Buffyslayer1 - trials and tribulations of a low stakes grinder

WOW

What a month for online poker, obviously the world was shocked by the news of Stars, FTP and AP/UB.
For those living under a rock you can pick up most of the details from these links -

DOJ screws US

Well during this time I was actually on a business trip to china, hence my pitiful volume this month and I didn't really understand the impact of what was going on (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, E-mail, Forums all are restricted in china)

One good thing did happen whilst I was out there, my friend Dieter also known (in)famously on 2+2 as Duerdy also happened to be in Hong Kong the same time as me on a business trip. Coincidentally he is a buyer in Holland (I am a buyer if you didn't know) and he was on a similar sourcing trip

So we decided to meet up and hop over to Macau which is the Vegas of Asia. So after a bit if back and forth we opted to stay there the night in a really sweet hotel, the grand hyatt. Which had really good facilities and web.

rest is at buffyslayer1

So I finally shipped a 11 rebuy weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

This MTT along with the 3 re buy, daily 40k and the daily 90k are the ones I have always really wanted to win.

It was a pretty fun MTT, and I played pretty well except one epic misclick where I jammed 100bb in a limped pot on the flop that I checked in the small blind, big blind bets pot and mid position limper flats and I jam with no FE.

Somehow they both folded lol and I got lucky that this didn't cost me huge. A few other small mistakes which I was not happy about, and one in particular when head up where I made a 3 bet way to small.

The final 2 tables were pretty tough and every time I opened the only 2 decent players who were big stacks and to my left made my life hell. Pretty sure I missed a 4 bet jam spot as well when deep with them.

rest is at buffyslayer1

Well I seem to have a issue with this. I don't know what the F it is, but I have made 5 final tables, 4 final 2 tables and around 15 top 50 finishes this month.

I seem to have a mental problem closing for some reason when it gets down to the last 50 players or so. I have read a couple of articles and listen to a podcast which talks about the mental aspect a bit (something I have never really thought about).

A couple of practical suggestions seem to have helped over the last few days. One is don't look at the lobby when your deep. I realised I am somewhat obsessive about checking the lobby when super deep.

I always thought I did it to see where the next payout jump was or how close we are to the FT to be able to put pressure on players etc. Thinking about it's probably unconsciously damaging my chances.

cross post rest is at buffyslayer1

So I accepted the backing deal I alluded to in my last blog post. It's early days and its going quite well to start with.

The freedom associated with not having to worry constantly about BR just allows me to play in MTTs that I am +ev in.
With this plus some extra volume and a couple of realisations about my game means I am playing well and going deep again like I should.

Since we agreed the deal I have made 7 top 50 finishes and one final table already in 3 days. Yesterday (18th Feb) I made the final 2 tables in the stars 4 cubed, 5k guarantee and 10k guarantee. Plus I final tables the FTP super stack $18k guarantee as well.

Whilst playing I also came to a couple of realisations of minor leaks that had that had appeared in my game but I had not realised and are not hugely obvious imo.

I guess in the main I owe these to a training vid I watched by Alex 'assainanto' Fitzgerald. Its a pretty basic video available at poker pwnage.com. (Where I renewed my sub for a month just to see my backers vids as he just became a site pro)

for the rest see buffyslayer

latest blog is up - cross post to DC

So I am in back in the MTT grove for sure, but not exactly killing it.

I had a session with a DC pro (Daaaaaaaang) just to do a check and tune up really on my game, make sure I haven't sprung up some big leaks.

A couple of small things came up, mostly around betting to big in a few spots (cash game habit) but, overall he loved my game (heard that a ton still haven't shipped huge though :D) and put it down to variance and then offered me a backing deal :)

IDK I still wasn't feeling to great about me game, no deep runs at all really despite some reasonable (for me Mr low volume).
In fact i struggled to find some HH that I went deep in to go through.....

http://buffyslayer1.blogspot.com/  for the rest

hey all

This is not a huge update pokerwise (though it wont stop a huge essay!), part of the reason for the lack of updates is that I have barely played since November.

My 9-5 job is taking up a lot more than 9-5, my daughter is growing up fast (we had her first birthday yesterday already). I have been pretty unwell through most of December and with the Xmas holidays barely played.

So when I have played its been kinda bad as well, I am basically break even for the last 2 months though that is only about 20k hands in total. I moved across first to i poker to take advantage of rakeback with victor chandler, I did pretty well on i poker.
But, the skin moved across to Entraction and man does it suck. The main reason is the software, its just so bad. No timebank, no selecting seat, no hot keys or scripts, the layout of the table is terrible and your HUD can't fit on it, worst of all if you get heads up on a Full ring or 6 max table then the software has a glitch which means the BB and btn are the wrong way round.

cross post the rest at

http://buffyslayer1.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

well i blog already via blogger

so I am gonna link this blog to that (mods hope this is ok)

http://buffyslayer1.blogspot.com/

i have quite a few posts from when I first started with ambiitions to play mtts for a living (lol me) to my swtich to cash due to time pressures....