no personal touches, no stretching it out, no wavering voice, nothing but the anthem the way it is meant to sound. It was a beautiful performance.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Just won a tourney for about $7k. Played 6 tournaments on Merge today with VIP points that I had saved up. Made two final tables, finishing 9th in the first and winning the second. The second tournament was a pretty tough final table with only a couple of players that weren't really solid. And those guys were simply playing very very tight and winning all of their shoves. So stacks got shallow pretty quick and the big stacks were definitely picking on people. Eventually though a good player busted, and then the nit. At that point I was 3rd in chips and relatively low. I had been stealing and restealing some, but I couldn't go crazy because I knew the nit would bust and waiting him out was worth about $700. So when he busted I was able to reship a Q8s from the SB and the BTN called with K9o and I won the race. After that I was successfully stealing and then busted him when he shipped into my BB and my A9o held over his K8o.
The HU match was pretty tough as this guy clearly knew what he was doing and was stealing and restealing and fighting for pots. I was borrowing from a HU strategy Dr Giggy wrote in his blog last year that he and Jon Duhamel settled on before last year's WSOP Main Event final table. It included limping a range of hands, and minraising a range of hands as long as we had over 30bb. When we got under 30bb I shifted to a minraise or shove strategy, although throughout I was restealing with both shoves and small 3bets. I was a little surprised that none of my 3bets got called or reshipped on, since this player had been very aggressive in restealing earlier in the tournament. I'm pretty sure I shipped over his first 3bet, and after that he made most of his 3bets a shove.
Anyway both of us are shipping chips back and forth but I finally get a little of a lead on him and then I run 99 into JJ and he's got the chiplead. A few hands after that I reship J8s for a little over 20bb and he snaps with A8o, but I bink a J on the turn to suckout and retake the chiplead. After that I was fairly successful in chipping away at him even though he was shipping enough to stay afloat. I did end up running one ill timed bluff when I floped the nut flush draw in an 8high flop, turned a gutter, and barreled a 9 river before getting c/shoved on. That briefly gave him back the chip lead, but again I was able to steal and resteal back into the chip lead. Eventually he shipped his BTN with T7o for about 13bb when I had 30bb and I called with 33, floped a set, and won the tournament.
that was that. A nice score that gives my bankroll a much needed boost. This will allow me to comfortably mix in more 2/4 and 3/6 games along with the 1/2 that I'm regularly grinding.
hope everyone had a nice weekend.
later
jim
The HU match was pretty tough as this guy clearly knew what he was doing and was stealing and restealing and fighting for pots. I was borrowing from a HU strategy Dr Giggy wrote in his blog last year that he and Jon Duhamel settled on before last year's WSOP Main Event final table. It included limping a range of hands, and minraising a range of hands as long as we had over 30bb. When we got under 30bb I shifted to a minraise or shove strategy, although throughout I was restealing with both shoves and small 3bets. I was a little surprised that none of my 3bets got called or reshipped on, since this player had been very aggressive in restealing earlier in the tournament. I'm pretty sure I shipped over his first 3bet, and after that he made most of his 3bets a shove.
Anyway both of us are shipping chips back and forth but I finally get a little of a lead on him and then I run 99 into JJ and he's got the chiplead. A few hands after that I reship J8s for a little over 20bb and he snaps with A8o, but I bink a J on the turn to suckout and retake the chiplead. After that I was fairly successful in chipping away at him even though he was shipping enough to stay afloat. I did end up running one ill timed bluff when I floped the nut flush draw in an 8high flop, turned a gutter, and barreled a 9 river before getting c/shoved on. That briefly gave him back the chip lead, but again I was able to steal and resteal back into the chip lead. Eventually he shipped his BTN with T7o for about 13bb when I had 30bb and I called with 33, floped a set, and won the tournament.
that was that. A nice score that gives my bankroll a much needed boost. This will allow me to comfortably mix in more 2/4 and 3/6 games along with the 1/2 that I'm regularly grinding.
hope everyone had a nice weekend.
later
jim
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Baby Steps
When you're finally getting back into the grind and trying to work off some rust that is usually when the poker gods decide to smack you with the variance stick. Not that I have been playing my best lately, but the fact is I've played some pretty good poker to be losing money hand over fist this month.
But since I'm keeping considerably less online right now the losses seem to hurt even more. It's no fun to lose 7-8 BIs and drop half of your account balance. But that is precisely what has happened to me earlier in the week on a site I was playing PLO on. Similarly my NLHE efforts had mostly been a lot of running in place due to some runbad at 2/4 and 3/6 and some all-in EV not going my way.
But today after a coaching session and a little break I sat down and grinded out 3 hours of A game poker. I think I only made one bad decision where I shoved KK pf against a nit when I didn't realize we were 200bb deep. I should have just flatted his 3bet and played postflop IP. Other than that I think I played well. Graph is pretty much all NL200 with a couple tables of NL400 and a table of NL600. I lost at 3/6, won at 2/4, but did nearly all my work at 1/2.
I know it's not impressive like some of the big wins I've had in the past. Heck I didn't even win 10 BIs for the day. But I needed this kind of affirmation that I can still play the game properly. My confidence and mental approach have been sorely lacking lately, and I think it's resulted in a lot of spew and hopeful play (both pf and at the river). Hoping is not a good strategy when playing poker.
Here's hoping the poker gods decide to smile on me a little longer and I can keep it going through the weekend.
jim
But since I'm keeping considerably less online right now the losses seem to hurt even more. It's no fun to lose 7-8 BIs and drop half of your account balance. But that is precisely what has happened to me earlier in the week on a site I was playing PLO on. Similarly my NLHE efforts had mostly been a lot of running in place due to some runbad at 2/4 and 3/6 and some all-in EV not going my way.
But today after a coaching session and a little break I sat down and grinded out 3 hours of A game poker. I think I only made one bad decision where I shoved KK pf against a nit when I didn't realize we were 200bb deep. I should have just flatted his 3bet and played postflop IP. Other than that I think I played well. Graph is pretty much all NL200 with a couple tables of NL400 and a table of NL600. I lost at 3/6, won at 2/4, but did nearly all my work at 1/2.
I know it's not impressive like some of the big wins I've had in the past. Heck I didn't even win 10 BIs for the day. But I needed this kind of affirmation that I can still play the game properly. My confidence and mental approach have been sorely lacking lately, and I think it's resulted in a lot of spew and hopeful play (both pf and at the river). Hoping is not a good strategy when playing poker.
Here's hoping the poker gods decide to smile on me a little longer and I can keep it going through the weekend.
jim
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
plo is fun but ridiculous
just played for 7 hours and ended up down 7BI. effing gross. I'm learning the game and actually feel like I played decent considering I finished with a W$SD figure of 37%. That means that I barely won a third of the hands that I showed down. Now I certainly made some bad calls and got some money in bad when I was overdrawn or one time when a maniac fish repped the nuts and I just didn't believe him. But when your EV for the session was to win a little over a BI and you ended up losing 7 there just isn't much you can do.
the upside of playing PLO is that I find it interesting and the games are unbelievably fishy. The downside is that I'm not very good yet and I'm running like dog shit. I think I'm going to stick to PLO at the beginning of the week and NLHE on the weekends. See if it keeps me grinding serious hours.
That's all for now. Hope other people are running and playing better than me.
later
jim
the upside of playing PLO is that I find it interesting and the games are unbelievably fishy. The downside is that I'm not very good yet and I'm running like dog shit. I think I'm going to stick to PLO at the beginning of the week and NLHE on the weekends. See if it keeps me grinding serious hours.
That's all for now. Hope other people are running and playing better than me.
later
jim
Monday, October 10, 2011
back and looking forward to the fall grind
Back from a two week trip that was half vacation and half visit with family (with a wedding thrown in). Played two hours of PLO today and won a couple of BIs so that was a nice welcome back. Looking forward to getting my grind on this month to clear a lot of new bonuses I have on various sites.
Going to watch some baseball with the wife and some friends since it's her last day on vacation. Also need to get out in the 80F weather here since that is soon to change.
hope everyone has had a good start to the month. will be posting more often soon.
later
pizzle
Going to watch some baseball with the wife and some friends since it's her last day on vacation. Also need to get out in the 80F weather here since that is soon to change.
hope everyone has had a good start to the month. will be posting more often soon.
later
pizzle
Monday, October 3, 2011
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