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.

OMG?!? i could be wrong

In follow up to my previous post I have to say I just listened to the most disturbing poker podcast I've ever heard. This was the Feb. 21st episode of the Pocket Fives podcast. During the interview a player not only professed the virtues of smoking pot while playing, he practically encouraged it by saying most of the top players smoke.

I've never been a real big fan of this podcast but I will now never listen to it or visit their website again. The target audience for them are teen and young adult males so I consider the interview to be wholly irresponsible. If they want to claim journalistic integrity by not censoring the interview then they also need to present the other side and point out the dangers and side effects of the drug. The interviewee himself said he hadn't smoked for a few hours so he wouldn'tbe stuttering through the process.

Most of you may say, "who cares." But I've got to tell you, as a parent, that is some scary shit.

WTF?!?

This is the most asinine advertisement I've ever seen. Brought to us by the fine state of Washington because as we all know poker leads to pot, heroine, alcohol, smoking, (bondage), and guns.

Hell I just finished shooting up and now I'm going to go shoot someone as I smoke and drink.

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.

The Social

I've just joined the Poker Players Social Network or PPSN as it's called. Think of it as MySpace for poker players. Sign up and visit me. As always my username is lifesagrind.

Deal Or No Deal

Well I just finished watching the new poker movie Deal.

My Thoughts:

It's better than Lucky You
It must have been financed by PokerStars and The WPT
Color Of Money meets poker
Would have been better if Shannon Elizabeth got naked

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.

Introducing...

I finally played some poker on Monday night. Not much, only two low buyin tourneys, out before the first break in both. I'm still riding the X-Box 360 Christmas high so playing poker has taken a backseat.

That doesn't mean I'm not writing about poker though. I've been wanting to do more writing lately, but I didn't want to use this blog as that outlet. This is supposed to be a poker diary blog and I'm going to keep it that way.

I've been leaning toward writing more op-ed pieces so for that my writing home will be pokersift.com. My posts can be found here. The first post is already up so I encourage you to to go check it out.

This blog will also continue as it always has so don't stop that feed.

No Play...No Post

I haven't played a hand of poker since before Christmas. Haven't missed it either.

I didn't set any 2007 goals so I'm not going to bother setting any 2008 ones either.

As far as a year in review, well... 2007 was my worst full year of poker. If it wasn't for my SNG play during the third quarter of the year I would have lost money. As it stands I barely finished in the black. The missing link this past year was a lack of tournament wins. Tournaments have accounted for over 90% of my profits in the past but this year I finished down $83. I simply didn't have the time needed to spend in front of the PC. I played less than half the number of tournaments that I played in 2006. I also spent $5,000 less in buyins.

Morale of the story... play more tournaments in 2008.

Hey, Bend Over And Grab That Bar Of Soap

FullTiltPoker Game #4549444139: Table Wilkes - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:38:07 ET - 2007/12/18
Seat 3: flydogg007 ($34.05)
Seat 4: Chewyjd ($31.75)
Seat 6: lifesagrind ($48.50)

Kacori posts the small blind of $0.25
Mr_R_Hand posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #8

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [Ac As]

tsduo folds
flydogg007 raises to $1
Chewyjd calls $1
SkiDooSledder folds
lifesagrind raises to $4
jausbrey folds
cladower folds
Kacori folds
Mr_R_Hand folds
flydogg007 folds
Chewyjd has 15 seconds left to act
Chewyjd raises to $31.75, and is all in
lifesagrind calls $27.75
Chewyjd shows [Ad 3s]
lifesagrind shows [Ac As]
*** FLOP *** [2d 4d 5h]
*** TURN *** [2d 4d 5h] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [2d 4d 5h Js] [Jh]
Chewyjd shows a straight, Five high
lifesagrind shows two pair, Aces and Jacks
Chewyjd wins the pot ($62.25) with a straight, Five high

Understanding Disappointment

The plan was to end my two month tournament sabbatical with the three big blogger tournaments last night. The Big Game, The Skill Game, and ThePokerGrinder. Alas due to familial obligations I only arrived back home in time for the last one on the list.

Much has been said, and many bloggers have bitched, about the quality of play in blogger tournaments. As of last night I have come to the following conclusions about poker bloggers. Just because you write about poker, doesn't mean you know how to play poker. At least not play poker well.

This is in reality no different than playing in any other tournament online. You have your good players, and you have your bad players. The problem lies in the expectation that poker bloggers should be, as a whole, skewed more toward the good player side.

The poker blogging community has within it, it's own microcosm of society. You have your elders followed by the middle agers and finally the children. Everyone must remember that these "children" play in the tournaments as well. Hopefully one day they will grow and learn but some, well some are just born with an extra chromosome. There is nothing you can do for them developmentally but be supportive of their endeavors.

These are the ones you often hear about, but not always. Everyone is capable of making that fatal mistake. Just try not to let it be you.

Dreamland

Have you ever awoken screaming from a nightmare? How about a nightmare that involved poker? Were you playing with monsters, or were you up against monster hands? How about every time you bluffed heads up, your opponent had the nuts? Did you blow off your entire stack bluffing into the nuts?

Have you?

You have had that dream... well welcome to my reality. I've made some piss poor decisions before but tonight takes the cake. I blew $80 at a $50 table. All heads up, and I had the 80 in front of me before my opponent bought in as a short stack. Sure, he got lucky and caught cards, but I also ignored the obvious signs of my opponent having me beat. Truly a matter of ego outweighing common sense tonight.

A Months End

Would you look at that? The graph actually ends at a point higher than it started.

I know... I'm amazed as well.

I took the NL cash game seriously this month (ie. not a single SNG played) and I have to say I enjoyed playing them. I've had a love hate, well... mostly hate , relationship with the NL cash game in the past but making the switch to full ring and not worrying about the money I may lose or win really seemed to help me.

Since I'm all about the money when it comes to playing this game, I've got to look at whether the SNG's or the cash games were more profitable for me. In the month of October I played 10.72 hours at the $24 turbos for a profit of $235.70. That comes out to $21.99 an hour which is nothing to sneeze at. At the .25/.50 NL game I played 16.57 hours in November for a profit of $338.60. That comes out to $20.43 an hour. That puts these two forms of poker at about dead even for me on the profitability scale.

With that in mind I'm going to stick with the cash games again this month. I didn't miss playing the SNG's at all which also surprised me. At least I have a backup if things turn sour for me.