurses eat their young". This talks to the fact that the experienced nurses treat the inexperienced nurses like shit. Giving them all the dirty nasty work. I just don't want the blogging community to turn into an equivalent where the inexperienced players are discouraged and shunned from playing and participating in the community.

My Fourth Night

Had some time to play last night so I fired up four tournaments and set out to make some money. I played the 28K., a 2K, a FTOPS sat., and a $5 event.

It was a night of bad cards as I only managed to squeak into the second hour of the 28K and the$5. The satellite went really well as I won the event and my seat. The seat wasn't into the tournament I thought it was though. Turns out is was a "Super" satellite and not a "true" satellite so I get to play again in February for my seat into the FTOPS event #8.

In the 2K I made a bad read and went out just barely in the money. I put my opponent on a pure steal because his reraise was just too big. I decided to re-steal against him but he called with his middle pair and I couldn't hit either of my two overs.

If you count the seat win as money then it was a profitable night. If not... then it wasn't.

I've had almost a full month off from the tables now as my playing time has been very sporadic. I plan on going to a five day schedule of tournaments Sunday-Thursday starting in two days. No cash games.

Playin' The Tourney's

Finally took the time to play some tournaments last night. I went online around 9pm central and signed up for a $5 on Cake Poker, a $5 on Full Tilt, and the 28K Guarantee on Full Tilt.

Even though my mtt game is very rusty I was extremely happy with my play last night. I found the Cake field to be full of very bad players that loved to overcall with second pair and the Full Tilt games were populated with better players overall, but still their were some pretty bad ones as well. In an odd but somewhat common occurence I busted out of both $5 events at about the same time. I was out in one after 78 minutes of play and 83 minutes in the other. The guarantee was a different story and I lasted 266 minutes, or 4 hours 26 minutes. Not long enough to get the win but I did manage to finish 29th out of 1,310 players.

I enjoyed a top ten chipstack for most of the latter stages but managed to have three hands that caused my downfall. The first hand in question I held 140,517 in chips with the blinds at 2,500/5,000/600. I was in the small blind with JcTc and a short stack who had 41,096 in early position pushed all in. It folded to me and I really considered folding my hand but then re-evaluated. If I lost the hand I would drop to just below an average stack, but if I won I could really solidify myself for a final table run. I decided to call considering his range could be large in this position and he showed me two Jacks. I was pretty well sunk but then I picked up an OESD on the flop and a flush draw on the turn. Alas I didn't hit any of my 15 outs.

The very next hand I lost 13,900 more chips when I held AcQc on the button. The flop came 8KK and I really felt my opponent held a small pair so I couldn't call his flop bet.

The death blow came at 4,000/8,000/1,000. I was in the BB with 66,021 and 9s8s. It folded to the SB who raised it up to 24,000. He was a player who had been playing tight earlier but had changed gears and had begun raising me on a regular basis when we were heads up. His range was big in this spot and I had a nice drawing hand so I pushed on him. To my amazement he instacalled me with KdJc. Granted he's ahead here but I had tightened up substantially and his call put almost half of his stack at risk. I obviously don't like his call here and the flop came out 5hKs3s. I liked my chances but the flush didn't come and I was sent packing.

I wouldn't have changed my play on two of the three hands but I probably should have pushed preflop with the AcQc hand. My opponent had about the same stack size as I did and he was capable of making a lay down. Overall I am happy with my play regardless of the outcome so that's always a good thing. That also makes me up on the year and it's also always good to start the year winning.

Sunday Tournies

Everybody knows about the Sunday majors.

Well here's the two I'll be playing in tonight.

The Poker Grind.net presents...
Date & Time - Nov 18th @ 10pm
buyin - $20+2
Where - Full Tilt , click Tournament > Private
Name of Tournament - The Poker Grind.net Bounty
Password - thepokergrind

and

The Big Game

Still Have My Eyes

Even though I claimed the need to gouge my eyes out after my bad beat exit from the MATH last night, I did not follow through. Wanted to, just couldn't put my family through it.

I can't say I played as well last night as I did the night before, but I was still playing pretty good poker. I was well on my way to the final table when some player I've never seen before decided to make a monumentally stupid move that worked out for him by way of a three outer on the flop. Run on sentence withstanding this player was a pretty easy read. One of those players that was aggressive for the sake of being aggressive. Wanted to resteal at every opportunity and defended their blinds when it was completely unnecessary.

At any rate I went out in 14th and I can take solace in the fact that I played pretty well for the most part.

How To Lose $1,000

Before last night I hadn't played a MTT since August. Beyond that I hadn't seen action in a blogger tournament since June. (I did play the Pokerstars coop event for bloggers but I'm not counting that.) I expected a very rusty and poor performance but I can't actually remember when I had played better.

Everything was clicking for me yesterday. I decided to play one token satellite to gain my entrance for The Big Game. I won the token.

When the tournament started everything progressed well and I managed to be among the chip leaders throughout most of the event. By the time the final table started I was the chip leader and I continued to build my stack from there. Within a few orbits I had a 2:1 chip lead over my closest competitor. I truly felt this was my tournament to lose.

As play continued I took a back seat to the action and tightened up. I saw no need in giving anything away and I watched on as TripJax began to make a big move. As we reached the final four he and I would swap the lead several times.

This is where things went horribly wrong. Four handed and in the SB TripJax raises to 4,200. Button folds and I decided to take a flop with A6d, the BB folds. Here it gets interesting as the flop brings 345 rainbow. I have the open end straight draw and an Ace for a possible 11 outs. I figure this is a good spot to take the pot down since if I get called I have plenty of outs, and if he is stealing the blinds with say KQ or so he will have to let it go. I make a pot sized bet of 10,400 and Trip goes into the tank for a few moments. When he decides what to do he fires back at me with a bet of 23,000.

I know I'm looking at an overpair at this point. The thing is I was really only dead if he had 22, 77, or AA. I believed I was left with only 2 choices, fold or push. Folding left me with 36,000 chips and second place, but just barely. It also would have made TripJax a very big stack and he was the one player I didn't want to have chips. His bet was also an odd amount. If felt a bit like a "go away I don't want to invest anymore money" bet. I believed that a push could be enough to make him fold if he felt vulnerable. After all, with that flop I could have a lot of big hands if I'm willing to push.

So push I did. He goes into the tank and then calls showing me one of the three hands I really didn't want him to have. The 77. I can't hit one of my remaining 9 outs and I'm sent packing in fourth place. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I didn't stick around to see who won, although if TripJax didn't win something went horribly wrong.

I had already spent the first place money in my head. I need a new laptop and I was going to take that money and get one. I'm calmed down now but I have to admit that loss bugged me for hours.

The one positive out of all this is my passion for the multi's in rekindled.

See you at the tables.

Championship Bust

I'm out of the WBCOOP in 924th place. The hand that did it?
Enjoy

PokerStars Game #12626266672: Tournament #63028692, Freeroll Hold'em No Limit - Level V (200/400) - 2007/10/14 - 16:09:08 (ET)
Table '63028692 132' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Warnosh (8625 in chips)
Seat 2: lifesagrind (14950 in chips)
Seat 3: sijht.nl (11500 in chips)
Seat 4: draconid (14800 in chips)
Seat 5: 66Buffalo66 (23525 in chips)
Seat 6: StrangePP (13525 in chips)
Seat 7: cwebb1977 (25575 in chips)
Seat 8: polyballer9 (8150 in chips)
Seat 9: DodgerPL (23875 in chips)
StrangePP: posts small blind 200
cwebb1977: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [4s 4d]
polyballer9: calls 400
DodgerPL: folds
Warnosh: folds
lifesagrind: calls 400
sijht.nl: folds
draconid: folds
66Buffalo66: folds
StrangePP: calls 200
cwebb1977: checks
*** FLOP *** [8c Ac 4h]
StrangePP: checks
cwebb1977: bets 1400
polyballer9: folds
lifesagrind: raises 1800 to 3200
StrangePP: folds
cwebb1977: calls 1800
*** TURN *** [8c Ac 4h] [9h]
cwebb1977: checks
lifesagrind: bets 5200
cwebb1977: raises 5200 to 10400
lifesagrind: raises 950 to 11350 and is all-in
cwebb1977: calls 950
*** RIVER *** [8c Ac 4h 9h] [As]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
cwebb1977: shows [9d Ah] (a full house, Aces full of Nines)
lifesagrind: shows [4s 4d] (a full house, Fours full of Aces)
lifesagrind said, "lol"
cwebb1977 collected 30700 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 30700 | Rake 0
Board [8c Ac 4h 9h As]
Seat 1: Warnosh folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: lifesagrind showed [4s 4d] and lost with a full house, Fours full of Aces
Seat 3: sijht.nl folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: draconid folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: 66Buffalo66 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: StrangePP (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 7: cwebb1977 (big blind) showed [9d Ah] and won (30700) with a full house, Aces full of Nines
Seat 8: polyballer9 folded on the Flop
Seat 9: DodgerPL folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Is Anybody There?

I've been back from vacation for a while, I just haven't had anything to blog about. Still don't really but I thought I should make my presence felt. I'm still only playing 4 $24 turbos each day at Full Tilt so I can get my 50 points for Iron Man status. I haven't played a MTT or a cash game in forever. It's not that my interest is waining, it's that I have non poker activities taking up my time.

My kids and I decided to do a short film and this has been very time consuming. I'm loving the process of writing, editing, and effects though so I may have found a new hobby. I'll have to wait and see how it all turns out. My goal is to have the post completed by the 24th of this month.

Up or Down

Still no MTT's played this week but I did start playing the $24 Turbo's and the $50NL games by the end of the week. I'm going to see how things go and I may split time and different levels for a while. I'm not going to update the stats for SNG's based on every 100 anymore. Since I may be switching out at varying levels it will just be easier to start doing the stats on a monthly basis, utilizing the stats from that month only along with year to date charts on occasion.

Speaking of year to date I was looking at my best and worst day of play since I started with the SNG's this year.

After 1,048 SNG's that ranged from $5 HU to $24 Turbo's
best day: $193.50 on February 1st
worst day: -$410.40 on May 23rd

It would be so much nicer if those numbers were reversed. It's amazing that I'm still up after such a big loss day. That day accounts for me having a 5.5% ROI overall for all money levels combined this year.

Multi Table Apathy

My enthusiasm for MTT play has been severely lacking lately. I played a total of five events in May and four of those were blogger donkaments. So far in June I've sat down for four tourneys. Again mostly blogger events. I'm in a MTT rut.

What was once my favorite game has been reduced to an effort in just throwing money away so I can move onto something else. I'm not sure what can be done to get the spark back. I'm tossing around the idea of putting some money on PokerStars and trying to qualify for the Sunday Million. Then I can just take the tournament dollars and play a bunch of events on someone else's dime. At any rate I'm done with the blogger events, at least for the next little while. I don't enjoy them and really just dump my chips anyway.

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 :)