Quick Update

So it has been awhile since I have posted anything. Since my last post I went on vacation and upon returning immediately had to do a stretch in the field again for work. Needless to say that has left very little time for poker since I last wrote. I have however been playing a few 45 man sng's this week trying to get back into a groove. I finally eclipsed the 1000 game mark on Pokerstars too! Not a huge accomplishment for say a pro, but pretty big for a small time player like me. I managed to make $275 profit according to Sharkscope in this time and my avg buy in is $1. So essentially for every dollar I invest I am getting back 27.5 cents, or a ROI of 27.5% (If I'm doing the calc right, sharkscope shows my avg ROI at 56% so I may be wrong). Looking at my grapsh, which I still don't have to post sorry, there have been ups and downs and even seemingly long break even stretch. Overall though it shows an upward trend in profit and there seems to be a huge inflection point where my profit starts to rise dramatically. I attribute this to stepping up my game and really trying to fix my leaks, as well as stepping up the stakes. As of right now I am close to breaking the $300 mark for my bankroll on Stars so I plan to really move towards the $3 45 man games as well as mixing in a few $2 180's. Hopefully this will show an increase in my $/game amount, but I do expect a slight decrease in ROI since the players are bound to be at least a little more competent. It's funny playing the $1 45 man games that even when I feel I am running bad or even playing bad I seem to run deep in at least 1 out of every 4 games I play. I would like to try to keep that in 1 out of every 6 games if possible when I move up fully to the $3 games. I'm finding the $2 180's to be challenging, even though good players seem to go on and on about how they are so easy. I just don't think I have enough sample under my belt to make up my mind about them as well as needing to adjust my strategy to keep from getting so short stacked and unable to make moves. I am comfortable with turbo structure though so once I figure it out I am confident I will make a good run sooner or later. Well that's about the happenings since the last time I wrote, nothing exciting but hopefully I can get back into the groove of grinding more and continue to make progress. Until next time, thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!

So close, yet so far....

The other night I decided to try my hands at some bigger tournaments, field sizes not buy ins, on full tilt. I loaded up a few including a $3 turbo, $5 knockout, $3 rebuy, and the daily dollar. Was grinding away steady, but something magical started to happen in the knockout. I found myself building a huge stack early as people were just giving me chips, although my cards were really hot too. There were 566 entrants when late registration was over and I just kept building my stack and knocking out people in the process. Was a top five stack for most of it when I started to slide off as the cards cooled down and I felt it was time to slow down a little bit. Well after that I picked up pocket kings being about 15-20th in chips and the other top twenty stack at the table decided to defend against my raise. There were probably about 200 people left at this point so it was definitely two huge stacks playing against each other. Well somehow we found ourselves playing the biggest pot of the tourney at that point and I ended up knocking him out with my trips on the river like the luckbox I am. He had a pair of aces after all. From there it looked like I was just going to dominate as I just kept running over the table playing great deepstack small ball poker. I was up over 20k chips against the second place player cruising into the money which 54 people got paid. That's about when things came to a standstill though and I ended up doubling up about every short stack at the table with what I felt were reasonable calls given the situations and odds. Granted I was gambling a bit, but I suppose I should have given them more credit for having tighter ranges close to the bubble. I soon found myself outside the top ten again and was determined to turn it around and make the final table and win! Well, there was one huge losing player at my table who kept making these off the wall huge preflop raises and calling super marginal bets. It was amazing he even made it that far to be honest. So down to two tables and I'm busto in all my other games so I'm focusing on this one only. Donkzilla raises and I reraise with AK suited on the button after there was one other caller to his raise. Well turns out to be a coinflip, but I catch a king and double up to be back in the top five in chips. So far in the field everyone I had sharkscoped were losing players except one who seemed to be fairly decent. Luckily I hadn't tangled with him. So I'm feeling good now cruising getting closer to the final table when I had an epic meltdown and donked all my chips off to someone who I knew was way ahead since he was playing so tight. End up going bust like two hands later to the semi good guy and go out in 11th. Ended up only cashing for $24, when first was $566. With knockouts that was probably more like $40.

Where all this was severely disappointing, I did learn a lot of things going forward. The first thing being more patient short handed. In turn with that ICM considerations should have been of utmost importance to me when I made a foolish call. I had almost 56 players chips, or 10% of the chips and only ended up cashing for about 1% of the prize pool. I know looking back I was trying to force the issue, and that can work when you are dominating a table but not when the stacks are very close in size as they were becoming towards that point. Sometimes hero calls with a t off are ok, but not against someone who has obv been playing tight.

It was really disappointing to bubble the final table after playing so well up to that point, but I will take everything I learned from the experience and move on to play better the next time. I can assure you all out there this is only a taste of the success I am driven to see and will reach another final table soon!

Fresh Start

I've finally not had to work long hours for awhile now! Oops, I probably just cursed myself....

Anyhow, I've been taking advantage by slowly starting to play more poker lately. I've been mixing it up trying to find a good niche again and even started to play a few cash games. That didn't live too long as I guess I don't have the patience, or maybe time, to grind out good results. I do realize you can sit and go as you please with cash games, but to really start to make some money you have to find those perfect spots which can take a long time to come. So I went back to playing mostly SNG's and have been having some ok results.

I've been playing on Full Tilt mostly as I just seem to be running a little better on there. I've been playing my regular MTT sng's and mixing in some step tournaments to try to win tickets to some bigger buy in tournaments than I usually play. The step 1 &2's are very soft and are pretty easy to exploit and at least come out of it with your original buy in. The people really play super tight it seems and don't realize you still have to get a decent stack to move up, even though they really do play like satellites.

I also tried my hand at some of the new "Rush" sng's. I was a bit weary of the concept, but really find them fun to play! It doesn't hurt that the very first 135 player game I played I got second place and should have had 1st as I was a much better player, but donked my chips off heads up. That gave me a nice little boost to my bankroll. The Rush concept is interesting as any time you fold your hand you are instantly moved to another table and dealt a new hand. This continues until you reach the final table where traditional play starts. I thought it would be chaotic, but really you start to recognize the field and can play some decent poker. It's sort of tough to get reads on people though since you don't get to see hands play out a lot. Good concept, but we'll see how it fits into my game long term.

I'm nearing the 4 figure mark on my bankroll too (total with stars and ft). I hope to be eclipsing the $1K mark by summers end, but we'll see how the variance Gods treat me. That is a vast improvement over last year. This year I've made almost $700 grinding out micro stakes. Granted $200 was a freeroll from pokerwit, but still I'm pleased thus far. Far from my original goals, but play wise I'm happy with my progress.

I still haven't put much volume in the last couple of months, but things are picking up this month so hopefully I'll have some graphs to show off soon too! Well that's just another quick update. Good luck at the tables!

No, I'm not dead!

Dear blog readers (if there really are any of you out there),

Not much has changed since the last posts. I'm still working away and haven't had much time for poker play. So I will leave my graph update for a later date when I have actually accumulated some volume. I think I've played a total of 30 games since May 1st :( When I have had the chance to play it hasn't been too bad and I'm still honing my skills by thinking a ton about poker and different situations while I'm out battling the 100 degree heat for 12-14 hours a day. Honestly the last two months seem like such a blur because I haven't been home much at all and sleeping in my own bed seems strange at times. I hope I can get back to my bankers hours at work and start grinding again soon. I have also been following the action in the WSOP when I can and it seems like some interesting things are going down. Most notably the side betting on Tom Dwan either winning or not winning a bracelet. He came damn close, and some people almost lost some serious money! Check out the forums and such for more details on that.

I did manage to get Memorial day weekend off and went to a casino not far from here to try my hand at some live poker. It was fun and full of fish, but was a limit only betting structure which makes it tough to really use leverage and pressure like no limit. It seems like it is really a lottery of sorts as there are a ton of people seeing flops with a huge range of hands, and they all play so timid and only call bets. So you really have to pick and choose which pots to go after and when to bet. It was fun, and I didn't really make or lose any money. I do think however I will stick to my online games as there is just so much more variety and there is definitely no shortage of fish there!

About the only good thing with all this work is the money I am making. It would be nicer making it at the poker table, but I will have back to back months of making the most money I have ever made in a month working. This should help me pay off all of my student loans and put a big dent in what I have left on my car and bike. Granted I'm not buried in those loans any more, it would just be nice to not have those bills to pay every month!

Well that's about a quick update of nothing new happening. Good luck to everyone out there and thanks for reading!

Work, work, work, and no play!

Well once again work has been kicking my butt. I have only played 5 games this month as of today and the rest of the month is not looking too good either. Working in the oilfield I am subject to being called out at a moments notice and can be gone or working long hours for lots of days. For example, I have only had three days off in the last 29, and have worked mostly 12 to 14 hours per day during those days too. And yes, I am complaining because it sucks being away from home and obviously has thrown me off track for my poker goals. When I get back to playing again I will most likely start back at the stakes I was really exceeding at although I was at the cusp of upping my 45 man stakes to the $3 games. I haven't even been able to think about poker lately and that sucks pretty bad because I really wanted to watch the main events of the SCOOP. But alas that is where my life is at the moment, making "good" money, but very unhappy. Obviously what "they" always say about money not bringing you happiness is completely true. Well until I am able to get back to the tables, good luck and thanks for reading!

April Recap

Well as mentioned in my last post earlier today, work made it hard to focus on my poker game. I started out the month pretty even carrying over from last month, but then started to go on a heater. I only played on pokerstars because I was getting pretty comfortable there and trying to even out my bankroll on fulltilt, which after my heads up win will have to continue to be the trend I guess. I played a total of 120 games and profited $74. That comes out to about 62 cents profit for every game or a ROI of about 61% since my average buy in is usually $1. I cashed 33 times and got heads up in 9 of those cashes winning 5 of those games. I set numerous records for my monthly tlb points on stars, but also ended up setting my new monthly best at 1056.62 points. My yearly total is already about 500 points higher than last year and I'm still shooting for that 6 k point mark or better.

Those stats to me seem pretty good and I'm really pleased with getting heads up a little under every four games and winning over half of those games. This is still a very small volume sample however so I'm not reading into it too much and just trying to keep making progress and learning something every game. I have yet to play a game in May other than the heads up match, but I hope to get a decent volume going here soon if work allows it.

That's a recap of really my best month to date, even though it really was 2/3 of a month of play. That just shows me I have made some great progress and there is still room for more. Hopefully I'll get some more time to update and start to make these posts a little more humorous and interesting rather than just the blah of statistics. Thanks for reading anyway and good luck out there!

Work... is a four letter word!

So April was a record month for me in a few areas (not profit or volume though). That being said, it still could have been the highest marks across the board had I not been summoned to the field for my job. This caused me to have to work two weeks straight, 14 days, of 12+ hour days and left no time for poker to be played. It disappointed me as I haven't had to go to the field in a long time, but hey it is still my job so it has to be done. I was also selected to play the monthly heads up match for pokerwit where the winner pads their bankroll with $200. Being a micro grinder that would be a huge chunk to my bankroll at the moment. Well, after not being sure if I would make it because of work and numerous emails back and forth trying to adjust times I was able to make it and actually won! I know the pro I was playing had at least 6 other games going on two sites, but it felt good to beat someone who is established in the game at a high level and almost double my bankroll (on FT) in the process. It was a great win and I'm definitely looking forward to those games, heads up and member freerolls, monthly. Well that's just a quick update on what I've been up to and why I haven't blogged for quite awhile. I will post my numbers for April here in the next day or two and elaborate on where my game improved and where I can still improve. Until next time, thanks for reading and good luck!