Thursday's Tourneys - Day and Night

Thursday was a pretty decent day for my play. I had taken a couple days off and decided to put in a long session. I ended up playing 16 MTTs from 9am til 430am with a little break around dinner. Early in the day I made a deep run in the 10am 16k $26 but was unfortunately not able to make my first final table of October. I had played about 56 tournaments in October to that point and was down about $100. Deep in the tourney I was holding on and managing my stack very well. I made a very poorly timed bluff:
14 players left and I am utg+1 with QJo . I have been able to steal from early position for quite a while and that had helped me survive the lack of cards I had received in the final few tables. blinds 2k-4k 500ante. I raise to 10780 and it folds to the bb who calls. (I have 123k back, he 247k - he is noted as aggressive but not very experienced - he defended his bb with almost anything but folded to cbets.) Pot is 27k.
Ah7s9s flopped and he check-called 18990. pot is 63940. (i have 105k he 228k)
Turn is a 3 and he checked again. This time i bet 47370. That is where he shoved. a strong move considering my line and his checking twice. I had to fold of course and was left with 57k. I was able to survive a few more hands but had to shove with my 13bbs when the same player opened in mid pos and i had AK. His A10 outflopped me and I was out.
I was mostly happy with how I played because in this tourney I was not able to get much going late. However, even though I was varying my play and raises, I think I was betting too much thinking that it would make my opponent believe that I had a stronger hand (ex: a big ace in the big hand). I have to remember to adjust my lines to my opponent and not necessarily play them as I think they look strong. Needless to say,this was very frustrating taking $130 when first was $4000+.

The positive thing is that I am always the most experienced and usually the best player in the field late in these small stake tournaments. It is rare that I am finding people that I cannot handle.



So I have had a pretty good time playing the $11 Superstack tournaments. The structure is so good that it takes away so much of the luck factor and with deep stacks, my advantage is multiplied. I have made so many deep runs in these of late, I am starting to think that I shouldn't play anything else.

Finished 4th for $1550 in this one and was playing for almost 10 hours. This tournament I managed my stack well late and got very lucky! Winning 1010 v JJ near the final table bubble, QJ v AJ shortly after and A8s v QQ with a rivered A at the final table. I made one bluff that i think I played well but the result would say otherwise.
For the record, the players at this table were decent. I think all three in the final four were profitable (a big deal these days) and they were 3 betting a ton.

With 2.7m (blinds 20-40k 5k ante). I raised utg 79o to 108000. button folded as he always did and sb and bb called (pot 344k). A96r flop and the sb leads 160k to me. i imagine what I would do with a good ace or two pair (AQ, AK, A6, A9). Since it is not superdrawy, I would call and raise most turns (not to mention I might have the best hand - if he bets a brick turn I am only proceeding as a bluff).  I call - pot 664k. (he has 1.365m, me 2.4m). The turn is a 2s BRICK!. He checks. This is where I went wrong. I was attempting to protect my hand by betting BUT i am not protecting against anything by betting here - except 87 which i should be able to just be aware of on the river. PLUS, i might still have the best hand. For some reason, I bet 384k (this cant be for value- why would i do this?) he calls. 1.4m in the pot. 980k behind for him. The river 3s and now I am worried that he has an ace. if he had AK, AQ, or two pair he would have shoved the turn so now with 1.4m in the pot I decide I need to bet. I feel I can make any 9, A4, A5, A7, A8, A10 and maybe AJ fold. I move allin and he tanks and calls with AJ. I am not sure if he knew i was bluffing but it was a monster pot that put him almost at chip lead and lead him to finish second. With the way I was playing preflop and on flops, there was no reason for me to take a chance. I lost the hand on the turn with my 384k bet and should have gone for pot control with what might have been the best hand.

I was down to about 25bbs and about 20 minutes later with the blinds 25-50k 7.5k ante. I shoved utg/co with 55 and was called from the other shortstack on the button with KK. crippled i was out the next hand.

I let this one get away from me and should have been more patient. It reminds me of watching the WCOOP final table when AJKHoosier was there and watching the amazing amount of time the players took to make each decision. That is something that I need to do late. It surprising how much you can get caught up in the fast play if the whole table is moving quickly. Nice to get my first final table of the month and I'll take the $1550 for now.

Not Sure If I should ever fold AK again

Played the evening slate tonight and have to say that I played very well in all of my tournaments. I got deep in the daily dollar (probably the best EV tournament on FullTilt) and finished 84th for $11.

Had a tough hand as seen above in the 8pm $35K. With pretty short stacks at this stage I knew the two guys to my right were tough active players and I had been resteal shoving on them a couple times in the previous rounds. This to me is a great spot but I was giving myself second thoughts as the action went down. The man in the cutoffs raise is standard 2.5x and after I see that i am positive I will not fold this hand, unless one thing happens - the button player JUST raises. The reason I feel the just raise feels so strong is that he has essentially committed himself (I know that I will never make this move and fold at this stage in the tournament with less than 20bbs. I would almost prefer his 3bet shove because his range is so much wider and I can beat most of it and will be racing against about a third of it. I decide that the button knows enough about this open raise that he will obviously not fold. He issue also is he has to know from playing with me that I will realize he is committed. From this deduction I know he will not fold but the fact that he just raised means he probably has a weaker hand (being that he will attempt to get me to fold a small portion of my range that he cant beat ie AQ, AJ, 88-1010, perhaps JJ. I dont think he will expect me to fold AK but in this case he may have eliminated some of my calling hands that he cant beat. After I shove the initial raiser folds and the button tanks and I thought for a second that he may just fold and avoid almost surely being a 4.5-1 dog and save his 11 bbs for another hand. He did make the call and I was out on a K736K board. I played it well but 119 of 1618 is not what I came out for.

The reason for the title is that there were about five times tonight that people have played hands so strong against me when I have had AK that I have almost fold in what I would determine as a 'no fold AK zone' (aka 20bbs to one raise or 15bbs to one steal raise and a 3bet). In these spots people were putting me to the test where considering the situation I thought the bottom of their range was AK or QQ. In 1 occasion I did call off and the opponent had AA - that is going to happen. In two occasions I folded and one time the opposing player had Isolated with k10o to two allins after small raising utg!! He lost to one of the allin AQ - which my AK would have beat for the chip lead with 80 people left. In the other time I folded to an iso shove the other player had AQ. I called off twice successfully and beat AQ and AJ. Im not serious in that I wont ever fold AK again as its pretty routine early in tournaments but I just have to realize that people are playing more aggressively in every aspect of the game.

I was very happy with how I played tonight. One of the AK to AQ i lost was for 3rd in chips of the daily double b with 35 people left. UTG raised 2.2x with 25bbs and I rerasie to 5.2x with 25bbs from HJ. He crammed and I called with AK and lost to his rivered flush.

3/8 in tourneys tonight and a slight loss but the key is that I am giving myself chances to get deep. The luck part is there some nights and not others. If I give myself a chance every night the luck with be there eventually.

What?! I have to deposit again!

After a horrible August and early september that saw my bankroll dwindle from $2000 to nothing. I had to redeposit for the first time in 3 years. I am playing exclusively on FullTilt right now and decided to start over on September 21st. I deposited $500 (I haven't played with a bankroll this small since I first started playing on FullTilt back in '08).

After a couple days of delicately selecting what types of tournaments I would play in, I was able to get deep in an $11 superstack and played very well to finish with the headsup chop for $3200+. While the player I was matched up against headsup was not good enough to beat me most matches and we were fairly deep (me 50bbs and him 75bbs) I was so desperate for the bankroll that I did not want to risk the drop from $4100 to $2700 in first to second place money. He definitely knew I was better than him and was more than happy to take the chop where he took $3500+ and I took the $3200+. I was very happy because it was the first sign of success that I had seen in quite awhile and I was able to take some money out and my bankroll was back at $2000 (not ideal but we all have to start somewhere). While I am happy to get my bankroll back, I think the place where I will make the most money in the future is in the $26 tournaments. It is great to have the opportunity to play bigger (as I did when I was staked), the problem is, that when I play, I want the edge. Frankly, there are so few people doing this for a profitable living in the lower stakes tournaments (I would guess less than 15%) that I have a massive edge in those tournaments. I believe that while I may be giving up some equity in playing the bigger stuff, with my bankroll, this is where I want to be.

GOALS

My goals for poker in the upcoming months have shifted. I had hoped to make $50K in the time leading up to the end of 2010. Due to many things happening and my utter lack of focus; that was not going to happen. I have reset my goals and I am planning on getting my yearly profit back to $50k for the year.

Current Yearly total: $21,298

This is definitely my lowest profit at this stage in a year since I started and it has nowhere to go but up.

I recently added a couple deep runs in tournaments and will just include shots of the lobbies for ease of explanation. I have been playing really well in the last couple weeks and in October I have been fortunate enough to play in 4 of the 5 days. I have cashed in 9 of 32 tournaments and am feeling really good about how I am playing.

In the coming weeks and months I hope to post many more winning sessions and deep runs. A couple of the negatives of playing the way I am:
1) I limit the number of tournaments I can play because I only play on FullTilt (by far my most profitable)
2) With such small volume, there will be more time between big scores - playing every day helps
3) I have found myself playing $1 tournaments!! Now sometimes I think they can be profitable and can help with a decent score ($1600-2000 for first) but the main reason I still play them is that I know if I can avoid getting below 20bbs I will run over that field. I can be pretty sure that there are not many players of my caliber that would bother entering those tournaments and even if there are, it is unlikely that two of us would get deep in one of those fields, needing to survive all the landmines of bad players.
4) I am limiting my chances of a big score.

All of these issues are serious and in the back of my mind when I set up for the day. The best thing I can do is get back to reviewing hands and writing about poker again. I had become complacent and need to get the interest in playing more. With NHL starting up again, the Leafs will surely draw me away once in awhile but I will make the effort to play much more (22+ days a month with 150+ tournaments).

Will be back to update my action very soon, may take the day off or just play the night-time stuff.

Life is good :)