As my game develops, I find that I am able to consistently build decent to deep sized stacks in the micro tourneys I am playing. This has greatly increased my confidence level tremendously. But for the past few weeks, I am now faced with the emotional effects of taking bad beats in the mid to late stages of tournaments and how it affects my concentration and my ability to play solid poker in tourneys I am running simultaneously. Early game beats don’t bother anymore, but it’s when you’re in the money having invested about 3 to 4 hours, built a top 15 stack and take that awful bad beat from a table chip leader to knock you out. At first this was really difficult to handle, but I am slowly adjusting.
I have been watching an awesome video series that was recently posted on Poker X Factor. Doubledave22 did a live recording while grinding a bunch of tourneys. I watched as he played excellent poker and still took some ridiculous bad beats. This just reinforces that fact that I cannot be results oriented and by playing solid poker, skill will outlast luck in the long run. The online pros are a testament to this ideology.
I was at home yesterday and took the opportunity to play some tourneys. I played maybe 12 tourneys between PokerStars and Absolute Poker. I took bad beats to get knocked out of the tourneys near the bubble in 7 of the 12 tourneys. The other 5 I just never picked up any playable hands to help me build a stack which is pretty standard. I am happy to say though, that through all the beats yesterday, I continued to play solid poker.
Last night I grinded the 6-max NL cash game on both Stars and AP to win back my tourney buy-ins for the day. I am happy to say that my 6-max game is still strong enough to pull off a nice little profit. You have to keep in mind that I play .02/.05 NL on Stars and did a little .05/.10 NL on AP. I am actually rolled for a much bigger game on AP but I feel like playing lower is just easy money. After all was said and done last night, I ended up +$29 on Stars and +$33 on AP. I was curious and wanted to see what my stats looked like after a short cash session. I remembered to reset the stats on Stars and this is what it looked like after one hour of play:
(2 tabling)
Hands dealt: 122
Hands played (saw the flop): 35
Hands won: 24
Hands won at showdown: 10
Hand won without showdown: 14
Hopefully things go better the rest of the week. I am really focusing on building my roll as the UBOC is coming and I plan on playing a few of the “mini” events.
As for live poker, I have the monthly South Side Players tourney this weekend and I have the Viejas Poker Classic II satellite in two weeks. I also heard that Oceans 11, a card room about 50 miles from me, spreads some great tourneys that I may have to check out. Apparently they run deep stack tourneys with 30 minute level for about $100-$120.
That all for now, good luck at the tables!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Happy NYE 2010
2010 is finally here! Happy New Year everyone!
So today was the first Sunday grind session of the year. I ran way below expectation in my opinion as I was coolered multiples times today. The two biggest tourneys I played today were the PokerStars Sunday Quarter Million and the Absolute Poker "The Dime" tourney. Obviously the prize pool on Stars was $250K+ and The Dime is a 10K guaranteed but is usually much larger. Along with these two tourneys, I played a ton of tourneys across the three major sites which also includes Full Tilt Poker.
I made an observation today as I was 12 tabling online tournaments. 12 tables is WAY TOO MANY tables for me to manage. It's too difficult to pay attention to what the other players are doing as well as making sure I am playing solid poker. When you have 12 tables and have built some medium stacks, about 60-80BBs, on each table, you really need to pay attention and mix your play up so you don't polarize your preflop range. From now on, I will try to run 6-8 tourneys and only add new ones to my schedule if I bust out of the early tourneys.
I will also have to start tracking my buy-ins and figuring out my ROI. This will allow me to track my progress from month to month. My poker training site, Poker X Factor, provides software to track your results, but it is very clunky and difficult to manage. I may just end up making a spreadsheet.
So I must have played about 15 to 20 tourneys today. I think I played very well until I had too many tables opened up at once. I netted about $200.58 today. Not bad for micro tourneys. This number should be a lot higher, but I lost a lot of chips in coolers all day. I think this is a good start. I really expect to net about $300 - $400 per Sunday. I also play a few tourneys during the week but these usually occur during week nights and I get too tired to focus. I use these to pad my bankroll for the Sunday tournaments.
See you at the tables! GL
So today was the first Sunday grind session of the year. I ran way below expectation in my opinion as I was coolered multiples times today. The two biggest tourneys I played today were the PokerStars Sunday Quarter Million and the Absolute Poker "The Dime" tourney. Obviously the prize pool on Stars was $250K+ and The Dime is a 10K guaranteed but is usually much larger. Along with these two tourneys, I played a ton of tourneys across the three major sites which also includes Full Tilt Poker.
I made an observation today as I was 12 tabling online tournaments. 12 tables is WAY TOO MANY tables for me to manage. It's too difficult to pay attention to what the other players are doing as well as making sure I am playing solid poker. When you have 12 tables and have built some medium stacks, about 60-80BBs, on each table, you really need to pay attention and mix your play up so you don't polarize your preflop range. From now on, I will try to run 6-8 tourneys and only add new ones to my schedule if I bust out of the early tourneys.
I will also have to start tracking my buy-ins and figuring out my ROI. This will allow me to track my progress from month to month. My poker training site, Poker X Factor, provides software to track your results, but it is very clunky and difficult to manage. I may just end up making a spreadsheet.
So I must have played about 15 to 20 tourneys today. I think I played very well until I had too many tables opened up at once. I netted about $200.58 today. Not bad for micro tourneys. This number should be a lot higher, but I lost a lot of chips in coolers all day. I think this is a good start. I really expect to net about $300 - $400 per Sunday. I also play a few tourneys during the week but these usually occur during week nights and I get too tired to focus. I use these to pad my bankroll for the Sunday tournaments.
See you at the tables! GL
Friday, December 25, 2009
Testing out Recording Software
I have some new software and a mic I wanted to test out. I plan on recording my sessions and sharing them here on my blog site. This is my first video which is really just a hand or two of PLO on AP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk3fFbIySmI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk3fFbIySmI
Thursday, December 24, 2009
OK... I feel like blogging again...
Well the year is coming to an end, and as usual, I haven't been posting consistently. Once again, let's try to change that.
Poker related stuff:
My last entry had me trying to play a ton of SNGs and see how I fared. Well, I think I played about 100-150 sngs with minimal profit so that kind of fell off my radar. But I have continued to work on my tourney game and booked some decent finishes in micro stakes tourneys these past few months. I now have bankrolls on Absolute Poker, Pokerstars, and Full Tilt Poker. I just got my hands on some software to record my sessions. Anyone who is still interested in this blog will be able to watch and listen to me while I play. This will either show how brilliant I am or how much of a donkey I am. Odds are, I'm more of the latter, LOL. I am going to start grinding multiple tournaments on Sundays so those will most likely be the sessions I record.
Personal stuff:
I recently lost about 25 lbs. I quit smoking about 2 years ago and gained 35 lbs. My first goal is to get back down to my pre-quit smoking weight and then just tone up by lifting weights, running, and plyometrics (P90x). I think I play better when I feel healthier so being fit may help my results. What else... I got a promotion at my job. But I still hate working Monday thru Friday so I need to start winning some micro stakes tourneys so I can move up to small stakes, then medium, etc, etc. Working daily is for the birds!
Happy Holidays and Good Luck at the tables!
PS - Viejas Poker Classic II is coming very soon! I will hopefully be there after I satellite in since I can't swing a 1k buyin yet. Be sure to mark it on your calendars since 1st place is guranteed 100K. The WSOP circuit event is coming up in March. Boost those bankrolls because there's always a lot of action when the WSOP comes to town.
Poker related stuff:
My last entry had me trying to play a ton of SNGs and see how I fared. Well, I think I played about 100-150 sngs with minimal profit so that kind of fell off my radar. But I have continued to work on my tourney game and booked some decent finishes in micro stakes tourneys these past few months. I now have bankrolls on Absolute Poker, Pokerstars, and Full Tilt Poker. I just got my hands on some software to record my sessions. Anyone who is still interested in this blog will be able to watch and listen to me while I play. This will either show how brilliant I am or how much of a donkey I am. Odds are, I'm more of the latter, LOL. I am going to start grinding multiple tournaments on Sundays so those will most likely be the sessions I record.
Personal stuff:
I recently lost about 25 lbs. I quit smoking about 2 years ago and gained 35 lbs. My first goal is to get back down to my pre-quit smoking weight and then just tone up by lifting weights, running, and plyometrics (P90x). I think I play better when I feel healthier so being fit may help my results. What else... I got a promotion at my job. But I still hate working Monday thru Friday so I need to start winning some micro stakes tourneys so I can move up to small stakes, then medium, etc, etc. Working daily is for the birds!
Happy Holidays and Good Luck at the tables!
PS - Viejas Poker Classic II is coming very soon! I will hopefully be there after I satellite in since I can't swing a 1k buyin yet. Be sure to mark it on your calendars since 1st place is guranteed 100K. The WSOP circuit event is coming up in March. Boost those bankrolls because there's always a lot of action when the WSOP comes to town.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Spinning My Wheels
It's been very slow for me in terms of any tournament results in the past couple weeks. I really haven't put in any volume so I can't really expect much I guess. This week I decided to change it up and focus on SNGs and try to play a decent amount of games and see where I stand on the Mars Level Leaderboard ($3 buyins). PokerStars starts their weekly tracking on Sundays so my current stats are:
Games Played - 18
ITM - 9 (1st:5 2nd:3 3rd:1 )
ROI - 64%
I'm not a pro, so you are definitely not going to see me putting up 300-400 sngs in a week like most of the grinders. My goal though is to hit about 40 - 50 by Saturday, maintaining a 35%+ ROI. I also want to see if I can squeeze onto the leaderboard for a little extra bankroll boost. Being in the top 100 would be a nice little screen cap to add to my collection. Until next time...
GL me and See you at the tables!
Games Played - 18
ITM - 9 (1st:5 2nd:3 3rd:1 )
ROI - 64%
I'm not a pro, so you are definitely not going to see me putting up 300-400 sngs in a week like most of the grinders. My goal though is to hit about 40 - 50 by Saturday, maintaining a 35%+ ROI. I also want to see if I can squeeze onto the leaderboard for a little extra bankroll boost. Being in the top 100 would be a nice little screen cap to add to my collection. Until next time...
GL me and See you at the tables!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
This is so classic...
Cops Caught Playing Wii During Drug Bust
POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WPIX) - What started out as a full-blown drug raid in a Florida home, turned into an intense bowling tournament that has now left officials utterly embarrassed.
Undercover drug detectives with the Polk County Sheriff's Office had their guns drawn and flashlights beaming when they stormed into the home of a convicted drug dealer this past March.
With a search warrant in hand, investigators rummaged through the home, looking for drugs and stolen property in connection with an ongoing investigation. As the officers were hard at work, others got a Wii bit distracted, literally.
According to News Channel 8 in Tampa, within 20 minutes of entering the home some investigators found a Wii bowling video game and got down to business - throwing strikes and picking up spares between gathering evidence which included shotguns and flat screen TVs.
A wireless security camera, connected to a computer inside the home, recorded all of the officers' activity, including their impromptu bowling tournament. One officer is seen celebrating, jumping up and down, after throwing a strike.
After watching the video, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the incident is an embarrassment and wants an investigation done on the matter.
"That is not appropriate conduct at a search warrant," he told a local news station. "But I am less pleased with the supervision that didn't walk in and say, turn that off. That's what supervision should have done."
I had included a link to the video but it didn't work. Have fun googling it.
Peace.
POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WPIX) - What started out as a full-blown drug raid in a Florida home, turned into an intense bowling tournament that has now left officials utterly embarrassed.
Undercover drug detectives with the Polk County Sheriff's Office had their guns drawn and flashlights beaming when they stormed into the home of a convicted drug dealer this past March.
With a search warrant in hand, investigators rummaged through the home, looking for drugs and stolen property in connection with an ongoing investigation. As the officers were hard at work, others got a Wii bit distracted, literally.
According to News Channel 8 in Tampa, within 20 minutes of entering the home some investigators found a Wii bowling video game and got down to business - throwing strikes and picking up spares between gathering evidence which included shotguns and flat screen TVs.
A wireless security camera, connected to a computer inside the home, recorded all of the officers' activity, including their impromptu bowling tournament. One officer is seen celebrating, jumping up and down, after throwing a strike.
After watching the video, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the incident is an embarrassment and wants an investigation done on the matter.
"That is not appropriate conduct at a search warrant," he told a local news station. "But I am less pleased with the supervision that didn't walk in and say, turn that off. That's what supervision should have done."
I had included a link to the video but it didn't work. Have fun googling it.
Peace.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Man enters and wins Ladies Only event at Borgata
From Wicked Chops Poker...
Abraham Korotki Brings You Today’s Poker News Dump
Ok, so a dude, Abraham Korotki, entered the $300 Borgata Poker Open Ladies Event. Ha ha that’s original. Even worse, he won it, banking some $20,000. Disregard what we think this absolutely proves once and for all about women poker players, it ended up being extra douchey as the lady Korotki beat, Last Woman StandingTM Nicole Rowe, was just diagnosed with breast cancer. According to some friends at the Borgata, Korotki, a lawyer from New Jersey, also acted “like an ass” in the process of winning the tournament.
Abraham Korotki Brings You Today’s Poker News Dump
Ok, so a dude, Abraham Korotki, entered the $300 Borgata Poker Open Ladies Event. Ha ha that’s original. Even worse, he won it, banking some $20,000. Disregard what we think this absolutely proves once and for all about women poker players, it ended up being extra douchey as the lady Korotki beat, Last Woman StandingTM Nicole Rowe, was just diagnosed with breast cancer. According to some friends at the Borgata, Korotki, a lawyer from New Jersey, also acted “like an ass” in the process of winning the tournament.
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