The day started out pretty slow. Since the first of the year I had no final tables and had been putting in twice the volume than normal. I was really actually torn about whether to play anymore once the 4:22pm double-deuce was over. I had played and busted from all of my first 11 or so tournaments and felt pretty dejected about the whole thing. Sundays have normally been good days for me and just from my experiences on that day (I was playing well but just running below expected), I felt like it might be a good idea to take the rest of the day off and join the family for dinner. However, since Sundays are the juiciest for most varieties of poker, I thought it would be best to stick it out and register in the evening stuff as well.
I played everything from 6pm to midnight as well as a bunch of smaller buy-in, non-guaranteed tournaments.(For those who don't know - most tournaments have a guaranteed prize-pool that encourages a larger amount of people to sign up for it so they can play for its larger top prizes). As midnight came around, I still found myself in 4 tournaments and pretty deep in two of them (7pm superstack and $3rebuy). I was doing well in chips and as usual in the lower stakes, I am by far the best player left. The first place prizes were pretty decent and anything that I see that is over $2500 is definitely worth playing for. With the Sunday-sized fields, I was pretty pleased with the first place prizes for $11 and less buy-ins.
For the most part, online MTTs show quite a high variance (Even with my low $2000 bankroll I go on swings as much as down $1000 before I win again and as seen the first week into the year being down $450+) and the luck factor is largely the same for most with the exception of the superstacked tournaments. Full Tilt runs 3 superstack tournaments: 930am, 1pm and 7pm. These tournaments provide so much play that if I am able to get deep in one of them wiht 40+bbs, I am a big favourite to take it down.
Side note, for the deep stack tournaments many adjustments have to be made to playing styles if you play similarly to myself early. My style is to play tight early and wait for the blinds to go up and antes start. Once that happens, I play a lot more aggressively in position and am able to mix it up a lot more. Since for the first hour you are 100bbs deep, I only play AKo and any pair from pos and KQ, A10 or better and any pair from late position. What this allows you to do is get a feel for the table while also avoiding unnecessary deepstack play out of position with weaker hands.
So as I am getting into the money in these two tournaments, all the others are finished, its about 2am and I am near the chip lead in both. At this point I am feeling pretty confident. I have pretty good ideas on how everyone at my table is playing. I am in 4/27 in the Superstack and 1/19 in the $3 rebuy. As the tables break and get shorthanded again, I begin to run over everyone. I don't use a heads-up display or poker tracker so I am not sure how many hands I won in the span from 3 tables to the finish, but I am pretty sure it is about 40%. It got to the point where people were talking to me, saying: "You can't have it everytime" and trying to encourage others to step in and take me on. With my big chips and my ability to see who wants to make the final table more than take a chance, I am able to accumulate chips and fold trouble hands with the idea that I can outplay people so much that I don't need to take a chance by getting into races. I am folding AQ, JJ and smaller pairs. i even check call twice and get a check back on the river with QQ to an allin player with a side pot versus 99 when the 99 had me slightly covered because I know the value of making the final table and outplaying these weaker players. Now don't get me wrong, I did have to call some allins and for the most part I ran well in those spots. I did win a pretty big pot that catapulted me to the final table of the superstack.
Int he hand I was utg+2 with 26 players left. I had the chip lead with 1.2 million and a player utg raised 4x (I was pretty sure from his 4x raise that he had a big hand - he had around 600k). He had raised to around 40k and I have KK and because of his raise size, just call. A player with about 14bbs behind goes allin and he isolates for his whole 600k after very little thought. Now, I am not saying that I won't ever fold KK preflop (I have done it twice in mtts but both much earlier in the tournament), but considering the stacks sizes and the fact that I have totally undervalued my hand here, I have to call because he could be doing it with so many other hands (AK, QQ,JJ, 1010, AQ maybe). I call and he shows AA. The other player had 1010. The board comes out 910J two diamonds (I have the Kd - he has no d). The turn is gin Qd and he is drawing only to a K. The river is the Ad and I take down a huge pot. Now I would not have been out if I had lost but I had a final table stack with 26 players left, so I was in a good spot.
Even though it was for low stakes, it was kind of cool to see the two final tables right next to each other and at this point I was already counting the money. We were 3 handed on the $3 rebuy and down to 9 in the superstack.
After starting the rebuy final table slow I was still able to raise and steal so many blinds that I was able to absorb the 3 big races I lost at before any players were eliminated. i did win two allins with a smaller ace all-in preflop to bring me to chip leader with 4 players to go. After one of the players began to come back in the tournament and was right on my heels, something weird happened. His internet cut out and he was sitting on away mode with 3million in chips! Immediately to my right and the two other players shortstacked, I would get he benefit of stealing his BB and getting walks from him when I was in the BB. I thought I would leverage the other players to get blinded out until they made a stand and eventually get headsup with a dead stack.
Now this, I think is a question of ethics. Should I ever feel bad for this fella having his internet disconnect and as such, play slower? I don't think I can afford to. With the other players at the table in such a difficult position, I think I have to say too bad to him and really put the pressure on the others. Surprisingly they fought back quite a bit and I ended up doubling them each up on a race in which i lost both. The away player came back and seemed pretty tilted. Though he had a normal stack, he quickly donated his 1.8million that was left to me and I was 3 handed with 6 of the 10million in play. I did my normal raising and the third player went out shortly after when I sucked out for a 2.5million chip pot with a8 vs AJ. Headsup was going to be quick. I had him 6million to 2million and I hoped to win it all when we got allin on a J57 board. He had QJ and I had 68. I bricked and he talked deal. The break down was 1st - $2992 2nd- $1843. So with even stacks we decided to play for $100 and split it around $2400 each. I was okay with this. I had yet to win the other tournament and with the blinds pretty big (35bbs each) I thought it was okay to secure some extra funds. I tookdown the heads-up in short order and banked almost $2500 for that win* (partial chop).
The superstack took much longer but I found even less resistance. I went into beast mode and was taking down every blind til we were 3handed. With a first place prize of $5476, I was pumped to take it down. 3 handed I about 6milion in chips and second place 5million, 3rd 1.5million. I was playing very aggressively and knew that the third place player wanted to move up in payouts as he barely played any hands and did not have much success in his previous cashes. It came to a hand 3 handed that set up the rest of the tournament.
In the SB I picked up Kd5s and after the button (1.5m) folded, I limped for 25000 to complete the 25k-50k 10k ante blinds. The BB (5m) raised to 150k. I thought about it and called as he had raised a decent amount of time and I was able to outplay him on flops. The flop came down Ad5h4d. i check and he bet 225k. This is a pretty auto-cbet so I call with my mid pair and backdoor flush draw. The turn is the 7d, putting 3 diamonds on the board and giving me a pair and the nut flush draw. I lead for 425k into a 880k pot. He thinks and calls. The is the 2d giving me the nuts (other than 34d for straight flush- I put this out of his range needless to say). With the pot at 1.7million. I bet 1.020m and expect to get calls from any diamond 9 or 10high and raised by only a bluff and maybe the Qd. He thinks and then shoves for his remaining 4.2m. I think for a second or two but can't fold ofcourse. I call and he shows QsQd for the second nut flush. I take a massive 11.5m to 1.5m chip lead into headsup.
The first hand of heads-up I limp with 59o and he checks. The flop comes down 257all spades and he open shoves for 1.4m. I think about it and with 9s I call. He shows J7o and no spade. I get superlucky and turn another 5 to win the tournament. A great feeling to get this done on the same night.
A total profit of $7625.83 on the day and my first $5k+ cash of the year. Things are looking up! With my total profit above $7k in the first 10 days, I am happy to see how the rest of the year goes!
I did end up joining Tournamentpokeredge.com and was able to listen to a couple of their MTT podcast discussions while I played. I was able to pick up some good ideas and I think for the most part my weakness is playing too tight in the midstages with a medium stack. I will still be looking to pump out over 2500 MTTS this year and I think I'll be able to keep that pace going. Overall, Great start to the year!
