Thursday, February 25, 2010
Gearing up for the weekend/end of the month
So I haven't played nearly as much poker this month as I had planned to for a variety of reasons; laziness, a ton of work stress, and a trip to New Orleans to try and drown my liver. Yes I know excuses are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink, but I figure as long as I am making a steady living with my job poker can sort of be pushed by the wayside every now and then. That being said, I plan to hit the virtual felt hard this weekend. I'm on a mini downswing lately which can be blamed on variance, and probably a lack of focus from my trip to the big sleazy. I have however won a ticket to the sunday quarter million again (those satellites are jokes!) and plan to gain some more experience sunday along with mixing in as many SNG's and MTT's as I can handle. Before my downswing I had pretty closely made my monetary goal for the month so hopefully I can make that a reality this weekend. I will update after it all goes down on my monthly stats! Vegas in t-minus 2 weeks so I will also have to kick March off on a high note before that. Good luck out there and thanks for reading!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Pro's to the left of me, pro's to the right of me...
And I was stuck in the middle. After taking it easy saturday and only playing 4 tournaments with no success I wasn't sure I'd use my satellite ticket on Sunday as I was just too involved with the Olympics and the Daytona 500. Well, the race was postponed for quite awhile so about 45 minutes into late registration I decided I would give it a go.
Sat down at a table that didn't have any really large stacks and proceeded to grind my way up to average chips and held pretty constant toward the average for an hour. There were 31,000+ that decided to battle it out in the tournament, so obviously the field would have a big mix of donkeys and some pro's out there. As we got closer to the 10k left mark (5400 got paid) one short stack donkey on my table kept crying about people raising him and finally he busted out. Well then I got moved to another table and huh looked to my right only to see a huge name in the online poker world, Boozeorlose. My only thought was thank God I'm to his left and not right so I at least get to see what he does before I get to act. By far the biggest name player I've ever played with on a table, but luckily he was also about average chip stack. Well on goes the grind when another player busts and who get's moved to the table but a pokerstars sponsored pro, Leo Fernandez! Man, my poor micro grinder heart just about couldn't take it! And of course we were approaching the bubble so I knew those guys would be upping the aggression trying to steal chips.
Well my stack was dwindling when boozeorlose shoved all in and I looked at Ace jack. Not premium cards, but in the situation I was in made the call to gamble and try to stay alive. He turns over pocket Kings after everyone folds and I just think I'm out, but hit a miracle ace on the turn to stay alive! Turns out I only had two aces in the deck to hit as another player folded one. Well shortly after that hand our table was thankfully broken up so I didn't have to worry about those pro's anymore!
I managed to make some moves towards the bubble and chipped up nice, but lost a few pots to put me short stacked again and hit a bad spot going all in and 3 people called. Pocket tens held up and hit trips for a huge pot that would have vaulted me even higher, but I placed 2607 out of the 31,000 plus field for my largest cash of $26 on stars. Not huge, but some good learning experiences and I think I'll try to satellite into this tournament more often now. Other than that grinded a few SNG's and had a few cashes to put me up a decent chunk for the weekend. I'm looking forward to another week of putting in some time on the felt and coming away with new skills and knowledge!
Sat down at a table that didn't have any really large stacks and proceeded to grind my way up to average chips and held pretty constant toward the average for an hour. There were 31,000+ that decided to battle it out in the tournament, so obviously the field would have a big mix of donkeys and some pro's out there. As we got closer to the 10k left mark (5400 got paid) one short stack donkey on my table kept crying about people raising him and finally he busted out. Well then I got moved to another table and huh looked to my right only to see a huge name in the online poker world, Boozeorlose. My only thought was thank God I'm to his left and not right so I at least get to see what he does before I get to act. By far the biggest name player I've ever played with on a table, but luckily he was also about average chip stack. Well on goes the grind when another player busts and who get's moved to the table but a pokerstars sponsored pro, Leo Fernandez! Man, my poor micro grinder heart just about couldn't take it! And of course we were approaching the bubble so I knew those guys would be upping the aggression trying to steal chips.
Well my stack was dwindling when boozeorlose shoved all in and I looked at Ace jack. Not premium cards, but in the situation I was in made the call to gamble and try to stay alive. He turns over pocket Kings after everyone folds and I just think I'm out, but hit a miracle ace on the turn to stay alive! Turns out I only had two aces in the deck to hit as another player folded one. Well shortly after that hand our table was thankfully broken up so I didn't have to worry about those pro's anymore!
I managed to make some moves towards the bubble and chipped up nice, but lost a few pots to put me short stacked again and hit a bad spot going all in and 3 people called. Pocket tens held up and hit trips for a huge pot that would have vaulted me even higher, but I placed 2607 out of the 31,000 plus field for my largest cash of $26 on stars. Not huge, but some good learning experiences and I think I'll try to satellite into this tournament more often now. Other than that grinded a few SNG's and had a few cashes to put me up a decent chunk for the weekend. I'm looking forward to another week of putting in some time on the felt and coming away with new skills and knowledge!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Satellites, laziness, and adjusting goals
Just a quick update on February so far. I haven't put in nearly the volume I had been wanting to so far this month. However, the results I do have are pretty good. I'm over half way to my monetary goal for the month, but with only about a third of the amount of games I had intended on playing. I'm hoping to ramp it up the second half of the month as I'm going to Vegas for a week in early March and that will probably be pretty counter productive to online poker results. So a few adjustments I'm going to make on goals are to not focus on a set $ amount to win, but rather a $/game and maintaining that average or improving it in successive months. As soon as February is over I will have that statistic as I have been keeping track thus far. My average ROI is pretty high (much higher than is sustainable over a long period of time), so I expect that to sort of trail off as I attempt to move up in stakes. That however shouldn't translate into losing money, so long as my $/game increases and steadies.
I've continued to adjust my game daily and really feel I'm playing my best poker yet. This week I found a satellite to the weekly $11 buy-in $250K prize pool tournament on pokerstars that is well within my bankroll and is similar to the structure of games I've been playing so I played a couple and won a seat for the tournament on Sunday. I may or may not play in it this weekend as I am a big NASCAR dork and want to watch the Daytona 500. There are also a ton of other promotions going on right now for Pokerstars celebrating their 40 billionth, yes billionth, hand dealt on the site so I may try to take advantage of some of those too. Otherwise it will just be motivating my lazy self to increase my volume of play! I haven't decreased from January thus far so that is good, just need to realize the room for growth and move forward.
Hopefully that was more short and sweet! Thanks for reading!
I've continued to adjust my game daily and really feel I'm playing my best poker yet. This week I found a satellite to the weekly $11 buy-in $250K prize pool tournament on pokerstars that is well within my bankroll and is similar to the structure of games I've been playing so I played a couple and won a seat for the tournament on Sunday. I may or may not play in it this weekend as I am a big NASCAR dork and want to watch the Daytona 500. There are also a ton of other promotions going on right now for Pokerstars celebrating their 40 billionth, yes billionth, hand dealt on the site so I may try to take advantage of some of those too. Otherwise it will just be motivating my lazy self to increase my volume of play! I haven't decreased from January thus far so that is good, just need to realize the room for growth and move forward.
Hopefully that was more short and sweet! Thanks for reading!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Poker sites and blogs
Throughout my time as a poker player I have found numerous sites that are helpful in maximizing my game. Here are a few:
www.pocketfives.com -- a great online forum that also has a good rankings system.
www.sharkscope.com -- result tracker that can be a powerful tool on getting insight into your opponents skill level. Requires monetary value to get full access, but I use it for my 5 free searches every day and once my bankroll allows plan on purchasing it.
www.pokerwit.com -- this site has done tremendous things for me. It is a site started by a very successful online player, Amirsf, that provides a very unique tool of uploading hands and allowing people to play back the hands in various ways. This can help you think of different situations and ways to play particular hands. Amir has also put a lot of input into everyone's game and I'd like to personally thank him (if he ever reads this) again for helping me so much. He was actually the day three chip leader of the 2009 world series main event and can be seen briefly on ESPN a couple episodes.
There are other sites out there such as online poker rankings and 2+2 forums that I occasionally visit, but not often.
A few blogs I enjoy reading:
www.bfizz11.com -- this guy is unreal sick in today's MTT's and SNG's and has the confidence level to show it. Just from the time I started reading this blog in late December I can tell he has had 2 months of almost $50k profit in each month and has dominated online poker. Keep an eye out if you ever see him at your table as he will probably end up with your chips. He has recently started dabbling on Full Tilt after playing primarily Stars.
www.rainmanpoker.net -- MI_turtle on Stars, this guy is also a sicko. Huge amounts of volume and has a good coaching program from all the buzz on the internet. Again, beware if he is at your table.
www.brad2002tjpoker.com -- A grinder with a similar background as me. Worked a full time day job and played poker as a hobby on nights and weekends. Has made a good profit, and seems like a pretty insightful guy.
Those are just a few of the sites I regularly visit, and there are also a ton of links on each one. I find it particularly insightful to look at a lot of points of view on poker and to arm my arsenal with as many weapons as possible at the tables. Also if one can afford it coaching from these players would be significantly +EV.
www.pocketfives.com -- a great online forum that also has a good rankings system.
www.sharkscope.com -- result tracker that can be a powerful tool on getting insight into your opponents skill level. Requires monetary value to get full access, but I use it for my 5 free searches every day and once my bankroll allows plan on purchasing it.
www.pokerwit.com -- this site has done tremendous things for me. It is a site started by a very successful online player, Amirsf, that provides a very unique tool of uploading hands and allowing people to play back the hands in various ways. This can help you think of different situations and ways to play particular hands. Amir has also put a lot of input into everyone's game and I'd like to personally thank him (if he ever reads this) again for helping me so much. He was actually the day three chip leader of the 2009 world series main event and can be seen briefly on ESPN a couple episodes.
There are other sites out there such as online poker rankings and 2+2 forums that I occasionally visit, but not often.
A few blogs I enjoy reading:
www.bfizz11.com -- this guy is unreal sick in today's MTT's and SNG's and has the confidence level to show it. Just from the time I started reading this blog in late December I can tell he has had 2 months of almost $50k profit in each month and has dominated online poker. Keep an eye out if you ever see him at your table as he will probably end up with your chips. He has recently started dabbling on Full Tilt after playing primarily Stars.
www.rainmanpoker.net -- MI_turtle on Stars, this guy is also a sicko. Huge amounts of volume and has a good coaching program from all the buzz on the internet. Again, beware if he is at your table.
www.brad2002tjpoker.com -- A grinder with a similar background as me. Worked a full time day job and played poker as a hobby on nights and weekends. Has made a good profit, and seems like a pretty insightful guy.
Those are just a few of the sites I regularly visit, and there are also a ton of links on each one. I find it particularly insightful to look at a lot of points of view on poker and to arm my arsenal with as many weapons as possible at the tables. Also if one can afford it coaching from these players would be significantly +EV.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Collusion and donkeys
I received an interesting e-mail today from Pokerstars. Apparently a couple of players found it necessary to collude, or share information, while in some of the games I was playing in. They didn't go into specifics, but apparently these players (two or more?) found it necessary to share information in order to try to get and edge up on the competition. Well thankfully Pokerstars found this out and they immediately closed their accounts and redistributed whatever funds they had between them to people that were in games with them. So I received a nice little bump to the tune of $3.60, or 2 of my 18 man games.
After I overcame my initial shock and fell out of my chair laughing, I was happy to find that they had caught these cheaters. To even think that people would resort to cheating at the level of games I'm playing in is just asinine! I mean it doesn't even take but minimal skills in these games to break even or maybe make a small profit. All these guys had to do is play what I call abc poker, or poker by the book. Essentially bet when you have it and fold when you don't. Now I have implemented a lot more thought into my game analyzing certain situations using a great tool called Pokerstove to know when to exploit small edges and thus make my play more profitable, but the foundation of winning these micro games lies in that abc principle.
That brings me onto the donkeys that play these games. As I said before, these games are almost laughably easy. Sure you are gonna take some terrible beats by some calling station morons who wouldn't know how to fold if their life depended on it, but those players are also the ones that allow you to run deep and win games. Yes even the donkeys will get lucky every once in awhile, but in the long run those players that live by the "it was suited" mantra and call k 2 in early position are the ones I'm busting up with A K in late position.
One of the things I don't understand in micro stakes games is most players unwillingness to learn, or play better. Numerous times I have seen these people chat when they get berated "Oh it's only a dollar" or "It's only a quarter". Well donkey's, I've built my bankroll from nothing on the only a quarter and only a dollar games. These can also be the players that claim every game is set up or rigged. Well if you hadn't defended your big blind and called that raise with q 3 suited then maybe you wouldn't have lost to aces!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not meaning to complain here. These are the types of players I thrive off of at these stakes, and even according to high stakes players these people show up in droves in higher buy-in's too. All I can say is thank you ESPN for turning everyone into instant gratification action junkie donkey's instead of what a good player is, patient and picks good spots.
After I overcame my initial shock and fell out of my chair laughing, I was happy to find that they had caught these cheaters. To even think that people would resort to cheating at the level of games I'm playing in is just asinine! I mean it doesn't even take but minimal skills in these games to break even or maybe make a small profit. All these guys had to do is play what I call abc poker, or poker by the book. Essentially bet when you have it and fold when you don't. Now I have implemented a lot more thought into my game analyzing certain situations using a great tool called Pokerstove to know when to exploit small edges and thus make my play more profitable, but the foundation of winning these micro games lies in that abc principle.
That brings me onto the donkeys that play these games. As I said before, these games are almost laughably easy. Sure you are gonna take some terrible beats by some calling station morons who wouldn't know how to fold if their life depended on it, but those players are also the ones that allow you to run deep and win games. Yes even the donkeys will get lucky every once in awhile, but in the long run those players that live by the "it was suited" mantra and call k 2 in early position are the ones I'm busting up with A K in late position.
One of the things I don't understand in micro stakes games is most players unwillingness to learn, or play better. Numerous times I have seen these people chat when they get berated "Oh it's only a dollar" or "It's only a quarter". Well donkey's, I've built my bankroll from nothing on the only a quarter and only a dollar games. These can also be the players that claim every game is set up or rigged. Well if you hadn't defended your big blind and called that raise with q 3 suited then maybe you wouldn't have lost to aces!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not meaning to complain here. These are the types of players I thrive off of at these stakes, and even according to high stakes players these people show up in droves in higher buy-in's too. All I can say is thank you ESPN for turning everyone into instant gratification action junkie donkey's instead of what a good player is, patient and picks good spots.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Weekend and January Recap
I didn't play as much as I would have liked this weekend due to a lack of motivation and mental commitment. Saturday I had a good session and finished up a bit. Had no wins, but three seconds. That gave me a boost for the weekly SNG leaderboard and I actually finished 208th in the $1-$4 Low Orbit (20 game block). A huge improvement from my 2108th place the week before. I would like to make the top ten one of these weeks to be able to play in the monthly $50k shootout, so that's something to strive for. Sunday my head just wasn't in the game so I quit playing with no cashes and down a bit. Still up for the weekend though so that's nice.
January was probably the best month to date that I have had playing on Pokerstars. I played more games than ever and that translated into more than doubling my bankroll. I'm now closing in on the $150 mark and hope to hit at least $250 by the end of February. With my turbo only SNG schedule I think that is easily achievable. I noticed that since I went to turbos my volume has increased tremendously so I think that will help me reach the 400 game a month mark as well.
I also scored more tlb points this month than any month prior to this. Ended the month with 847.22 tlb points in my top 20 cashes which beats my best monthly total by close to 200 points. I had 28 cashes towards the tlb (that doesn't count SNG cashes) and my yearly stands at 1005.31 points. So far a great start to the new year, and lots of room to build on as well!
Although February is the shortest month of the year, I think now that I have moved onto turbo only format my volume will also increase this month. Hopefully with that so will my $/game and points. I have still yet to run really deep in a large MTT field, but I'll keep trying to make that breakthrough cash that will propel me onto bigger and better buy-ins.
In some future posts I am going to move away from all the time results talk to some topics I find interesting in poker games and observations I have that can give anyone an edge over the micro limit games that are almost laughably easy. So stay tuned for that!
January was probably the best month to date that I have had playing on Pokerstars. I played more games than ever and that translated into more than doubling my bankroll. I'm now closing in on the $150 mark and hope to hit at least $250 by the end of February. With my turbo only SNG schedule I think that is easily achievable. I noticed that since I went to turbos my volume has increased tremendously so I think that will help me reach the 400 game a month mark as well.
I also scored more tlb points this month than any month prior to this. Ended the month with 847.22 tlb points in my top 20 cashes which beats my best monthly total by close to 200 points. I had 28 cashes towards the tlb (that doesn't count SNG cashes) and my yearly stands at 1005.31 points. So far a great start to the new year, and lots of room to build on as well!
Although February is the shortest month of the year, I think now that I have moved onto turbo only format my volume will also increase this month. Hopefully with that so will my $/game and points. I have still yet to run really deep in a large MTT field, but I'll keep trying to make that breakthrough cash that will propel me onto bigger and better buy-ins.
In some future posts I am going to move away from all the time results talk to some topics I find interesting in poker games and observations I have that can give anyone an edge over the micro limit games that are almost laughably easy. So stay tuned for that!
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