Blogger Tourney

I played in the Poker Stars Blogger Tourney on Sunday. I have some good news and some bad news. Let's go with the bad news first. Out of 22xx people, I somehow finished 21xx. Nice. Raising on a 678xx board with 45 only to be reraised.. Yep he had the T9. Oops. Next hand, I have T9s... 9 high flop and I raise the guy just crippled me all in (for me). Of course he called with a slow played KK and IGHN.

Where is the good news? Well, I didn't have to play for 6 hours. I did check in at the final table and saw many recognizable bloggers chatting away.

In other good news, hopefully things are starting to turn. I am starting to play some SNGs again. This time starting at the $22 level as I only had $156 in Party. So far, after only 14 tournies, I am running at a 64% ITM rate and 75%ROI. Unfortunately, there has only been 1 win in there with 6 seconds. Not exactly what I am looking for. My rule of thumb is to have more 3rds than 4ths and more 1sts than 2nds. Oops. I have 2 3rds compared to 2 4ths so not good there either. I will continue on with the $22s until I reach a certain amount of $33 buyins. Any rules of thumb out there for moving up, SNG Challenge style? 15? 30? Who knows.

3/6 land is doing better as well. Overall, I have had 7 straight winning days totaling almost $1,500 so I will take it. Slow and steady is my motto.

OK, not much to say and it is running a bit late. I am currently in Canada again for work so I will not get too much opportunities to play. Maybe a couple of SNGs before I hit the sack (as I did tonight).

Iron Man Challenge 30K Freeroll

High hopes with the Iron Man Freeroll today. 321 Players.. top 90 get paid.

Things going good first hour. I get AA that Runs into AK on A high flop. From there, a few steals and by the first break, I am a bit over average in 48th place with T3460 w/ a tourney avg of 2500. 15 minutes later, I get KK and get all in with a short stack with 77 and it holds up. Up to 21st place with 181 people left. I hit 5K in chips a few minutes later. Exactly 4 minutes later I get KK again. A raise in front of me. I re-raise and he calls. Q9x flop. He checks and I half pot and he goes all in. Yep, he had 99 and severely crippled me.. 3 minutes later I get A8 and get all in on a AA2 board. Any guesses what the villian had? Yep 22. I'm out in 148th. From looking good to out in 3 minutes.

I don't know what a stroke feels like; but I think I am starting to get the gist of it over the last few months. Incredible, incredible beats time after time.

Here's another one. I have AKs in MP and UTG raises, I 3 bet 2 cold callers and UTG calls. 6A4 (2 spades.. I have clubs. Don't worry, no river flush beats here). BB bets out and UTG calls, I raise and get 2 callers. Turn brings 8c. This time checked to me and of course I bet out, I get raised all-in by someone and then someone calls, I re-raise and get called. River 5s. UTG Checks and I just check fearing yet another brutal flush suckout on river. As it turns out, it was much worse, UTG 85o for runner, runner 2 pair. What can you do? Please tell me. What can you do?

Luckily, I will be taking a week long vacation where there is no internet access. Hopefully, I will come back refreshed; but right now, I just feel like quitting.

ABC = ?

Well, after a week off of ring play (I played a few tourneys for a total cost of $6 plus some home tourneys), I decided to head back to the virtual tables a bit refreshed. For the first day, I was going to go pretty much straight ABC poker at the 5/10 SH tables. Also, for the first time, I was selective on where I sat. There was a 8/16 table with a VPIP of 60; but the only spot was to the left of a 65/20 guy. Pass. So I waited on Full Tilt. There were actually pretty many 5/10 tables going so I could be selective. I first sat down at a 43/8 table. ahhh perfect.. with 20/8 person to my right. ahh perfect... Let's play. Nothing crazy.. just ABC at first and we will see how it goes. A sat down at a second table with similar stats. So, how did I do? More on that after this commercial break brought to you by ThisIsTheNuts.

Our Friends at ThisIsTheNuts has a pretty nice deal for anybody out there looking for some training. If you generate $500 of rake on any of there supported sites, they will pay for a month's dues of Stoxpoker's site. I am presently a subscriber to this service and the videos have been good. He doesn't have a lot of videos yet, but he is adding frequently. Just today, he added a video of 1/2NL. He provides videos for all levels which is nice. There is still a registration fee; but if you are looking for training, this might be a nice way to do it... not to mention that you would be getting paid to play. Good luck. Now, back to our regulary scheduled program.

Ah yes, ABC poker at Fulltilt. First we will start with the stats. I played 29.10% of hands, Preflop raise of 14.93 and an aggression Factor of 1.74. I went to showdown 36.17% of the time and I won at showdown.... oh we will wait on that one too; but we will are looking for 50-55%. Yes, those are fairly tight, conservative numbers; but that was the gameplan. Let's get down to the tables.

I didn't play first 6 hands. Called in BB with 64c in multiway pot. no love on flop and fold. Sat out the next 15 hands. Open Raise it up with AJ on Button, both blinds call. get check raised on a 846 flop and fold. T9 wins when he spikes T on river to beat 77. Sit out 3 more hands and I actually get Aces on both tables and even more amazingly, they both hold up so I am now up a bit. Lose a pot with K7s in a 6 way pot with a flopped flush draw. Sit out a few more hands and I get AK on button.. EP (60%er) Raises and I 3bet and SB caps (with AJ). Flop is 934, I peel bet. Turn 7 and I fold to a bet and raise. EP flopped a set. OK, I think you are getting picture. Here is a brief summary of the following Hands:

QQ loses to J9 (flopped 2 pair)
A9 loses to J3
AK on K high flop loses to KT (flopped 2 pair)
AA loses to T7
JJ loses to AK, KJ and KQ on a K high flop. Was that case K on flop. Nice.
I could go on; but you get the picture.

So anyway, what was my Won$atShowdown %. 29.41%. Of course, most of those were river beats; but not all. Just me donking on money when I don't believe the LAGs.

So, A week off and nothing has really changed.

I will be going on vacation next week so I won't be playing so another break will hopefully be good for me.

I am playing in the Iron Man Challenge (Iron Group) 30K freeroll on Saturday. Hopefully, I will fair better there.

One quick note to PokerShark. I feel your pain brother and hope everything works out for you. I get the same pressures here at home. You are doing the right things and hopefully you find your middle ground that works for you. Nice job at the tables, btw.

Have a nice weekend!!!!

By the Way, I'm In

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 5513906

Nothing New

Nothing new. Just taking a break.

I did play in Royal Vegas 15K Freeroll last night with 692 others. I think I finished in something like 15th for a little bit ($150). Very typical ending for me when my AQ lost to AJ.

More later...

Def Con 4

I will not elaborate; but I have reached DefCon4. Man your battle stations. Mr Variance, if you think I am going down without a fight, you have another thing coming. But here is the thing, is it Mr Variance? As this is the second prolonged downswing in my brief poker career; it is truly variance or is it bad play? Have I just been lucky during my upswings? Plenty of good stuff going about how luck factors into poker and I do buy into it to a certain degree.

My bankroll is now at the lowest point since Sept 2004. After my rakeback payments this month from ThisIsTheNuts I will back to a better level. So, I need to come up with a plan for the future. During the first downswing, I changed from full ring to short ring and had great succuess. Umm, until I gave it all back. Details, schmetails. So, I think a change is in order again. Speaking of rakeback, I am going to sign up Absolute Poker. I have an existing account; but have not played in 3 months so I am going to try and resign up with another name, address, payment type, etc... Has anybody done this? If so, do you have any tips are experiences to share? Of course, this is borderline unethical, immorral, or some word that I just can't think of right now; but I find real hard to play sites these days when I am not getting paid to play. What are your thoughts on doing things like this? Please leave a comment or email (check my profile for email address) any tips. AP has been the best site for my overall and I have missed playing there.

My second change will be another game change. I will begin focusing on NL again. This is how I started playing (at the micro limits of course) and I want to get back to my roots. What form of NL, I haven't decided yet. It will probably be a combo of NL Ring (short and full), SNGs and Multi Tourneys. I've started a Step SNG on Party. I'll see where it ends up. I kind of want to do some sort of step up thing that I see others doing. You know, start with say $1,000 and start with 1/2 NL. If and when you get to some certain threshold move up in limits. If anybody has already developed such a chart, please let me know. I know CMitch did something like that so I'll check his archives. BTW, congrats to CMitch on his great tourney success as of late. We all knew that you right on the cusp of greatness. Hope the trend continues for you.

Also, I'm not giving up on the notion that I need help. For whatever reason, I just can't finish books. This month will be a knew focus on that. The three books that I own are Theory of Poker and the Harrington books. I hope to get through at least one of them this month. Also, Poker Academy software will be installed. And lastly, training sites. I did sign up for stoxpoker and have enjoyed the videos that I have seen. He does a great job of playing the lower and higher limits on his videos so that it is good for all. The good news is that his play is not overly different than my play. There were a few things that I picked up that I will try shortly. The only bad part is that he doesn't have a lot of videos at the current time; but he is adding and it should be a good library soon. I don't know if I will continue past June though. I will probably switch over to something like cardrunners. Mr Rizen will be giving a review of PokerXFactor soon and that may sway my thinking.

I did end up qualifying for the Iron Man Challenge (Iron Level) on Full Tilt Poker so I will be playing that 30K freeroll next Saturday. I do not believe I will strive for the IronMan this month; however, I think it is a great promotion that Full Tilt does.

Home game tonight so that will also be a nice change of pace.

I watched the movie Two for the Money last night. I like the subject, of course; but it was too Hollywood for me so I give it a thumbs down. I soon will be posting my top 10 movies kind of subdivided by Category so you have that to look forward too. lol.