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In the zone

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

Talking with a buddy the other night about those times when you are just in the zone and making good calls, bets and moves. Everything is going right and you are winning all the races.

He was sitting cash just to kill some time before going out and ended up not leaving for 4 hours and was up a staggering 12 buyins by the time the dust settled.

Maybe that inspired me, or maybe I’ve just hit a nice run of cards but in my last 3 sessions it seems as if I can see the cards and I’m always holding the right ones.

I have stayed away form cash games for a while as I just played too weak and was concentrating on tournaments instead, but with the Take 2 promo on at Full Tilt I really couldn’t pass up the chance to get some bonus cash and a some extra Full Tilt Points. Of course you won’t see me spending them on a jersey like Nice Guy Eddie.

My game started out pretty bad and the bonuses I was getting was the only thing keeping me even in the game but with practice everyone gets better and my game has I think.

Last 3 sessions have been great up a collective 20 buyins on some pretty sweet play with limited hands really. Slow playing sets and boats and letting guys bluff off their chips on flush draws drawing dead, holding Kings and Ace when guys overplay their 88 or KT, ah it’s magic when it happens.

Keep up the good play and I might be able to make a move up one of these days, would certainly like to be able to get to a point where I could start making some withdrawls instead of just trying to build it up. *fingers crossed*

/brag post

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Tournament woes

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Well after some early success I’m back to being bubble boy.

Most of the time I have to just say “thats poker”, but sometimes its a little tougher than that.

Toughest one recently was me holding JJ and pushing from the button and getting called by the small and big blind with AQ and A8? Both had me slightly covered.

Flop comes KQJ SWEET! turn is a 7 and river is of course a T.

Boom…Headshot.

Oh well, already cleared the first bonus in the Take 2 promo, that helps make things feel better.

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Full Tilt: Take 2

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

I’ve been a tourney player for quite some time now.

Truth is I haven’t been agressive enough to play the cash games as of late given the bankroll requirements and the game has passed me by. Maybe I can get it up there and take another crack at it in the future but I am actually enjoying the tourney game as of late.

Have been getting decent results and almost alwasy getting my money in good and being able to control the buyin really helps me feel more confident in making the plays I should.

Placed 17th in a 380 person field the other night and have been going fairly deep in pretty much any tourney I play in.

But.

For building a bankroll I can’t pass up playing the cash games in the “Take 2″ promotion on at Full Tilt Poker right now.

You need to sign up for it and follow the rules to get paid, but for a low limit schmuck like me it is a great chance to pad the bankroll and score some Full Tilt points as long as I can at least stay flush in the the cahs games. So far I’m a little ahead with the first bonus coming shortly.

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Learning to fly

Monday, August 31st, 2009

pnae-cockpit

 

Well not really learning so to speak, but it’s been a while since I was in the cockpit and taking the controls over again is going to been a bit before I get the feel of things I think.

As mentioned before the home game has all but dried up since spring.

I don’t think we need to spend anymore time looking at why the guys  can’t seem to get together anymore, I’ve been too busy with work and trying to get my life back in order but I did manage to drop by and catch the last 20 minutes of the game the other night when I got off work early and it just made me realize how much I missed it.

I actually logged onto Full Tilt the other night for the first time in eons and managed to cash in my first FTOPS tourney that I entered. Didn’t do so well the other night when I fell asleep while playing two tourneys and bubbled one from a pretty decent chip lead at the break. Oh well, serves me right for strating to play at 2:00 am.

Other than the FTOPS tourneys which I historically do quite well in, Full Tilt has another promotion coming up for September with some bonus points and chances to get some bonus cash depending on how much you play during the month. I will try and log in for at least a few hands a day to try and get some of the bonus cash to pad the bankroll. You need to sign up for the promotion if you are going to try for it.

I will also be writing on a regular basis again. I have the fortress of solitude all set up now and can get things rolling again now. That means I’m back on the $10,000 quest and I guess looking to get the site looking a bit better.

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Bankroll Update: Tourney success

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Been a very busy beaver lately, not so much with poker but more so with life and work and such.

Summer time is here so I have been getting the yard work done after the snow finally melted and that takes a lot of time.

Have another job so now I’m working about 12-16 hours a day at least. Oh well, times are tough and you have to do what you can do. I think I need to be glad I have something to keep my mind busy and it’s nice to be busy with something new, keeps life interesting.

My bankroll was getting up there for a while and I’m not sure if I got lax and stopped playing well or the bad beats just took their toll but I slipped back down to the point where I would have had to start re-thinking my buyin level on a number of tournaments.

I decided to just shore up my game and go with a higher price 1 table SNG and those seem to be my strongest game. Top 3 player’s get paid in this one, 1st and 2nd tie for a 4 buying payout and 3rd gets their buyin back basically. I ended up winning and that was a boost of confidence.

Then I took down 6th in a 90 person multi table event to add a few more dollars to the account, came in on the short stack again though which I need to work on not doing so I stand a better chance of winning but a cash is a cash and my all in to get knocked out got rivered by the chip leader so no big deal.

I entered another one of the same events than this time took down 2nd place for a pretty decent payout, the knock out bonuses alone I got in this tournament were double my entry fee and I would have loved to take down first but quite honestly played bad when it got to three way as I had a slight chip lead and the other was a really low stack and instead of working on taking him out I played to passively and then got chipped down on one questionable laydown. Oh well something to work on and my biggest tournament cash to date so a step in the right direction. I came to the final table 3rd in chips in this tournament which was a real change of pace for myself and made a few plays that I don’t normally do. Also had hands like AA and KK hold up much more often than they usually do which did make the later stages a lot easier than normal.

Bankroll is almost 100 times the starting point after the freeroll win and looking to keep it moving upwards.

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Posted in $0 to $10,000, Online poker | 4 Comments »

So I have a partner in the grind

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Yeah low limit poker is a grind, but it does teach you very good skills and if you follow good bankroll management you can make it work for you as you get higher in limits

Shipped over some cash to the Mouth for his help in the tournaments he sits in for me when I have to go teach and he is making a run for it. Good to have someone else to compare notes on and I’m trying to pass on what I’ve learned over the past couple months to him. It’s taken him a bit to find his niche but the $.25 satellite into the Daily Dollar is a great way to build a low limit bankroll.

If you don’t know it, it’s on Full Tilt and is a one table SNG that costs $.25+$.05 to enter and pays the top 3 spots, 1st and 2nd get an entry into the Daily Dollar which is worth, yeah you guessed it $1, and 3rd gets $.25.

You have to play pretty bad or run pretty unlucky to not find this SNG +EV in the long run and can even take a shot at the Daily Dollar if you want to risk it all instead of cashing it out. Yes it takes more work, but it helps your game and you get to put in the reps.

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Grinding gears

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Sometimes you just can’t seem to find the gear and get it into reverse instead of first.

No matter how hard you try and wiggle it in there, the clutch pushed right to the floor it just isn’t working.

I’ve really been mixing up the game lately.

Tried the 300 chip super knockout tournament. You want to work on you final table skills and what it takes to push a hand? Well this is the place to do it. You start with just 300 chips and blinds are already at 15/30. It’s almost guaranteed that there is going to be someone going all in pretty much the first 20 hands or so. Anyways I get knocked out early in a couple of these, AA vs 77, KK vs AK, QQ vs 88 but I can’t really blame people in this one because you are so short to start you really have to just close your eyes and hit the all in button. There is very little time to ever see a flop and just picking your spot is very important.

Playing in a couple different shootouts tournaments, both the 36 and 81 person version. These tournaments start with a 6 tables of 6 players or 9 tables of nine and play down to one winner on each table, last man standing so to speak. The tables then reload and play down again to a final winner. My first shot at one of these I came in second on the first table not quite understanding the format and that it was going to restart after. The second time I got to 2nd on the final table. I played a couple of these today and got knocked out very early in all of them with a continuation of bad beats AA vs 77, KK vs AT, AA vs 55, KK vs JJ and KK vs AA vs QQ, okay that one wasn’t bad beat so much as a cooler.

I finally manged to work my way through the first table with some patient play and good hands holding up, playing much of a trapping style than going out and getting the chips. It seems to work well and once we get to heads up I have a slight chip advantage and then really run over my opponent. He didn’t seem to play very well heads up and I took pot after pot from him with a button raise and a c-bet on almost any flop. I guess my tight image worked for me. Finally got him to bluff off all his chips into me when I flopped trips and he was on a pair draw.

The final table was crazy aggressive right off the hop and I tried to just stay out of the way for the most part. I had to make a pretty big lay down which was about half of my stack on a hand I was 90% was a bluff, but as long as you are alive you can win so I made it and went to work getting them back. Wasn’t too long when 77 goes all in ahead of me and I smooth call with AA, get a big stack to  go over the top and re raise me with 78 and I take down a big pot, knock one guy out and get chipped up. I let the other guys fight it out as they seem have a pretty aggressive strategy and get heads up with a 2-1 chip disadvantage. It isn’t too long though before I work that back to even when he bluffs into me all in with Q8 and I call him with KK andget a slight chip advantage. He had a habit of using the all in button a lot which worked when he had the big stack, but I was hoping he would continue the trend with the smaller stack and sure enough he did. Very often he would go all in whenever I limped on the button so when I got AQ I decided to try to work some magic. I limped in and sure enough he shipped it in the middle and I snapped called. He turns over A3 and can’t hit his three and I take it down. FINALLY! Now A3 is a pretty good hand heads up but his all bet represented about 40 times the big blind. A bit overkill in a limped pot. I think it is Doyle that said “don’t go broke in an unraised pot.”

Very big win for me and between the two of them the bankroll zips back up. I’m only a couple more victories from being able to take shots at the next level and now have 3 extra tournaments I have won entries into with my satellite victories. Tomorrow will be a rest day though as I have a huge day with work so I will have to get back on the horse on Wednesday.

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Bad Beats and new territory

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Not the musical kind, the AA losing to AT, AK, 55, etc kind.

Played in a few different events the other day.

A knock out tournament where you start with just 300 chips and blinds at 15/30. This is a push fest and you really have to catch some hands and win some races. Did quite well in this then started getting chipped down late and was close to getting bubbled. I wake up with AA late in the tourney with an M of just about 3 and ship it, no callers and I get the blinds and antes. A couple hands later I get AA in the BB and it’s folded around to me and I pick up just the SB and antes so weird and just bad luck that I don’t get any action at all. Almost every hand someone is going all in and I’ve seen almost every pair possible and hands like Q8 being thrown in.

It goes around twice more and I’m super short with the blinds coming up, I see QQ and ship it, called by a bigger stack who goes all in over the top and everyone else folds. He flips K2s and of course hits the K to bubble me.

Bubbled in 4 tourneys and no tickets, 180 man FTP tourney came in second. I really need a variance vacation, so many times I’m in good, so few times I hold up.

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FTOPS second step

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Really starting to examine my game.

Boosted the bankroll by 10% in one day alone winning 3 tournaments, lost some of that back today though playing bad later.

Bubble in 4 more, a couple I played bad in and a couple I had some bad beats. Am really working on my strategy in terms of stealing and maintaining or growing the stack but  am still making about one mistake a tournament and some of them are really costly.

Played much better in a lot of the tournaments and came into the final tables in much better chip position in a lot of them. Coasted to a ticket in an Omaha game on a final table and only had to play one hand I was so chipped up. I’m finding you have to play a lot less hands in Omaha than in Hold’em because the pots are so big, something to really think about going forward.

 Didn’t do nearly as well as I wanted to in the daily dollar, too impatient early and got chipped down too much chasing draws, needed to consult notes and remember that I don’t need to have a big stack going till after the first break, let the chips come to you.

If you don’t already do it, take notes when you are playing on a piece of paper for things like:

-Chip position relative to the field.

-Key hands, both good and bad.*

-Your M through the tournament.

Review these after the tournament and see if you made any mistakes, or places where you could have made more chips. I’ve learned that bluffing off a lot of chips is a big mistake, semi bluffs yes, pure bluffs will cost you once you get short handed as you are going to get called down more.

I was one of the top chip leader, #3 with 64 people left and I bluffed off my stack with 88 against the chip leader holding AQ on a AAQ flop, very big mistake. I had enough chips at that time to take 10 bad beats from any of the other players and made a huge mental error there. I could have almost cruised to a ticket from that chip stack alone.

Started playing some shootouts too. 36 players 6 tables. Lost the chip lead early when I was heads up by moving in AJs against 55 and losing the race. Mistake on my part as the blinds were still very low and I should have seen a flop and then gone from there, trapping game with a big stack would seem to make more sense and then pick up orphan pots. Second try I came in 2nd overall and I loook back at one bluff when we were almost even in chips as being the problem. It is helping my final table play though so I will work on them more in the future.

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FTOPS Update

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Well I have been running worse than a blind man through a mine field lately, both in life and in poker.

I wake up today with my tenant telling me that there is no hot water and sure enough the hot tank has burst. Great way to kick off the day.

For some reason though that doesn’t dampen my spirits as much as I thought it would. Get it? Dampen my spirits? Hot water tank bursting? You know? The water…damp? Oh forget it.

Anyway what’s done is done and I try and be happy that it didn’t happen in the middle of winter or something and make a call to my friend Duane who has someone to come over and replace it by noon.

In the mean time I finally feel like eating something, the ache in my stomach is down to just a burning pain and I manage to have a sandwich and a bowl of soup, later on in the day I’m actually hungry again, very rare but it seems to give me the energy I needed.

I wait a bit for the water to heat up and make it into work. I get some stuff done and head back home to work on the home computer as it has all the files I need.

Long story short I throw up a game on the laptop in the time being, most of the tournaments don’t require you to watch them the whole time and I try and satellite into the daily dollar. Usually I manage to do this in one or two tries and cash on the one that I miss.

Just to set the stage, the odds of winning when you have a dominating hand like AK vs. A8 or the likes are about 3.5:1 just about the same as the 4:1 favourite you are when you have AA vs 66 for instance.

It should therefore be almost impossibleto lose, on the bubble mind you 10 matches where you get in with either of the  dominating hands like above. But I somehow manage to and finally just quit till the daily dollar starts up and just pay to enter, whoa I know, check out the big spender!

I do some work on files while the daily dollar runs in the background but I end up getting into a set vs. set hand which worsens into a boat vs. boat hand and I get crippled. Never really recover after that to anywhere close to competing seriously, I do manage to work back my chips back somewhat but eventually get knocked out when my AQ gets beat by A9.

Oh and then this happens later in the night. Again on the satellite to the daily dollar, I have a small chip lead, I have AQ on the button and make it 3x the blinds, get a call from the other large stack, and the short stack goes all in and I call and the other player calls. Perfect for sure one of us will knock him out.

Flop comes 4J8 and I check it and the other player goes all in. I fold of course thinking he has hit this hard, sure enough he turns over KT and the turn Q and river 2 gives him absolutely nothing which is not good enough to beat the A3 the short stack was holding. The Short stack is now chipped up and I end up getting bubbled again when I flop top pair and get called all in by and unsuited A5 which of course comes on the river. What an idiot, his excuse? “I just started playing cards.” I put the moron note beside his name, I’m not done berating this guy yet. Man that chaps my ass.

Okay, happy thoughts…serenity now…serenity now.

I end up winning two tickets in the FTOPS events and could have won two more if I can just manage to have 80% hands hold up for me, I’m really focusing my energy on these now instead of cash games as the ROI is much better for me since I’m playing so bad in the cash games.

Both were in decent fields of about 200 and wouldn’t be that noteworthy if it wasn’t for the second one, there was one I got bubble out pretty gross on a $55 ticket which was a real shame, thought I had that one.

I started strong in this one top 10 in chips early as was really making a strong showing due to some good hands and loose calls, gotta love rebuy tournaments for that.

I slow down from there mainly because I’m working on the computer and am not stealing like I should be but I’m about ready to start bullying the table as I have about 10,000 in chips and everyone else has about 2,000 or less save one other with 9,675 and the blinds are getting up there. I’m about 28th out of 57 left with the top 21 getting paid, not enough to cruise in, but I should be able to parlay this stack to a ticket as long as I don’t screw up. See that’s the thing with a tournament, you can’t make mistakes.

I raise a limped pot in middle position with KJs and get one caller the big stack who was UTG and had limped. Pot is about 2,300. My intention was to play position and steal the blinds from the SB and BB who were at that precarious all in or fold M.

Flop comes J63 and it’s checked to me and I pot it and get check raised all in, in a fit of stupidity I hit the call button just as I realize she has a set.

Yep sure enough 66 and I don’t hit the miracle to catch up and am crippled, down to 325 chips and I get moved to another table.

I’m now dead last with just a chip and a chair.

I fold the first hand J2 i think it was.

I get KJ next with 225 left in my stack and push, which isn’t that scary because it isn’t even a whole blind.

I do manage to win the pot however and am up to 1,085

Next hand I get JJ and push again. Blam J on the flop and I’m up to 5,000 which puts me 37th out of 45 left.

I’m 39 of 42 then my KQ doubles up on 99 and I’m 26th

I steal a couple pots with all in moves to keep alive as the blinds are getting huge and my M is barely 4

I’m 20 of 35 when my KK doubles up on 66. BOOM! 7th of 35

AK vs. AK vs. a short stack with A4 gets me to 9 with 31 left.

I’m 13 of 22 left when I get QQ in the cut off and raise 2x. I get one caller from the Big Blind and the UTG limper pushes which isn’t even a call.

Flop is AJTKJ and my straight knocks out UTG to break the bubble. At least this time buddy is smart enough to check it down, which you notice I did on the turn with the nuts. In a tournament where you need to win first place I wouldn’t have done that, but in this type of format with such a wide all or nothing bubble it is the right thing to do.

A miracle comeback and I manage to seal the deal to boot. A rare occurrence but hopefully a sign of things to come.

In other poker news I watch the Mouth as he manages his first tournament cash in Omaha-Hi no less, a game he has only played when taking over my HORSE tournament for me in the past. He made a mistake entering the game and since it was seating already he couldn’t unregister and had to play it out, I couldn’t play it for him as I was already in a tournament. I railed him for most of it and he played pretty good, making only one mistake that I could see drawing to the nut flush with trips backup, but forgot the paired board rule of Omaha. He just missed the ticket by one place but was too card dead at the end to manage to limp across. Still a good finish for him and hope that he can start making a more serious run at the Hold’em games too. We had a good sit down the other day and I went over a couple strategy moves that took me a while to pick up, those should help him jump into the tickets faster I hope.

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