Sunday (Monday my time) results

This weekend really didn't go at all to plan.

* Friday night date ... nothing "happened"
* Sunday the big AFL game and my team got thumped
* I only managed to qualify for one of the big tournaments I wanted to play Monday morning
* Did ok in the early morning tournaments and then stunk up the $6.50 45 mans in the afternoon

I tried my best to satellite my way in to the Sunday Million and the Turbo Takedown but just couldn't get it done. I was so close on a number of occasions, for the TT my closest was 6th out of over 200 players when only 3 qualified.

The good news was that I cashed the Sunday Quarter Million for the first time. Not that its a huge achievement but it was nice to get paid after missing out the previous 2 or 3 times I've played. There was 33,000 starters and I finished around 3000. I busted out when I pushed all-in (5x blinds) with king queen off from the hijack and got called by ace-jack and my hand didn't improve. I'm fine with the play as I was getting close to desperation and needed to double-up.

I've been playing a few of the $4.40 180 man tournaments when I have time. As they're not turbos they take over 4 hours so I don't always have the time to play them. I've currently got an ROI of around 25% in them (over a small sample) which is ok as I haven't got a big score from them yet. Unlike the $6.50 45 mans where I managed to min-cash just 1 out of 15 attempts yesterday and my ROI is now negative in these which is extremely frustrating and hurting my bankroll.

So I started yesterday getting deep and cashing most of the games I played and finished the afternoon cashing none and decided to call it a night and watch Transformers 2 instead. I'll have a couple of days off now and hopefully come back revitalised later in the week. Bankroll is down to $1022 and not surprisingly the sharkscope graph took a pretty big dive yesterday.

Weekend goals

Since the break due to the Adelaide trip, I've been back at the tables a little bit more over the last week. I'm still not playing that much, but I'm putting in time. I'm still not doing anything exciting in the $6.50 45 mans (I haven't won one of them this month) but took down another $3.25 (out of 2 played) in a short session last night.

With a long weekend ahead, I finally get the chance to play in the big Sunday (US time) tournaments. As these are Monday morning Australia time, I'm normally working but thanks to the public holiday on Monday for once I'm not. This weekend is the monthly Turbo Takedown, there's the Sunday 1/4 Million and I'm going to try to get in to the Sunday Million for the first time. Playing the latter on my bankroll would be crazy so I'm of course going to try and satellite my way in. I don't have that many FPP's at the moment but the aim is to use them to get in to the Takedown and then play small satellite's to get in to the other two.

I started playing the satellites last night with no luck. I got deep in a couple but couldn't finish the job. The 1/4 Million should be straight forward as the $2 satellites are extremely soft and I have plenty of experience playing them. If I'm going to get up at 5 or 6am on Monday morning tho, I'd like to get in to one of the other big ones as well.

Fingers crossed

PokerStars Turbo Takedown

I mentioned it in my last post but it looks like my luck may be turning.

So far, I haven't enjoyed playing in the PokerStars FPP games, mainly because the play I've seen so far tends to be awful. Also, I don't earn FPP's that quickly so it seems like a waste to blow them in rubbish tournaments.

Tonight tho I took a punt and played one of the small satellites to the $1 million PokerStars Turbo Takedown tournament. As this is the 1 year anniversary of the tournament, PokerStars have included a brand new Porsche to the winner (as well as the $40K first prize money).

I was playing in the 25 + R FPP 2 x turbo game, up against 126 other players. I didn't have much luck early once running in a full house when I had a set and the same player called my all-in re-raise with pocket 4's and I couldn't unrun him. I think I rebought 2 or 3 times before the break and then took the add-on to give myself a chance. After the break we found out that with the FPP's in the pool, the top 6 would be going through to the main event.

When the blinds had flown up to 3000, I was big blind with 150 left, someone raised pre-flop and I had 3 5 suited. I couldn't fold and managed to catch a 3 to survive against the raisers ace queen. The tournament was pretty much a blur from 30 players down but I finally started picking up some hands and even better they held up.

Players were getting knocked out rapidly as the blinds continued to rise quickly and final table formed. I mostly stayed out of trouble and was relieved to see the big stack knock out a few players and then suck-out heads-up against the unlucky 7th placed finisher.

So, I'm in to the Turbo Takedown with 30,000 other players. 10,000 get paid ($35) so fingers crossed I can get in the money in this massive field and who knows, maybe I can turn my 100FPP investment in to something much, much more.