A Place To Spew

I don't really play that many tournaments (although that was how I started at poker initially), but I decided to play a new tourney at a local casino recently. Actually, I don't think I've played a tourney in about 10 months. The last one I played I didn't blog about, but was during the WSOP when I played a few daily deep stack tourneys and placed 54th/874 in one of them.

The casino here used to have a 1 day deep stack tourney every month. Buy-in is $340 and you start with 20,000 chips at 25/50 with 30 minute levels. They changed this to make it a 2 day event, with 2 day 1s. So it played like this:

• Friday - Day 1a (142 entries)
• Saturday - Day 1b (100 entries)
• Sunday - Final Day (24 players left)

The great thing is that they allow re-buys up to level 4 on both days. If you play Day 1a and bust several times, you can do the same thing again on Day 1b. The top 10% from Day 1a make it on to the final day and the top 10% from Day 1b move on to the final day. Anybody who makes the final day is in the money.

Allowing the re-buys on both days creates a lot of dead money. There are a number of reasons I think this structure creates a lot of value for a skilled player:

• Bad players re-buy and re-buy again and may even try the next Day 1.
• Tight players sit back and wait for hands to double up or collect chips (since this starting stack is about double their normal tournaments). This is a fine strategy in the early stages of the tourney and will get them towards the middle stages, but when the antes are introduced they do not change strategies and just blind down and ante away. Effectively, the reckless players give their money to the tight players early, who in turn give it to the skilled players in the middle stages.
• Besides the actual tournament configuration, most of the local live players are basic cash game players at best, and generally have no idea how to adjust to blind levels or play a 3-bet pot.

When we made Day 2 the blind levels were extremely high, but they great thing was that they rolled back the blind levels a bunch for us to have a decent amount of play starting Day 2 (otherwise it would have been a shovefest).

Anyway, I ended up making the final table. First place was $18K. At the table were 4 players just waiting for aces and sitting relatively short. I considered myself and 3 other players to be around the same competency and then there was 1 other player that was average. I really expected to end up in the top 5, but as tournaments go, two unexpected hands and I'm out.

1. I flopped the nuts with T7s on 689r board and induced a shove from an aggressive player. He had QJs and hit the 3 outter on the turn.
   
2. Blind vs blind I got it in with JJ vs 66 and lost to a flush.

I was disappointed with busting as I was playing really well and felt I had an edge over most of the other players. I placed 8th out of 242 entries for $2400, but was really gunning for 1st. I'm thinking about playing these more often though.

I came a little short on my January goals. I was on pace, but we lost Internet at our house for a week.

January Results:

• Play 5k hands. I played 3.6K hands with a meh win rate of 2bb/100.
• Read 2 poker books. I read "Poker Perspectives" by Owen Gains and "The Intelligent Poker Player" by Philip Newall.

I've really enjoyed Owen's other books and this one was good as well, but it was more of an overall opinion piece, which I guess shouldn't be surprising based on the title.

The Intelligent Poker Player is more of a limit hold'em book. Going into the book I didn't realize this. That being said I did find it interesting, but I really enjoyed the later part of the book much more than the beginning.

Haven't posted in a while, standard. Let's move on shall we. 2012. Bam, that came quick.

January Goals:

• Play 5k hands.
• Read 2 poker books.

• Make $15K in poker, part time.

Well I didn't post an update in March because I basically didn't play any hands at all. I figured I would just wait until the end of April and post for both months. A lot has happened in this period (Black Friday obv).

• Review 2 DC vids. Done in April.
  
• Do some flop texture analysis study (3 hours). Done in April.
  
• Play 7K hands. Played 7,251 hands in March & April.
  
• Play focused poker. Yes, except for my biggest losing day ever.

Like I mentioned in March I didn't play. In April I did more active work on my game. I jumped and dropped in stakes while working with some new ideas. It was a bit of a rollercoaster mixing in a few new things. I had the biggest losing day of my life when I jumped up stakes at one point. I was thoroughly getting out played, responding to the increased aggression in the wrong ways, and running terrible (which also triggered the worst tilt session I have had in a long time). I really can't make excuses as I should have quit the game since I was getting crushing and playing bad. I don't really feel like posting my losing day graph as it is embarrassing. I'll post my 100NL graph though, which are the normal stakes I play at. It shows that I was up over 13 buy-ins. Despite this I am still down a few buy ins for the month.

 
The reason I jumped up on that awful day was actually a direct result of the dreaded Black Friday. I normally play rush poker and immediately after black friday found the games at my normal stakes to be particularly soft - it was because it seemed all the regs were gone and all that was left were the fish. This seemed too good to be true... well it was. A few days later I logged on to play and the game wasn't even running. wtf? Everybody had dropped down or moved up. Well I didn't want to drop down, so I moved up. What I didn't realize at the time was that only the best players had stayed at the higher stakes to play and all the fish I was crushing earlier had moved back down or were gone... and that is where I proceeded TO BE the fish. Oh well, I put that in the live-and-learn category. Since then I have been slowly grinding back. I took a bit of break to cool down and played some live sessions.

Live Play
Results of the few live 1/2 sessions at the local casino:

• 3 hours +$115
  
• 4 hours +$630
  
• 2 hours +$295
  
• 2 hours +$100

Total = 11 hours +$1140

I always used to read on forums about people knocking live play. I guess I don't ever really understand why. The game is very easy to consistently beat if you can adjust with the game flow. The conditions are quite different that Internet play, but if you can read a bit of body language and observe patterns and tendencies, any thinking adjusting player should be a massive favorite. Really just follow a few simple rules:

• Value bet calling stations
  
• Only play 2 pair or better in limped pots that get big
  
• Have patience - massive positive expected value spots will come
  
• Let bluffers bluff off their stacks
  
• Bluff only the thinking players that can fold, and not too often
  

May goals
May is going to be very busy, so i don't expect much on the poker-goal front. I have a number of very large projects for work due before I leave for the Sasquatch music festival and then Vegas for most of the WSOP. I also have to study and write a certification exam for work and spend some time with my girlfriend before I leave for a month. 

The time I do put into poker will likely be more used for reading and video watching to work on my game away from the tables. I have been reading a book called The 80/20 Rule based on the Pareto principle. It is a rule I have always believed in, but have been reminded of lately. Hopefully by putting in the 20% work before Vegas can reap 80% more rewards.

February Goals:

• Play 15K hands. Only played 3.2K
• Review 2 DC vids. Didn't get time for any.
• Do 2 coaching sessions. Had to reschedule.
• Improve my showdown winnings by 10% from January. I probably declined 10% from January.

Overall February was a terrible month for poker progress. A number of other things ended up occuping my time and I really didn't put any time into playing, learning, or improving. Not only that, but when I didn't play I was in the wrong state of mind. I was just trying to get a quick session in to put in volume, rather than actively thinking about the hands. I sort of went into autopilot. I don't think my autopilot is like other people. My default play seems to be more in the fancy play syndrome category. Because of this my play and graph gets erratic, with a lot of variance naturally. I can make no excuses and need to be focused while playing and stick to simpler, effective strategies. I have a roommate who just started playing this year and he probably put in 4 times as much volume as me this month! Since this blog was delayed and I haven't put in any hands for March yet I am going to concentrate of playing better poker rather than the volume goals.

 March Goals:

• Review 2 DC vids.
• Do some flop texture analysis study (3 hours).
• Play 7K hands.
• Play focused poker.
• 25 minute session
• 5 minute break
• 25 minute session
• review

January was a good disciplined month. I met most of my goals in the limited time I did have. Work was quite busy this month, so I didn't get as much time reviewing my game as I would have liked.

I also decided to try a few of the new Full Tilt multi-buy in tourneys. I cashed in a few and ended up blowing one pretty deep run and came 16th out of 2184 players when I could have easily cruised into the final table. I ended up making pretty bad call for my tourney life that was far from necessary. Oh well, live and learn.

February Goals:

• Play 15K hands
  
• Review 2 DC vids
• Do 2 coaching sessions
• Improve my showdown winnings by 10% from January 

Goals
My January 2011 poker goals are simple.

• Play 20K hands
• Win over 2 bb/100
• Do at least 2 coaching sessions
• Review at least 3 DC vids
• Do more active work on my game (5 hours)