March 25, 2008 Update
The challenge is over! Last Wednesday, March 19, 2008 marks the day that my PokerStars account hit $0.00 and 7 FPP points. It was a fun ride which peaked at $400+ and ended with a losing streak that stretched over 20 tournaments without a cash. I'd like to thank those that chose to ride along and read the blog (Mondo and the good folks at PokerinColorado).
I quite enjoy the blogging so I will continue to do so. Perhaps it's time to change the title to something more suitable and make this a place to blog about my poker live play as well as online play. Look for a new title description to come soon.
The good news is that I still enjoy playing online and loaded my account Friday with a whole $10, the minimum rebuy. I also purchased some playing chips on FullTiltPoker as well ($100). My play at FullTilt was horrible and I ended up playing in $10+ tournaments with no success. The daily doubles was a fun tournament, but I could get nothing going and ended up busting from both tournaments. The KO tournaments are fun as well and I actually made a little money in one of them and KO'd 6 people. Always nice to make it to the final table on basically a freeroll. In the end, I ended up blowing the majority of my $100 buyin on FullTilt.
The PokerStars roll was on fire though. I played in a 4/180 and squeaked into the money for a $8 payday. Nothing great, but at least the BR was up to $14+. I decided that single table sit-n-go's seemed to work well with my game. Played about 5 of these and placed in all 5 including 2 wins. Then I decided to up the limits to the $5 sit-n-go's with similar success. Now with a little padding in the BR I buy into another 4/180. My play is decent and I'm pretty much at the chip average throughout the entire tournament. Finally we get down to the final table and I am 8th in chips. I get 56 sooted in the BB and all fold to the button who doubles the bet. SB calls and I call. Flop comes 556 and gets checked to the button who goes all in. SB folds, I insta-call with my boat. Button flips over AA and comments on my lousy call. I laugh as his mediocre raise was just asking for a call. There were antes in the pot and his small raise did not give me enough reason to fold. A raise of 4x the BB would have been reasonable and got me off the hand. This pot puts me in good position and a few hands later, the monster pot. I am dealt J-10 sooted and limp. All 6 remaining players call. The flop is Q-8-3 and two clubs. I am in middle position and it's checked, I check and both players to my left check. Turn brings the 9 completing my straight and giving me the nuts. I bet out 3/4 of the pot. player to my left smooth calls and late position player raises all-in and has us both covered. Rest of the players muck and I insta-call to show strength and hopefully get the guy to my left to fold a flush or straight draw. Player goes into the tank and eventually calls. Player to my left shows 88 for a flopped set and late position player shows 99 for a turned set. Wow! I'm relieved to see no club draw and that each player basically has taken a few outs from the ability to pair the board. River brings a club but no pair giving me the outright chip lead. I thought the play by the player with the set of 8's was very poor due to the pot being plenty big already and checking down the flop to give the rest of us a free draw. Almost any bet in his position would have taken down the pot. Luckily, he did not play this way and allowed myself and the other player to catch the miracle card to beat him and in my case hit the nuts. I take out the next 4 players to make us heads up to where I have a huge lead over my opponent with about 200k to his 50k. This player is very tight and lays down almost all hands to my minimum raises, but then when he's about gone, he doubles up to stay alive. This goes on for about 30 minutes and it is now 4:30 AM Sunday morning. I am tired and try to offer him a deal at the break offering him $20 extra for second place. He seems to ignore my offers, but wants to chat it up about his play and other tournaments that he will be playing. He was from Sydney, not sure of the time frame there, but perhaps it was the afternoon for him. Twenty more minutes go by and at one point I have him down to 23k, but he doubles up again and we repeat the process all over. Usually I have the patience to wait it out and let the blinds do their job and eventually win the tournament, but I cannot stay awake any longer and just decide to push every hand. This works for the first 3 or 4 hands then he calls. He doubles up 3 hands in a row and takes me out in second place. I did receive $142 for my second place finish, but lost out on another $74 by not being patient.
Now my single table sit-n-go play has been the major factor. Over the last few days this is about all I've been playing with the occasional MTT tournament. My Sharkscope has been peaking and my total profit is above $200. My stakes have increased to $10 sit-n-go's to where I have had great success. I did try to move to $27 sit-n-go's to where I did not fare as well. Perhaps it was the turbo structure and I should attempt the $20 tables. I exited the tournament just out of the money.
Now with all this sit-n-go fun, it was time to try a few "6 steps to the WSOP". I start out great in step 1 and move on to step 2. I just miss the top 2 in step 2 and get a token to play step 2 again to where I get AQ against AK and go out early. A few more tries at step 1 and I give up with a loss and 5th place $1.50 cash. This is a great way to get to the ME and even cashing at step 6 is profitable with $500 being paid for 6th place. I will definitely try more of these in the near future,but I do wish that they were normally structured and not turbo.
Well the freeroll may be over but I am lucky enough to turn my first $10 buyin into $200+. We'll see how my new strategy will fare. Good luck on the virtual felt all!
The challenge is over! Last Wednesday, March 19, 2008 marks the day that my PokerStars account hit $0.00 and 7 FPP points. It was a fun ride which peaked at $400+ and ended with a losing streak that stretched over 20 tournaments without a cash. I'd like to thank those that chose to ride along and read the blog (Mondo and the good folks at PokerinColorado).
I quite enjoy the blogging so I will continue to do so. Perhaps it's time to change the title to something more suitable and make this a place to blog about my poker live play as well as online play. Look for a new title description to come soon.
The good news is that I still enjoy playing online and loaded my account Friday with a whole $10, the minimum rebuy. I also purchased some playing chips on FullTiltPoker as well ($100). My play at FullTilt was horrible and I ended up playing in $10+ tournaments with no success. The daily doubles was a fun tournament, but I could get nothing going and ended up busting from both tournaments. The KO tournaments are fun as well and I actually made a little money in one of them and KO'd 6 people. Always nice to make it to the final table on basically a freeroll. In the end, I ended up blowing the majority of my $100 buyin on FullTilt.
The PokerStars roll was on fire though. I played in a 4/180 and squeaked into the money for a $8 payday. Nothing great, but at least the BR was up to $14+. I decided that single table sit-n-go's seemed to work well with my game. Played about 5 of these and placed in all 5 including 2 wins. Then I decided to up the limits to the $5 sit-n-go's with similar success. Now with a little padding in the BR I buy into another 4/180. My play is decent and I'm pretty much at the chip average throughout the entire tournament. Finally we get down to the final table and I am 8th in chips. I get 56 sooted in the BB and all fold to the button who doubles the bet. SB calls and I call. Flop comes 556 and gets checked to the button who goes all in. SB folds, I insta-call with my boat. Button flips over AA and comments on my lousy call. I laugh as his mediocre raise was just asking for a call. There were antes in the pot and his small raise did not give me enough reason to fold. A raise of 4x the BB would have been reasonable and got me off the hand. This pot puts me in good position and a few hands later, the monster pot. I am dealt J-10 sooted and limp. All 6 remaining players call. The flop is Q-8-3 and two clubs. I am in middle position and it's checked, I check and both players to my left check. Turn brings the 9 completing my straight and giving me the nuts. I bet out 3/4 of the pot. player to my left smooth calls and late position player raises all-in and has us both covered. Rest of the players muck and I insta-call to show strength and hopefully get the guy to my left to fold a flush or straight draw. Player goes into the tank and eventually calls. Player to my left shows 88 for a flopped set and late position player shows 99 for a turned set. Wow! I'm relieved to see no club draw and that each player basically has taken a few outs from the ability to pair the board. River brings a club but no pair giving me the outright chip lead. I thought the play by the player with the set of 8's was very poor due to the pot being plenty big already and checking down the flop to give the rest of us a free draw. Almost any bet in his position would have taken down the pot. Luckily, he did not play this way and allowed myself and the other player to catch the miracle card to beat him and in my case hit the nuts. I take out the next 4 players to make us heads up to where I have a huge lead over my opponent with about 200k to his 50k. This player is very tight and lays down almost all hands to my minimum raises, but then when he's about gone, he doubles up to stay alive. This goes on for about 30 minutes and it is now 4:30 AM Sunday morning. I am tired and try to offer him a deal at the break offering him $20 extra for second place. He seems to ignore my offers, but wants to chat it up about his play and other tournaments that he will be playing. He was from Sydney, not sure of the time frame there, but perhaps it was the afternoon for him. Twenty more minutes go by and at one point I have him down to 23k, but he doubles up again and we repeat the process all over. Usually I have the patience to wait it out and let the blinds do their job and eventually win the tournament, but I cannot stay awake any longer and just decide to push every hand. This works for the first 3 or 4 hands then he calls. He doubles up 3 hands in a row and takes me out in second place. I did receive $142 for my second place finish, but lost out on another $74 by not being patient.
Now my single table sit-n-go play has been the major factor. Over the last few days this is about all I've been playing with the occasional MTT tournament. My Sharkscope has been peaking and my total profit is above $200. My stakes have increased to $10 sit-n-go's to where I have had great success. I did try to move to $27 sit-n-go's to where I did not fare as well. Perhaps it was the turbo structure and I should attempt the $20 tables. I exited the tournament just out of the money.
Now with all this sit-n-go fun, it was time to try a few "6 steps to the WSOP". I start out great in step 1 and move on to step 2. I just miss the top 2 in step 2 and get a token to play step 2 again to where I get AQ against AK and go out early. A few more tries at step 1 and I give up with a loss and 5th place $1.50 cash. This is a great way to get to the ME and even cashing at step 6 is profitable with $500 being paid for 6th place. I will definitely try more of these in the near future,but I do wish that they were normally structured and not turbo.
Well the freeroll may be over but I am lucky enough to turn my first $10 buyin into $200+. We'll see how my new strategy will fare. Good luck on the virtual felt all!
I figure that shouldn't take long at all with the way you're beating them. You strike me as having a strong SNG mentality, and you should be able to crush these things for mad mobnies, but the key is staying within your roll.
BTW, your margins are still kinda goofy on the blog. ;-) (I read via Google Reader, so I can actually read it fine)
Thanks for pointing this out Mondo!
I am going to wait before moving up to the $20 SNGs (Wow, this acronym will make my blogging MUCH easier) but I will most likely continue with the $10 SNGs as I am a gambler and ignore all BR management. :-]