Status: Still sinking

Well, I really hoped to stop the poker rot last night but it didn't happen.

I played 24 tournaments last night on PokerStars and only cashed in ONE, the last one of the night.

Yes, I picked a couple of bad spots but I also ran in to some very unlucky situations. Overall tho, maybe I just wasn't being aggressive enough. I tend to play tight early and hope to chip up on the back of someone paying me off when I have a strong hand. Its in the middle and later stages of a tournament that I think needs the most work for me. I can go card dead and probably need to be raising more often, stealing more blinds, etc.

I had so many bubbles last night it was ridiculous! In the $3 45 man games, I had 2 final tables without cashing (top 7 get paid) and 6 other times I got knocked out inside the top 14. In the $2 180 man games, three times I got knocked out inside the top 24 (top 18 get paid). Sooo frustrating.

Thankfully my last game of the night and only cash was a second place in a $3 45 man. Going in to heads up the other guy has a massive chip lead as he just took out the other big stack. I get pocket aces in the big blind, he limps in and I know he's not folding because of his lead so I just minraise knowing that I'm pushing all-in on any flop. Flop comes king 2 7 so I go all-in and he calls because he's got king 2 suited and its over first hand.

So yes, I'm being tested right now and hopefully the lesson that I need to take from this is that I need to open up a bit more in the middle and late stages of the games. I'm out for dinner with a friend tonight but might get a chance to play after that.

Running bad

After my recent posts about how well I've been playing, bankroll growing, etc it had to come to an end sooner or later I guess. Well, that end was Thursday night.

The night started well enough, winning a $3 45 man in my 4th tournament of the night and then getting two more final tables after that. To end the night tho I failed to cash in 8 straight tournaments. I really didn't think much of it at the time because it was essentially a break even session in the end. The next session tho was Saturday and the crap continued ... 12 more tournaments without a cash until I got a 6th in a 45 man. That didn't stop the rot tho and I finished the day clearly on tilt failing to cash in 12 straight tournaments.

So yes, you read that right ... ONE essentially min-cash in my last 33 tournaments!! That is unheard of for me and I'll be back on PokerStars tonight to right the ship. Bankroll down to $550, I'd like to get it back above 6 as soon as possible.

2M2MM

I read a while back on one of the blogs I sometimes look at about an upcoming poker show called Two Months Two Million or 2M2MM. Its essentially a reality show about 4 young top online poker players and their challenge to win two million dollars in two months basing themselves in Vegas.

While on the Two Plus Two forums the other day I read that the show had started and there were a couple of threads of people discussing and reviewing the show. When I first read the comments the links to the show on YouTube had been disabled but I found some today that work.

Some of the negative comments about the show is that airs in 30 minute episodes including ads so its too short. Watching them on YouTube without episodes and back to back episodes took that complaint out of the equation for me. Check them out below and see what you think.

Frustrating

Last night's session seemed like hard work. My game seemed to be all over the shop, sometimes making good moves and smart plays and other times I just couldn't play hands any worse.

My dumbest hand of the night by far was against an early position raise from a loose/aggressive player. I've got pocket queens so I re-raise him solidly and he calls, which I expected. The board comes 5, 5, 7 or something like that and stupidly I check thinking he'll take a stab at the pot with his lower pair or ace high. He instead checks and the next card comes a king so I bet, he re-raises all-in and for some reason I call ... he of course turns over ace king and my stack is decimated. Just a dumb, dumb play and I was embarrassed I made it.

Another surprisingly horrible move by me came when I was 4-tabling and on one table I had ace king suited and on the other I had ace 4 suited, both on the button. One table there was a raise and a call and the other had a short-stack all-in. For some reason I re-raised all-in over the top of the all-in with ace 4 suited thinking it was the AK and by the time I realised what I had done, I decided to fold the AK on the other table and get my shit together. The ace 4 suited was up against pocket queens but I turned the flush for the nuts ... woops.

I played 23 tournaments last night, $2 180 man games but mostly $3.25 45 man games and cashed 5 of them. No heads-up action but I did have a 3rd and a 4th ... as well as roughly 5 bubbles, so roughly a break-even night by the end of it. I had a look at my August numbers and my profit is essentially all coming from the 45 man games. I realise the 180's have a higher variance and aren't suited to my normal/old game, but I'd like to continue to play them, work on them a little more and hopefully see some better results.

Won't be playing online tonight as I'm off to see Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds", I'll let you know what its like next time. Also not playing tomorrow as I'm catching up with a friend I haven't seen for a few months.

Online poker update

After waiting a week or so, I finally got my ADSL wireless turned on last week. Hopefully, that'll mean I'll be blogging a bit more often as its easier to do than when I was using the plug-in modem between my two laptops.

Since my update last week, I've played 4 poker sessions on PokerStars. After my back to back tournament wins I was hoping the momentum would continue. The next session was a short one but profitable with 4 cashes out of 14 games but the next day did not go so well. It started fine, me playing well, going deep ... I then grabbed some dinner and got back in to it. Other than an early cash, I could do nothing right and ended up failing to cash in my last 14 tournaments of the night. I was blown away by this stretch and looking back at the results, I wasn't really close to getting in the money. The best I could do was two 12th placed finishes in the 45 man games where you need to finish top 7 to get paid.

After a dinner party on Friday night, I was back playing again on Saturday. I had a big night on Friday and didn't sleep well so was pretty tired. That didn't hurt me tho as I played well and the results came. I played 17 tournaments and cashed 7 of them, no wins but I finished the afternoon with 2 second placed finishes in a row. One was a $3.25 45 man for $30 and the other was a $2 180 man for $72. The first one annoyed me because the stacks were fairly even going in to heads up. The villain had pushed all-in for the first few hands and I had nothing so folded. He limped in from the small blind and I raised strongly with pocket 7's. I expected him to fold but he took a while and eventually called. Flop came down 9, 8, 5 and by this stage there was so much money in the pot (as the blinds were high already) I pushed it all-in. He again went in to the tank and then called turning over 6 8 off. I was surprised to say the least that he limped and then called pre-flop with that. His 8 was good and a 7 on the river rubbed salt in the wound giving me a set and him a straight. The 180 man was different as the villain had a large chip lead going to heads up as he'd just knocked out the other big stack. He raised from the sb and I had pocket 4's. I knew he wasn't folding if I shoved so the plan was to call and then push on the flop and hoped he hadn't hit. The flop came down queen, 7, 3 so I push and he calls turning over ace 3 off. I'm in good shape until the ace comes on the river and I finish second.

With the two second placed finishes to end the night my bankroll broke through US$600 for the first time which was nice. I played yesterday evening as well, doing really well early until I got an emergency text from a friend saying she was in trouble and needed me to get her out of there. I was in the middle of 3 tournaments at the time so was a little torn, wondering how much trouble she was in and how desperately she needed saving. I was deep in one and finished 3rd, deep in another one before running queens in a to kings when I was flat-called from the button by a big stack. I was in the middle of a 180 man and doing well but realised I had to just walk away. After driving for 30 mins picking up my friend (in tears) and then driving home, I walked back in to find that I had finished 25th in the 180 just 7 places out of getting paid despite sitting out the final 1/3 of the tournament. I frustratingly bubbled a couple of $3.25 45 mans later in the night but thankfully got a 2nd to pretty much break even for the session.

Assassinato goes deep in Kyiv

Congratulations to Alex "Assassinato" Fitzgerald for another deep run in an EPT event on the weekend. Alex had a roller coaster ride through the first few days of the tournament surviving until day 4 when he was eliminated in 14th place (out of 296 starters).

He was no doubt disappointed to make the final table and take down the big money but its good to see him make another late finish in a live event. Below is Alex's final hand and I believe he's off to Macau next where hopefully he can go one (or two) step further.

Live Reporting | 2009 PokerStars.net EPT Kyiv | €5,000 EPT Kyiv Main Event | PokerNews.com

Posted by Shamus

Alex Fitzgerald Eliminated in 14th Place (€15,000)

Andrew Malott opened with a raise to 31,000 from the button, Bernard Boutboul folded in the small blind, then Alex Fitzgerald pushed all in for just over 260,000 from the big blind. Malott thought for just a few moments, then made the call.

Fitzgerald
Malott

The last two Americans in the field had been sharing a lot of table talk since being joined on the secondary table, and each wished the other luck as they awaited the community cards. They came , and Fitgerald is out in 14th place. Malott now has a nice-sized stack of 955,000.

Assassinato looking very clean-cut in Kyiv

Back-to-back wins

Just a quick update tonight as I'm heading to bed shortly so I can get up and get to the gym again in the morning.

I played for a while on Saturday without any overly exciting results. The best was a win/qualification in a satellite for PokerStars' Sunday Quarter Million. I read on the Two Plus Two Forums that this tournament was good for building your bankroll. Essentially its a $2 but in and if you finish in the top 20% of the field you qualify for the Quarter Million but can unregister and take $11 in tournament cash. I played two of these and qualified for one. It wasn't too tough a game but it did take a while to play so I'm not sure its a great game for me, especially when the actual Quarter Million is on at 4am on a Monday morning Australian time.

I was online playing last night and had a very slow start to the night. I was in the middle of playing a few tournaments when I got a Skype video call from a friend of mine in Switzerland. She's hot and I don't get to chat to her that much so I certainly can't down the call ... but of course, not ideal when your 4 tabling tournaments. Later on in the night tho things picked up and after 5th place in a $3.25 45 man I ended the session with back to back wins in the same game. That was the first time I've ever won 2 tournaments in a row and it was a nice achievement ... not to mention the two $42 first prize payouts are good for the bankroll.

Tonight was a slightly profitable one with nothing too exciting to report. I finished the night with a 4th place in a $3.25 45 man and a 3rd in a $1.10 90 man tournament. I've been doing really well in the $3.25 45 man games over the last few days but struggling to put up results in the $2 180 tournament, failing to cash in my last 10 attempts. I checked out my graph on SharkScope and I'm over 30% ROI in $1 games, just under 30% ROI in the $3 games but am unprofitable in the $2 tournaments.

I set my goal this month at 5 wins but I've already passed that with 6 so far. The bankroll is now just over $550 and hopefully I can continue to keep it moving upwards.

Scott Kerr Wins ANZPT Queensland!

Congratulations to Scott Kerr for winning the first ever ANZPT Queensland. Scott outran almost 250 entrants to take down the first prize of $168,075. I really hope I get the chance to play in next year's event.

Player of the Year for the first season went to Tony (brother of Joe) Hachem who achieved top twenty finishes in 4 of the 5 events.

Click on the title below to read the full story.

Scott Kerr Wins ANZPT Queensland!

The final stop on the inaugural ANZPT came to a close with the final table of the Queensland Main Event kicking off today!

Joel ‘StrongPlay’ Dodds took the chip lead into the final eight, holding onto 30% of the chips in play, but would be closely followed by both Scott ‘Punty’ Smith and Phillip Willcocks.

Scott Kerr slipped early, as Dodds climbed to over two million courtesy of Lee Fraser’s elimination while Danny Joukhadar found himself in unfamiliar territory as he sat at the bottom of the leaderboard.

PokerStars update ... the $500 mark

Well, I'm now in my new place at Morningside. The move from my last unit was hard work but the worst was yet to come on Monday morning when Telstra switched the office phone lines over early so the number wasn't diverted to my mobile. Not only that, the official company that moves and reconnects the phone system couldn't do the move until the week after. Thankfully I got another company to take care of it and it got done late on Tuesday evening. So after two days of no phone lines (not good for business) the new apartment is almost set up ready to go. I'm just waiting now on the ADSL to get turned on and then it'll be perfect.

Anyway, instead of unpacking and getting everything sorted, I have of course being playing poker online at PokerStars. Monday I just played 4 quick games, cashing in one and basically breaking even. Tuesday was again a fairly short session because I was waiting for the phone system guy to finish, had dinner and then started playing. Despite that tho, it was a pretty profitable one. I played just 8 tournaments, cashed 4 of them, came 3rd in a $3.25 for $21 and another 3rd in a $2.20 180 man tournament for a $43 score. This took my bankroll to about $480 which was a new high, up from the previous best of $460.

Last night was a much bigger session of 22 tournaments. I cashed in just 5 and didn't feel that I played particularly well. I'm not sure if it was a lack of concentration or what but I just wasn't on top of my game. After a slowish start to the night, I broke through in my 10th game for a 2nd place in a $3.25 45 man. I went in to heads-up facing a 2:1 deficit in chips and was a little passive not raising with ace rag and paid the price when my opponent flopped a monster and I had committed myself to the hand post-flop. After not cashing in a few tournaments after that I ended up winning a $3.25 and then finished the night with another cash. So it was nice to have some good scores despite not feeling like I was playing my best.

So after the session last night my bankroll cleared the $500 mark for the first time reaching $513. Having started at just $12, its a nice milestone to surpass. I'm hoping the $1000 mark will come within the next few months as I continue to play the slightly larger games.

In the last couple of days my ROI has improved to 31% and my win count so far this month is up to 4. According to the Official Poker Rankings, I've also climbed in to the top 3% of tournament players on PokerStars for 2009.

Here's my current SharkScope graph:

Weekly update

I'm sitting at my parent's house watching a British documentary called "Stephen Fry in America". Dad was keen to watch it and its been surprisingly entertaining. Fry is basically doing a tour around the US in a London cab and tonight's episode is focussing on New England. There's not much on TV on a Sunday night so I might find myself watching it over the next few weeks. The other option is Australian Idol which we watched a bit of earlier. The early episodes are the most entertaining as you have the extremes ... the good ones that stand out from the really terrible.

So yes, a quiet end to the weekend but not a total surprise after today. I spent the day moving not only my unit but the office to my new place in Morningside, just around the corner from my unit. It'll be interesting to go back to a home office again after having the separation from work over the last few years. The move wasn't fun ... the new place has 4 flights of stairs so even the removalists were struggling by the end of it. They were here for over 4 hours today, 2/3 of that spent unloading at the new unit and trying to get everything up the stairwell.

Anyway ... on to poker. I probably should have spent most of yesterday packing and getting organised but of course I didn't, I was instead playing online at PokerStars. Its been a swingy kind of week to say the least. After a solid, consistent last month or so and after seeing my game develop and grow, I've now started playing the next level of tournaments. Sure, its still micro but its a bit of a jump from the $1 level. The step I've taken is to the $3.25 45 man turbo tournaments and I've played plenty of them this week.

The $3.25 games didn't get off to a flying start for me as I bubbled a LOT of them early. I didn't think it was because I was playing badly or even too conservatively, I just felt like I was getting quite unlucky in the wrong spots. After the first few days I was breaking even in them but had a couple of days where I didn't do well, hardly cashing at all and even when I did they were min-cashes. I eventually started getting a little deeper and yesterday broke through for my first win, as well as a second and a fourth. I'm still playing a number of the $1 tournaments and did take down one of them yesterday too.

My bankroll has been fairly swingy this week, starting at $410 I've been down under $380 several times and up over $430 a few times, I think I'm currently sitting just over $420. I guess I'm going to need to get used to that as I start moving up from the $1 games. My ROI this month isn't great at just 9% but I'm still slightly in profit. My 90 - 180 games is in the red at the moment so I'd like to fix that in the next week or two ... it doesn't look good to me on OPR if I'm unprofitable in some games.

So the week ahead ... plenty more of the $3.25 games, I'll probably see what other options there are above the $1 level, start mixing in some of the $2 games and see how I go with those again. I'd like to improve my profit and my ROI and continue to get some more wins on the board (3 so far this month, goal was 6 I believe).

ANZPT Queensland

The first major Queensland poker tournament got underway today in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast. ANZPT Queensland is being co-hosted between Conrad Treasury and Conrad Jupiters. I'm not sure if I'll get the chance but it would be great to check out some of the action live. I have drinks with a friend on Friday night and I'm moving house on Sunday so there likely won't be time.

A number of friends from APL played in the satellites and while two made through it the first round, they fell just short in the second where the seats to the main event were up for grabs.

You can follow the updates from the event at the PokerStars blog. Its good to hear that support and interest in the event has been strong so far.

July numbers & August goals

So here are my numbers from the month of July:

In The Money 22% (63/290)
Finish late 11%
ROI 25%
Profit $79

I had 8 wins, 3 seconds, 7 thirds and 42 fourth to ten places.

My goals were:

In The Money: 25% - actual 22%
Profit: $100 - actual $79
Wins: 4 - actual 8

Summary:
So I just missed the In The Money % and profit due to a poor last week but I smashed the number of wins. I was really pleased with the number of wins and especially the ratio of wins to seconds in heads-up play. My finish late was down from previous months because I played so many 45 man tournaments and you have to finish top 4 to finish late in those.

This month I'm going to start playing a few more $3.25 45 man tournaments. I played a few over the weekend and out of 4 games I bubbled the final table twice which was frustrating. I played another one yesterday and came in 6th. I had a strong stack for the entire tournament but lost a chunk just before the final table when I ran ace jack in to pocket aces 5 handed ... ouch. I got sucked out on in a blind vs blind battle and was short-stacked the rest of the way, card dead and essentially getting blinded out.

The rest of the day went ok tho as I ended my drought of wins as well as getting a 2nd and a 3rd so a profitable day and my roll is back over $410 again after slipping to $380 at one point on the weekend.

My goals for August are:

In The Money: 25%
Profit: $150
Wins: 5

I'm ranked just outside the top 3% on OPR at the moment, I'd like to see that improve too.