Sunday Wrap-Up

After the past three weeks, my modest bankroll has been taking a hit. It had gone from $2400 to around $1150 coming into today. I had been playing less than perfect I think and also taking some chances playing non-NLH tourneys - I usually find that to be a leak, though I did take down a OHiLo tourney last month. With all sorts of christmas things going on I did not feel I was focusing enough attention on playing. Tonight I was able to get deep in a couple tourneys and finished with 4 cashes in about 10-12 tourneys. 

I made a deep run in the 1pm Superstack and played really well. As usually with this one, I think I should have gone out much earlier, but the shear weakness of the fields allowed me to stick around. It is hard to explain but the players that I play against in these small fields are so weak that I should be winning more often. The best strategy that they can hope for is that I am not able to get chips and they raise a ton. If i am able to get chips anywhere late in these small buy-ins, it is almost never a question of me winning.

I played great and even though I was in last for chips for most of the FT, and I lost two races being all-in and called only twice (the final hand and kk v 1010 near the start of the FT to double me up to 25bbs).

Here was the bust hand above, pretty standard allin preflop with 17bbs to a button pot raise from a maniac. Nothing I could do. In a way I wished I continued to not get any hands as I was avoiding all kinds of tough spots and moving up throughout the FT. Their betting and timing patterns made their hand strengths pretty apparent and this has both boosted my bankroll and got me excited to play again.

In other news, i decided to go to the WSOP in July and will be saving a portion of my winnings until June (probably 10-20%) to fund the trip. I hope the start of the year is good and I can make some big scores- I would love to play a few small events at the WSOP.

I will be comprising a list of goals for 2011 and I think this was a good way to end the year. I might play the slate a couple more nights. I will be starting the year with my normal $2000 bankroll - one of my goals will be to have a much bigger roll by the end of next year. Nice to get a little cash in the mail soon and get back at it.

Wednesday Action - 0/3

Put in a short day yesterday playing only three small tourneys. Just outside the money of the 9am $26 KO I was in a good spot in chips. With 90 making the money and down to 120, I had about 30bbs and was sitting around 50th. This hand came up:

Preflop:
It folded to the sb and he raised to 2400. This is a pretty standard range with most of the hands he is going to play considering the player and the situation. He knew it was close to the bubble and I might not want to play a flop but I can't narrow his hand by too much. J10s is a good hand and I call most of the time in pos incase I whiff the flop I can get away with still 25bbs.
Flop:
The flop comes as seen and he bets 3250, I contemplate his cbet and decide to call. I believe I could easily have raised 2-2.5x with the intention of stacking towards the larger end of my raise. Still, I think a call here is okay as I would call with most Ks two pair, A9, A8, j10 or q10 (maybe).
Turn:
9h hits the turn and he checks. I think he checks most hands here any king, ahigh hands, A8 and probably a 9 also considering the stacks. For some reason, I check pretty quick thinking I could hit my straight or maybe 10 or J for free. I really think I should have bet here - though, with a 9 and the board as such I check here most of the time to hopefully get value on the river.
River:
6d - BRICK hits the river and he checks pretty quick. There is about 13k in the pot and I have 17k in my stack. I decide to bet repping a 9 here - I would also consider betting a 8 for thin value bet - but that would only be if I know the player better. He thinks for half a second and calls with AQo. I put myself in a really bad situation for the remainder of the bubble and have to shove with 9bbs a couple rounds later with Q9o in the c/o and lose to AK.


I think I played the hand wrong on the flop as I could have raise and I didn't plan ahead that if I was going to bluff a brick on the river, I should have bet the turn as it would be much harder for him to call. The question though on the turn would be how much to bet? Do I bet 8k into the 13k pot leaving me 9k back that pretty much has to go in on the river when he is likely to call both or just shove which looks like too much of an overbet from a 9... 


The other two I played in I got pretty deep but ran into some unfortunate situations. While not an overly thrilling day of cards, I still feel it will help me to discuss at least one hand a day.

16 hours, 3 miniFTOPs, 24 tournaments about even...

Today was one of those long days I usually love to put in. I play sometime from the time I wake up, through the morning tournaments (best start at 9am) and hopefully there is a big overlap between with the morning starts and the afternoon starts (which can begin at 1pm due to late registration). I played the morning stuff with no success, luckily was able to have a nice break from 1130am til 1pm and have lunch and relax. I knew that I had wasted the morning but on a day like this when I am determined to play a lot, I love to get a break and back at it. The afternoon stuff saw very little success - I played in two miniftops and got pretty unlucky in the PL HA event - which I am essentially dead money in anyways. I scored one meaningless cash in the early double B around 60th place. In the 630pm Headsup I did really well in the round of 128 after getting a bye and then got outplayed against a guy who got quite a few hands but played them well.

The MiniFTOPs event was a 4x Shootout $55 with 2544 to start. The first round of the shootout was only 3 people at the table. As I understood there were 729 tables and the winners would move on. only the top 7 of those players would get paid and the next pay just came at 81.

The first round I played a really good player with good stats heads-up and was feeling it against him. I could sense when his button raises (always 2x, as mine were) were in a weak spot and when was right 3bet him (almost always 2.5-3x). He was folding to my 3bets and through about 100 hands of headups and my 3betting his button 2x about 8 times he finally jammed with a7s with about 25bbs. I had 99 and could sense he was going to move - just fortunate. I was able to take him out and had to wait about 1.5 hours for the next round to start.

The second round saw back to a 9-man table. As I knew I would be playing with these players a lot, I used Officialpokerrankings.com to search all of them and found that 7 of the 8 players were solid winning players. All 7 had profits over 16k and 3 of them over 60k. Sadly, I think this was the toughest table of midstakes grinders I had ever played at. I played very slow to start out called a small raise on the button with 33 and flopped a set to the utg raiser, he lead 2/3 pot on a jh8h3s board and I flatted (about 70bbs deep each) hoping to induce a call or raise from bb who had also called pf - bb folded. 10r hits the turn and he check calls my 2/3 pot bet. Having about a pot sized bet left, he check calls almost his whole stack with AJo to double me up. Good start. After playing well and into the money, got headsup with Tragedy83. He was a solid player and he came in with a 21k to 6k chip lead. We battled and I was able to peak at 12k to his 15. We were playing fast and I was doing well. All the button play was min raise or fold with maybe 3 limps on the button. I had dwindled to about 8500 and a double up would put me up 2-1 in chips.

This curious hand that I don't know if I could have played it differently ended it for me.

Full Tilt Poker Game #26410884513: MiniFTOPS Event #19 (190747256), Table 9 - 150/300 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:42:23 ET - 2010/12/14
Seat 1: llebdet (8,522)
Seat 9: Tragedy83 (18,478)
llebdet posts the small blind of 150
Tragedy83 posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to llebdet [9d Td]
llebdet calls 150
Tragedy83 raises to 900
llebdet calls 600
*** FLOP *** [9c Qh 2c]
Tragedy83 bets 500
llebdet calls 500
*** TURN *** [9c Qh 2c] [9h]
Tragedy83 checks
llebdet bets 2,400
Tragedy83 raises to 4,800
llebdet raises to 7,122, and is all in
Tragedy83 calls 2,322
llebdet shows [9d Td]
Tragedy83 shows [2h 2s]
*** RIVER *** [9c Qh 2c 9h] [6d]
llebdet shows three of a kind, Nines
Tragedy83 shows a full house, Twos full of Nines
Tragedy83 wins the pot (17,044) with a full house, Twos full of Nines
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 17,044 | Rake 0
Board: [9c Qh 2c 9h 6d]
Seat 1: llebdet (small blind) showed [9d Td] and lost with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 9: Tragedy83 (big blind) showed [2h 2s] and won (17,044) with a full house, Twos full of Nines

I didn't raise the button because I felt he was going to 3bet if I did and this was too good a hand to have to fold, I knew if I limped, he would only raise 3x so I would get to see a flop. I limped and he made it 900. He does not have to have a hand here as I had folded this spot twice before and I could tell that taking the lead was a big thing to him. On the flop his follow is standard small which he had made and before and shut down on the turn. my call keeps the pot small and could free a lot of bluffs on the turn as I had just been calling with top pairs in the same spot. when the 9 hits the turn and he checks my bet is not to end the hand but to look like a bluff. I thought that he could put me on J10 or XcXc and when he min raises I have to think about it... However I think sometimes he could put me on one of those hands and check raise with KQ,AQ, KK, AA to get the money in with all my non-9 hands as well as maybe get a crying call from my draws. He could definately have played or A9, K9 (the hand he had also fits here) in the same way as since he is out of pos he may as well get it in now because his hand is still vulnerable. I think he could check call and lead the river with QQ as he is not afraid of any draws and should want to get my last 4500.

I also thought there was a chance he could check raise the turn on a bluff and maybe just cower and fold to the remaining min raise but that was very small and likely only if he thought I floated his small lead on the flop which I might have done before as I had call a lot of flops and bet when he checked the turns.

Either way, I think I played it fine and considering the depth of stacks and the lengthy heads-up I was okay with having 7 outs to win. Didn't work out but I played very well. 127th for about $130

The rest of the night went okay but I was not able to get much going besides a small cash in the Daily Double A. Overall I was only down $25 after cashing in $215 TDs.

A day of running below expected and a boat-load of tourneys. Happy that I was able to get this post in, it will hopefully help if I am able to discuss one thing a day.

Posted that last hand to P5's. Interested to see what they think.

http://www.pocketfives.com/f7/2nd-rd-miniftops-tonight-hu-analysis-611863/ 

November was a pretty decent Month

Considering the amount of time I put into playing in November, I would say it was a pretty good month. It was certainly the best month I have had in awhile. With a profit of $7374 playing low stakes multis and playing only 104 tournaments, this was a good result. I won 3 tournaments and finally won the midnight madness again (a tourney that I had crushed in the past but had recently not done so well in.
Here are some pictures of the results I had in November.

I spent the last two weeks getting a lot of family stuff done and have missed a great portion of the miniFTOPS. I am starting it back up again and hoping to make a strong finish to the year in preparation for a good run in 2011. I am in the middle of setting up my goals for the year but am running into some problems in projections. I am concerned that I will not be able to get enough volume in. Should I be offered a job, I would almost certainly take it as the longer I remain out of the job force the worse it looks on me. I will be finalizing my goals for 2011. This year was pretty slow and I played my lowest volume in the past 3 years but still managed to profit $29000 before subtractions for the short backing deal I did and $23500 after I gave up a cut.

Before the end of the year I will also go over the positives and negatives I had this year in poker. But the year is not done and I am still confident I can knock out a couple good scores before it is.