Last night was kind of frustrating. I started by playing 8 of the $16 turbos, and I did really well. I won 3 of them and got 2nd in the other. Then the next set of 8 was a train wreck. I busted out of 7 of them, and then completely donk lucksacked my way in to winning the last one. I really didn't feel like I was playing well. I was sucking out all over the place. Every shove felt wrong somehow. I'm feeling really lost playing these as of late and I don't know what to do about it. I'm questioning every move that I'm making.
I think I just need to watch more videos and study more. Take some time off from actually playing. Get my bearings and balls back. I've probably only played 600 sit n gos so far in this challenge, so I know I don't have a good enough to sample to prove that I know what I'm doing yet. It just felt like I knew what the right move was 95% of the time at the $6.50 level, and I haven't got a clue at the $16 level. Realistically, I should just keep playing the way I was playing. I had a bad streak to start the $16s with, and it made me question my style. Wrong move in my opinion. It was more subconscious than anything I think.
I'll stop complaining, I'm really not down too much from my high point.
Bankroll: ~$917
Friday, April 25, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Downswing
As noted by the title, I've been on a downswing as of late. I've been primarily playing the $16 turbos and some multis thrown in the mix. I got my roll up to about $1070 and then proceeded to run it down to the $860 it's sitting at now. That's after bringing it back up too. The $16s have been punching me in the face. I'm hoping this is just variance and not some serious flaw in my game that is being exploited at this level. The play seems pretty terrible like the $6.50s, I'm just losing. I think I have found a leak though. I wait way too long to put my chips in the middle.
A typical scenario will go something like this. There will be 6 people left at the 100/200 with a 25 ante level. I'll have 900ish in chips. I'll be on the button with KQ, KJ, A9, etc. Someone will limp from UTG with a big stack, and I fold. I know these people are limping junk most of the time, but since I figure I don't have fold equity, I fold instead of shove. Another scenario. Same blinds and same stack for me, but a late position player will raise when I have the same types of holdings, and I still fold because I don't have fold equity. Granted, I've only played 150 or so of these, but my 3rd place rate is way too high compared to my 1st place rate. I'm not picking enough spots to get my chips in. Patience is good, but too patient is just a waste of time. I squeak in to the money with 4 BBs, and get called pretty light to bust out 3rd too often. Yesterday I tried to only play 4 at a time and just concentrate on picking good spots.
When I have chips and we're 4 or 5 handed, I am extremely good. By extremely good I mean I shove a ton of hands.
Anyways, I know I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and get back to crushing these things very soon. Like stated before:
Bankroll: ~$860
A typical scenario will go something like this. There will be 6 people left at the 100/200 with a 25 ante level. I'll have 900ish in chips. I'll be on the button with KQ, KJ, A9, etc. Someone will limp from UTG with a big stack, and I fold. I know these people are limping junk most of the time, but since I figure I don't have fold equity, I fold instead of shove. Another scenario. Same blinds and same stack for me, but a late position player will raise when I have the same types of holdings, and I still fold because I don't have fold equity. Granted, I've only played 150 or so of these, but my 3rd place rate is way too high compared to my 1st place rate. I'm not picking enough spots to get my chips in. Patience is good, but too patient is just a waste of time. I squeak in to the money with 4 BBs, and get called pretty light to bust out 3rd too often. Yesterday I tried to only play 4 at a time and just concentrate on picking good spots.
When I have chips and we're 4 or 5 handed, I am extremely good. By extremely good I mean I shove a ton of hands.
Anyways, I know I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and get back to crushing these things very soon. Like stated before:
Bankroll: ~$860
Monday, April 14, 2008
Big Milestone
It's been a while once again. I've been posting my results on pokerxfactor.com mostly, and then kind of ignoring my blog. Forgive me all you millions of readers out there (That's sarcasm for the zero of you that actually read this). I guess I haven't reported several good things.
Last week:
I took down a 180 man $4.40 sit n go. That was good for $216. I was quite happy since the last time I got heads up in one of these things, it didn't go so well. I absolutely ran over the last 2 tables. It was a complete donkfest until we got in the money. Then everyone tightened up waiting to get to the final table. That got my bankroll up over $800. I played a few MTTs through the rest of the week and on Sunday as well. Sunday was pretty uneventful until I decided to register in a Fixed Limit 5 card draw tournament. I had never played a single hand of that game except when I was a kid. It was only a $1.10 buy in, but there were 456 people. I ended up final tabling it and taking 3rd for $43. That was pretty exciting considering I didn't even know how many draws there were until the first hand. That brought my bankroll up around $930.
Sometime last week I started playing the 9 man $16 turbos with some moderate success. Sunday night right before bed I tried to play 8 of them because I didn't feel tired and I was pretty excited about my 5 card draw score. That sucked. I finished 3rd in one of them. That's it. Dropped a hundred pretty quick. Oh well. I finished Sunday night at $830. Still not too bad.
Fast forward to tonight:
I started off 4 tabling the 9 man $16 turbos. In my first set, I won $30. Then I had to go play in my flag football tournament. We were the #1 seed going in to the tournament with a 9-1 record. We got a bye and proceeded to lose in the second round. We do that every season.
Anyways, after I got back, I played 4 more, and dropped the $30 I had won (I originally spelled this 'one', donk speller). I decided I was going to play one more set, and call it a night. I played 4 of the $16 turbos and 4 of the $6.50 turbos to mix it up a little. I crushed them all. I went on such a hot streak it was ridiculous.
I won 3 of the $6.50s and got 2nd in the other. As for the $16s, I won 2 and got 2nd in another. The point here being this big ol' number:
BANKROLL: $1013.99!!!!
Over the $1000 mark baby. I figured that was going to be my hardest number to reach, but it barely took me 2 months. Granted now, this is without any major downswings so far. Yesterday dropping $60 after my $16 turbo $100 fiasco, was my worst day. I think I've been pretty good about only playing when I feel good and wanting to play. I don't think I've tried to force anything yet.
I really finally feel like I can actually do this. I've still got a ton of work ahead of me, but this is definitely an awesome start!
Last week:
I took down a 180 man $4.40 sit n go. That was good for $216. I was quite happy since the last time I got heads up in one of these things, it didn't go so well. I absolutely ran over the last 2 tables. It was a complete donkfest until we got in the money. Then everyone tightened up waiting to get to the final table. That got my bankroll up over $800. I played a few MTTs through the rest of the week and on Sunday as well. Sunday was pretty uneventful until I decided to register in a Fixed Limit 5 card draw tournament. I had never played a single hand of that game except when I was a kid. It was only a $1.10 buy in, but there were 456 people. I ended up final tabling it and taking 3rd for $43. That was pretty exciting considering I didn't even know how many draws there were until the first hand. That brought my bankroll up around $930.
Sometime last week I started playing the 9 man $16 turbos with some moderate success. Sunday night right before bed I tried to play 8 of them because I didn't feel tired and I was pretty excited about my 5 card draw score. That sucked. I finished 3rd in one of them. That's it. Dropped a hundred pretty quick. Oh well. I finished Sunday night at $830. Still not too bad.
Fast forward to tonight:
I started off 4 tabling the 9 man $16 turbos. In my first set, I won $30. Then I had to go play in my flag football tournament. We were the #1 seed going in to the tournament with a 9-1 record. We got a bye and proceeded to lose in the second round. We do that every season.
Anyways, after I got back, I played 4 more, and dropped the $30 I had won (I originally spelled this 'one', donk speller). I decided I was going to play one more set, and call it a night. I played 4 of the $16 turbos and 4 of the $6.50 turbos to mix it up a little. I crushed them all. I went on such a hot streak it was ridiculous.
I won 3 of the $6.50s and got 2nd in the other. As for the $16s, I won 2 and got 2nd in another. The point here being this big ol' number:
BANKROLL: $1013.99!!!!
Over the $1000 mark baby. I figured that was going to be my hardest number to reach, but it barely took me 2 months. Granted now, this is without any major downswings so far. Yesterday dropping $60 after my $16 turbo $100 fiasco, was my worst day. I think I've been pretty good about only playing when I feel good and wanting to play. I don't think I've tried to force anything yet.
I really finally feel like I can actually do this. I've still got a ton of work ahead of me, but this is definitely an awesome start!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Good Sunday
Since my last entry, I've done pretty good. I'm well on my way for meeting my goals this month. I've played 103 of the 9 man $6.50 turbos, so I'm over half way already on the volume goal. My ROI on those is 30.66%, so I'm beating that goal too. If I just keep putting in the volume and don't hit any kind of major downswing, I should be well on my way to playing the $16 9 man turbos.
Bankroll: $681.51
This is a pretty lame entry, but I like reporting on good news, and I don't have a whole lot else to say. Lost Odyssey continues to be an awesome game. I traded in a bunch of games to Gamestop on Friday last week, and they convinced me to pre-order Grand Theft Auto IV. They gave me an extra 20% on my trade ins if I did. I know they rip you off on trade ins, but it's easy to just take them in there instead of selling them on eBay. Plus, I was going to buy GTA4 anyways, so I guess it made it a little bit less of a rip off. I still felt like a sucker walking out of there, but oh well.
Bankroll: $681.51
This is a pretty lame entry, but I like reporting on good news, and I don't have a whole lot else to say. Lost Odyssey continues to be an awesome game. I traded in a bunch of games to Gamestop on Friday last week, and they convinced me to pre-order Grand Theft Auto IV. They gave me an extra 20% on my trade ins if I did. I know they rip you off on trade ins, but it's easy to just take them in there instead of selling them on eBay. Plus, I was going to buy GTA4 anyways, so I guess it made it a little bit less of a rip off. I still felt like a sucker walking out of there, but oh well.
Friday, April 4, 2008
April Goals a Little Late
It's been a while since I've posted here. I didn't play as much as I wanted to in March. The Ireland trip and work stuff got in the way. Even so, I managed to double my bankroll only playing 60 or sit n gos and a few MTTs thrown in for fun. Without really realizing it, I won PokerXFactor's under $20 buy in sit n go league for March. I don't really get anything other than PXF points and a chance to be crowned SNG king of the month if I win a SNG with their other category winners and runners up, but it still feels good. That was a long sentence.
I've started off in April playing a lot higher volume already. I think I've played as many SNGs in the first 3 days than I did all of March. Also, to be fair, I was playing some WSOP steps in March that I didn't really count in my volume. I count them in my bankroll challenge obviously, but I'm not really tracking them in PokerTracker, and Sharkscope doesn't seem to track them either. I made it to Step 4 once, and since I'm a fool, I didn't realize it was a normal SNG and not a turbo. I played AK a little too fast early and got short stacked. Then I proceeded to bust in 7th with AK when it was necessary to play it fast. Good for me. All I need to do is get 6th to at least get a Step 2 ticket, and I can't even do that because I'm an idiot and can't read. The funny thing was that I didn't figure out it wasn't a turbo until the end of the 2nd level. It was the only window I had open, and I kept saying that 5 minutes seems to take a long time when you only have one window open. Oh well.
Goals for April:
Bankroll: ~$570
Also, I've been playing Lost Odyssey for the XBOX 360. If you like Final Fantasy games, then you'll like this game a lot. It's a beautiful game and the story is quite good so far. That's a great review of the game, I know, but I've only played about 3 hours. Most reviews have been complaining that it doesn't break any new ground for an RPG and it's average at best for that reason. I don't really care; I like Final Fantasy type games, and this one appears to be an awesome next gen version of them.
I've started off in April playing a lot higher volume already. I think I've played as many SNGs in the first 3 days than I did all of March. Also, to be fair, I was playing some WSOP steps in March that I didn't really count in my volume. I count them in my bankroll challenge obviously, but I'm not really tracking them in PokerTracker, and Sharkscope doesn't seem to track them either. I made it to Step 4 once, and since I'm a fool, I didn't realize it was a normal SNG and not a turbo. I played AK a little too fast early and got short stacked. Then I proceeded to bust in 7th with AK when it was necessary to play it fast. Good for me. All I need to do is get 6th to at least get a Step 2 ticket, and I can't even do that because I'm an idiot and can't read. The funny thing was that I didn't figure out it wasn't a turbo until the end of the 2nd level. It was the only window I had open, and I kept saying that 5 minutes seems to take a long time when you only have one window open. Oh well.
Goals for April:
- Play over 200 SNGs at the $6.50 level
- Show a >15% ROI
- Move up to the $16 turbos ($800 is my target bankroll for this level)
Bankroll: ~$570
Also, I've been playing Lost Odyssey for the XBOX 360. If you like Final Fantasy games, then you'll like this game a lot. It's a beautiful game and the story is quite good so far. That's a great review of the game, I know, but I've only played about 3 hours. Most reviews have been complaining that it doesn't break any new ground for an RPG and it's average at best for that reason. I don't really care; I like Final Fantasy type games, and this one appears to be an awesome next gen version of them.
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