Long Session!

Last night I played one of the longer cash games sessions I've ever played before! I think I sat down around 8:30'ish and about 6 1/2 hours and 2500 hands later I cashed out with having won $50. What a let down for such a long time to play but I'm learning a lot about my cash game thought process and I think I'll begin to see things move in the right direction here soon. I was three and four tabling .50/$1 over the course of the night and never really got into that much trouble. I ran into some unfortunate situations....i.e. flopping top pair top kicker twice in multi-way action pots when opponents hit sets and paid them off. But for the most part I think I played decent...I'd probably give myself a C+ if I were to grade my play. I had some spewy tendencies against aggressive players and bluffed off an entire buy in, but hey what are you going to do. The read I made in this particular pot was 100% correct but the player did have one of the 2 hands he could have to call :(.

Overall I'm liking the cash game stretch I'm in right now and normally it wouldn't be this cash game heavy but time constraints are a factor and rakeback is also something that is keeping me afloat! I'm still shooting for the WSOP and can't wait for my trip to Vegas here in a month! I'm hoping to make some good money while I'm there and hopefully satellite into some kind of WSOP event while I'm out there.

Final Table!

So the other night I played in about 6 tourneys, including the $3 & $5 rebuys. I had a feeling about the night and I guess I was spot on cause I had two deep finishes including a final table in the $3 rebuy. The tourney attracted 750+ entrants and I really don't remember much about the first hour but I do know that I luck-sacked into a monster stack when I pushed with a 78sooted as a short stack and got called by AA and KK. Needless to say I sucked out on both and shipped a monster! From there it was very easy to gather chips considering it was the $3 rebuy and the player caliber in tourneys like these is baffling. I had some marginal situations that ended up working out down the stretch and going into the final table I was 8 of 9.


The payouts were very top heavy and going into this battle I set a goal of 4th place or better. That would guarantee me at least $500 bucks and given my time and effort I felt that would be gratifying enough. I played a great short stack and was able to win a 60/40 early while being behind to move my stack into a middle of the pack contender. I don't really recall much of the middle of the final table but the way things ended was very unfortunate. The player to my left was a very strong player who respected my plays and gave me credit for the moves I pulled. He did though make one bad play that netted me a first place stack 5 handed. I was in the BB w/ AK off suit and there was a raise from the middle position player, he flatted, and I pulled a semi squeeze with my AK. It folded back around to him and he thought about it forever and ended up calling with his AQ and I shipped a 600K+ pot! From there I jumped into hyper aggressive mode and lost a little of my stack in a crazy pot. I'll save you the time and just give you the cliff notes. I raise with 66 get 2 callers, AQ10 flop and it checks around. The turn bring a harmless 4 and when it checks to me I fire 101K at a 156K pot and get called by the player in first position. The river completed a flush and made my trips! He insta shoves and I insta fold :(.

When we were 3 handed I started to pull out the 3 betting preflop quite a bit and thought I had the stronger player when I re-shoved with 1010 after he raised from the SB but I got coolered when he called with JJ and my tourney was over. Sucks but what are you going to do? I played a great tourney and felt good about the night of poker. Oh and I almost forgot...while all this was going on I was very deep in the $5 rebuy as well and actually had a top 2 chip stack with 15 people left and ended up donking off everything in a tough pot to finish in 12th place. It was a 6-handed tourney and the action was crazy fast! I won about $100 for that effort but considering the top two prizes were well over a grand I was disappointed with that showing.

So as of now I'm sitting with well over 2K in my BR and are looking good in terms of moving up in limits sometime soon. I am playing great poker and can only hope I'm finally bringing things together. WSOP here I come.

Another Day....Another Dollar

The bracelet race tourneys haven't really been going all that well, but I've only had a chance to play in 3. To be honest it's going to be a bit harder than I had initially though too! These tournaments are getting 40-80 people and are only paying out 1st place with a $2K prize package. They are semi deep stack tourney's which is in my favor but it's going to be a grind. My best showing thus far is an 11th out of 75 entrants....it was a good showing but just lost a race late in the mix. I'll continue to try and get one of these seats but I'm thinking it'll take a little longer than expected. I'm also assuming that closer to the WSOP there will be different promotions running that will guarantee more seats and have better value for me to play in. The thing that was scaring me most going into this 2 month span was sustaining a respectable BR and luckily I've been on a heater in the cash games and with the moderate tourney score the other Sunday, I'm sitting with close to 2K in my BR again.

I got a chance to roll the dice a little this weekend when I had some downtime and was able to produce 2 winning sessions. One was a .25/.50 600+ hands session that netted me a cool $250. I stacked a guy early and from then on he tilted me another 2 or so buy-ins! Then just yesterday while watching some basketball I payed some .50/$1 and had a nice overall session winning $300 or so over 500 hands. This session yesterday was a very encouraging and helpful session for a few reasons. First, I had a good buddy of mine there and we were able to discuss hands and talk about things and both of our reads we spot on when reviewing things. I also made a few very good reads that even amazed me to some extent. I'm getting better daily and playing a ton of heads up poker is helping my reading ability by leaps and bounds. I wish I could work my way up in stakes buy that's just so hard for a part time player like me. I'm not able to put in enough time to see the slow and steady increase so unless I hit a big tourney score my BR just marginally increases from month to month.

If I were to hit a big score would I necessarily jump right into a $1/$2 HU regiment? That's a good question and one that I've thought about a lot. Here are the factors that go into making a decision like that. Would I have a the BR to sustain the wild streaks that $1/$2 HU good throw my way? Do I think I'm a good enough player to win at that level?

To be comfortably playing at $1/$2 stakes I would like to have at least 10K in my BR. I know that's a lot more than what I'm playing with now in terms of buy-ins, but the losses you can take at $1/$2 can be so devastating and substantial that I just want to cover my ass a little more than usual. I mean after all it's poker, anything could happen given the right circumstances. I just wouldn't want to come off a great tourney run with high expectations of throwing my BR into the 5 digit category and lose 2-4 grand being stupid at the $1/$2 limits. I without a doubt think I can beat that level and feel like it's the next step for me, I just need to funding. I don't know my stats for $50 and $100 levels but I would assume I'm way in the black in both. So logically it's on the horizon and is definitely a goal of mine for the near future. That about wraps it up and wish me luck tonight, I've a got a big schedule of tourneys on my plate and hope I can come out ahead!

Here we go!

Full Tilt's Race for the Bracelets series kicks off tonight and this is what I've been waiting for! Like I've said in some of my past posts I'm looking to make a trip out to the WSOP this year and these tourneys are going to be my ticket. All this is covered in the link above but to just sum it all up....there are 53 preliminary events in this years WSOP and the majority of them range from 1K to 5K. My goal over the next few months is to play in as many of these satellite tourneys as I can and try to get a seat or two.

Where the hell have I been?

So last I left this thing I was on cloud nine! My bank roll was approaching baller status again and I was playing well. Rakeback was pouring in and things couldn't get any better! I took some shots and had some success but got a little cocky and that mixed with some untimely variance saw my BR plummet drastically! I want to say over the course of a week and a half I had lost almost 2/3 or my BR and had to drop back down to the lowest of the low limits to begin to grind it back out again. I wouldn't say that my confidence was battered but more that my frustration level was getting the best of me!

I did take some horrid beats in some monster pots that did play tricks with my tilt meter. But I didn't lose my cool completely and new what had to be done, so I stepped back down and begun to grind once again. I had some decent showings and made little amounts of money here and there but nothing to write home about. I had strictly been held to all cash games due to time constraints, so obviously it's much easier to get caught up in things and lose lots of dough. For some reason I just can't keep a consistent win rate in tact when playing cash games. I feel as though I have an above average grasp of how the games are played and how to exploit other players weaknesses, but if consistency is the game then I lose hands down! Sure I'll have great winning session and brutal losing session, but I feel like I'm never in that realm where it was just a mediocre day where I won or lost $10 - $30. I think it has something to do with me knowing when and when not to quit. A lot of the time I'll have great sessions get washed down the drain because I hang around too long and get a bit spewy or reckless with my chips. Something I need to work on I guess.

Then this weekend really helped shed a whole new light on things. I really didn't get to play much because of birthday festivities late last week and all weekend. I did though have some recovering time on Sunday to fire up the green felt and get some hands in. I figured it was Sunday so I would take a shot at satelliting into one of the big tourneys and sure enough after spending $50 I was in the FTP 750K and was ecstatic having never played it before.

The tourney started off horrible when I called down an early aggressive player with QJ on a queen high board and he felted KQ :(. After starting with 3000 chips and losing that hand I was immediately down to 1200 and not looking good. The blinds though were still at 20/40 and I had to continue to tell myself that it wasn't the end of the world. From there I ran great for the duration of the first hour, doubling up with 88 after hitting bottom set when a guy flopped top two and re-shoving with KK and taking it down pre-flop. So heading into the first break I was right back where I started at around 3000 chips.

Heading into the second hour I made a gutsy play where I squeezed on a pot with two NITS and unfortunately got snap called by KK. My 99 was way behind and on the brink on elimination until a miraculously 9 spiked on the turn and shot my chip stack up to around 5400! From there I didn't really see much and tried to limp numerous hands, small pocket pairs and connectors but was shot down about 90% of the time by this one guy who would raise the limped pot every single time! Well of course I noted this and used it to my advantage when about 5 min before the second break I picked up AA in middle position. I limped it like I had been doing and sure enough out of the SB he raised it on up and this time the BB called too. I gave it the old 15 sec "look like I'm pondering" act and then shoved 'em in and he called after a little bit of thought with AJoff! Needless to say I won a monster and was now sitting with about 11K.

I went on to play some great poker but ran into some unlucky situations. For example, holding Q3 in the BB and the SB completing and seeing a flop of 9-10-J. He min bet and I of course called....the turn brought the 8 completing the straight and he lead out, I raised, he pushed, I called, he flipped KQ, and I lost a pretty huge pot to ship me right on out of the top 50. I did though rebound and make it to the cash and even a little further! I played a great short stack and managed to get myself all the way back up to an average stack with around 150 people to go. This thing started with a whopping 4000 entrants so making it this far was a win in itself.

The demise of my tourney though happened when I picked up AKoff in the BB and it folded around the SB. My stack at the time was about 54K'ish with the blind at 2k/4k. The SB had me covered and just open pushed trying to take down the blinds, I snap call and he felts 10s7s. The flop came 10-7-J and all my hope relied on one of those last two queens. The card didn't come and I busted in 145th place :(. Had I of won that race I would have had well over 80K and sitting in the top 30 with not many to go :(. Needless to say I netted a cool $600 bucks and even more so a much needed boost to my BR.

Everything always seems to circle back to a tournament and you'd think by now I would have learned that...but no. I don't know where I'm going to go from here...it's still hard for me to find the time to commit to tourneys these days but I know with the WSOP in the not so far distance I will have to. My goal for the next 2 1/2 months is final table a tourney and have a 4 digit cash, nab one 2K prize package to a WSOP event, and continue to increase my BR. More than anything I want to travel out to Vegas this year and experience the WSOP, but all that is dependent on whether or not I can win something online here in the next few months or so. Wish me luck.

Cash games rule!

Another Sunday another story. So the week was a success and a very encouraging step in the right direction. I think I played roughly 15 tournaments and didn't cash in a single one! I had a few go pretty deep but I just feel like this week was the week to run into aces. Three tourneys ended in that fashion and the only other respectable showing was in the $3 rebuy last night where I bubbled the cash bubble. I had a top 15 stack the entire tourney and then ran into an unfortunate SB vs. BB confrontation where I was out kicked by one card to bust in an unavoidable manner. But enough about all that jazz, let's get to the good stuff!

On Friday night before I went out I fired up Full Tilt to get in a little HU session while I was waiting on some buddies. I luckily found a player who liked to move all in preflop with 100bb's and in the midst of 10 or so hands I picked up KK and 10 10 and busted him twice! He then left so I did the same thing! There is nothing like finding an ATM without having to leave your couch!

So after that fun little session my BR was in good shape and the week was looking to be a success! BTW, I was playing .5/$1 HU versus the all in pre-flop guy so a quick $200 is most definitely a nice boost to me. So Sunday comes around and like I was saying above, the tournament scene was very lackluster. I did though get into a marathon HU match with this player who I instantly pegged as a fish playing .5/$1. I'd love to show you some hands to give you a better idea of the progression of the match but I don't have the HH's on this computer. I'll give you a quick cliff notes on how the match went.

1) It lasted close to 4 hours.
2) We played roughly 1500 hands.
3) I had him in the hole 2 buy-ins.
4) He rivers a open ender to get us back to even in chips.
5) I three bet him w/ AK and we get it all in on a flop of A 10 3 (He had A3 :( )
6) He now has $400 in front of him and I'm steaming.
7) I fight back to about $140 when we get it all in AA vs. 10 10 and he rivers a 10!
8) He now has $500+ in front of him and I know he's going to leave...he doesn't!
9) Now the match becomes a drag and we do a lot of back and forth 3 betting.
10) I double up after hitting trip queens when he had top pair.
11) I double up after turning a flush when he had top pair.
12) I double up after making a huge push with with top set and getting called by his top pair.
13) I stack him after getting it all in QQ vs. 9 10 off.
14) I stack him after getting it all in JJ vs. A8 off.
15) When all was said and done my BR saw a $600 swing in the right direction and I was left sitting w/ 7 buy-ins!

It was a long a grueling match but I knew I was better than this player and honestly I feel I just worked him down and made him make bad...very bad decisions.

So in my next post I want to talk about my new goals for the upcoming months. I'm excited with where things are going and hope to continue to see things move in the right direction.

Ups and Downs...but overall a good weekend!

So the week started off not all that well and I dug myself a pretty big hole losing $700 playing HU .5/$1. I won't get into many hands but I will say that I took some horrid beats which tilted the hell out of me causing me to lose some money in a fit of frustration. Tilting off a ton of money like this is something that I've been trying hard to prevent and for the most part had done a good job with. It just one of those feelings you don't like having and if I weren't use to the swings I would have probably gone on a bender and lost a lot more. But I quit when I knew enough was enough and just didn't play again for the rest of the week. Taking time off when the cards aren't running in your favor is always a good idea. It helps you to clear your head and not have poker on the mind 24/7.

So come Friday night I was out of town with my girlfriend house sitting for some friends of hers and decided I'd fire up and give a session a shot. I started out mixing things up a bit and played some .25/.5 6 Max NL. I was 4 tabling and the session was a major roller coaster ride. I would be up a few buy-ins and then lose a monster to bring me back down then grind it back up and then fall again. It really wasn't all that great of a 1st session back and the 2 set over sets didn't really help much. I want to say it was around midnight when I decided to check the tourneys that were about to start and saw that there was a 4K guaranteed about to start. It was PL hold'em (not my best) but the field was small, it was a double stack, and first place was still going to be over 1K. I figured I give it a shot and see what happens. 3 hands in I pick up AKoff and a guy who has made it apparent that he wants to go to sleep has just re-potted from early position. I knew I had his range crushed so I potted on top for pretty much an all in. It folds back around to the initial raiser and he folds and the donk puts it all in w/ J9 sooted. I flop my A and was the chip leader 4 or so hands in.

So I'm thinking things are looking up and this might end up being a pretty good tourney until the next hand made me want to cry. I won't give you the play by play but rather give you the unfortunate outcome. 4 limpers, I flop middle set, guy flops top set, and another guy flops the nut flush draw. Top set holds and 6 or so hands in I'm back down to my initial starting stack :(. I rebound from that debacle of a hand and manage to build a nice stack carrying me deep into the 3rd hour of play. I want to say the key hands for me were back to back at the 200/400 level. I was sitting with roughly 5500 chips and I picked up AQ from early position. I raise and get min re-raised from the very next player. At this point I made up my mind that I was going with the hand not matter what so I called and flopped top pair and a gut shot. I push on the pot for about the pot size and get insta-called by AK who flopped top 2 pair. I figured I was behind with the texture of the flop but had to go with it. Well I needed to run well after all that bad luck in the cash game and rivered a jack for broadway! That catapulted me up to a nice sized stack of roughly 11K and I was in prime position with about 50 people left.

The very next hand I pick up 99 again in early position so I limp them and get about 5 other limpers. We see a flop of 9 10 J and I begin to salivate! The action though was a little scary in front of me and forced me to make a quick decision again for all my chips! A short stack pushed and the next limper just called his push!?!?!?! The all in by the short stack was enough to make me worry when the player behind him just called but I wasn't folding my set so I repotted on top. Sure enough when it folded back around to him he insta called with KQ for the nut straight! But again luck was on my side and I turned a 10 for the boat! Now I had a monster stack and was in first with about 45+ people left.

I played a great tourney from there on out and like before, if I had chips late in the tourney I definitely knew how to use them. I made the final table and used aggression and mixed with a little luck from picking up KK when another decent sized stack had JJ to get me a second place finish! I pocketed a cool $800 and covered my losses from earlier in the week.


Then just last night I won about 6 buy-ins at a .25/.50 HU table and secured my bankroll well over 2K! I'm very happy with my play of lately and my tournament showings have been outstanding for the volume I've been putting in. My next goal is to continue to grind out the HU game and lower stakes tourneys and work the roll back to around 5K. Rakeback has been key, bringing in about $100 a month and that figure will only rise with the more I play and the higher I get stakes wise.