Slickity Says...

This is really weird for me.  I feel like I'm playing some of my best poker right now, just can't get the cards going.  Currently on a 60bi downswing in MTT.  20bi downswing in the 45/90 mans on FTP.  The only thing I can win is the $12/45s on stars but those wins are negligible compared to what I win in my regular games.  But a win is a win I guess.  But I digress....

Back to the awesome poker playing.  It seems like even though I've upped my tables from 4/5  to 7/9 I"m getting my money in good more often.  My bust outs are much more often coolers and suckouts instead of bad reads or bad plays leading to awkward stack sizes(something I've worked quite hard on).  Here is a sample HH from Sunday while 9 tabling:

Poker Stars No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t1000.00/t2000.00 Blinds - 8 players - View hand 711951
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: t77498.00 M = 25.83
Hero (BTN): t50238.00 M = 16.75
SB: t63385.00 M = 21.13
BB: t70158.00 M = 23.39
UTG: t48209.00 M = 16.07
UTG+1: t46667.00 M = 15.56
MP1: t43302.00 M = 14.43
MP2: t26536.00 M = 8.85

Pre Flop: (t3000) Hero is BTN with 8 8
5 folds, Hero raises to t5000, 1 fold, BB calls t3000

Flop: (t11000) 6 4 J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t6250.00, BB raises to t12500, Hero raises to t45038, BB calls t32538

Turn: (t101076) 4 (2 players)

River: (t101076) T (2 players)

Final Pot: t101076
Hero shows 8 8
BB shows 6 9
Hero wins t102676.00
(Rake: t-1600)

Me and villain had recent history of aggression.  I'd say easily 2 -3 times in the last two orbits.  I knew he was check raising this flop pretty close to 100% w/ any piece and would at least flat w/ any overs.  Generally he was getting kinda creative w/ his raise sizes when he had something good.  On his min raise I was dead set on him having mid pair or bottom pair.  So it comes how to get the most?  Given stacks and how aggro our history I figured a shove would look pretty spewy/bluffy and he'd level himself in to the hero call.  It worked great.  The weird thing about this is that I was able to properly decipher the 2nd / 3rd level thinking of a $5 MTTer when I'm generally playing 26 - 55s.  This is also something that I've had to work on, just because the stars micro tournies are so soft and often times have great prize pools.  1st place in this one was $49xx.xx.  I finished 58/6171 w/ AK < AQ followed by AK < 66.  Which is the nature of the beast I suppose.

With the insane variance I've had through the MTTs even over a fairly small sample, I realize that 100-150 abi is NOT enough to sustain play through a downswing.  I'm going to challenge myself here to only play the 45/90 mans for at least the rest of the month, where I'm averaging 30%+ ROI and have seen my SNG graph go on a pretty much 45* line up.  Even though I'm pretty sure if I was playing cash games through this stretch I'd probably be up a considerable amount.  But playing 100bbs or 200bbs deep ALL THE TIME is pretty dull to me.

“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.” - Bruce "The Dragon" Lee