I told you in my last post that I could taste four figures and yesterday it happened! My PokerStars account is sitting at exactly $1000 which I think is a great achievement having started with only a $12 deposit just over a year ago (Feb 02, 2009).
I've been very disciplined (some would say "nittish") with my bankroll management and have built it up steadily. I started with the micro'est of cash games until I got up to $100 and then I switched to my more preferred tournaments and SNG's when I was properly rolled to play them.
I learnt a lot of lessons along the way and had to endure a downswing/losing streak of around 1100 games where my roll fell from over $600 to under $300 at one point. Since then tho I've been on a heater over the last couple of months to climb to four figures with the last two months being my best to date. Here's my graph showing the upswing ... pretty!
So yesterday, after grinding the 18's on Friday night to get the $40 bonus and basically breaking-even by the time I got it, I was back to my usual 45 man's. Since it was Saturday I also had the chance to play some large field MTT's. The day started slowly missing out in my first few 45's and also failing to cash in a $4 MTT. From there tho I caught fire cashing 8 of the last 12 tournaments I played.
I mincashed a $1 MTT but got deep in a $2 one finishing 38th out of 3650 players. I had some luck with about 60 players remaining when I called a shove with ace king off and it was also called by another player behind me. The original player turned over ace king which I expected but the player behind me turned over jacks. The flop wasn't good as it was a low board but it ended up putting quads on the board splitting with the two aces and I had survived. I doubled up once or twice and then got aces in early position. I raised a standard 3 times blinds and had the big blind shove all-in over the top and I of course insta-called. Big blind turned over pocket 8's and the double up would send me in to the top 15 or 20 chip-counts but unfortunately an 8 came on the turn and I was done. So frustrating to get that deep and then lose with aces when the decent money doesn't kick in until the last 15 or so and of course there was some good money up for grabs on the final table.
While playing that I cashed a few 45 mans finishing with a win in a $3.25 game. I came from behind in the heads-up battle to get the win which is always satisfying to do. At one point I was facing a 2.5:1 chip deficit but got a few cards, turned up the pressure and got it back close to even. The turning point was when I completed the small blind with queen rag and called a massive shove on a queen jack 4 flop. He turned over jack rag and my queen rag held up to take down a huge pot and the game was over shortly after that.
Last night I caught up with some friends who I haven't seen for a while to play a cash game. A couple of the guys are friends who played APL with me so I knew they would have improved a little since we used to play last year. A number of others were new to the game and I knew there would be very little folding and plenty of rubbish being played. Its a $50 buy-in game with the option of having a one re-buy if you get knocked out. Third got $50, second $150 and the winner took the rest which turned out to be $300.
I lost a big hand early when I rivered a straight but called a solid bet from someone who had rivered a flush. I didn't see many hands for a while until I got kings and raised solidly vs one limper and got called by another player and the original limper. The board came out low all hearts and I had the king of hearts. The original limper led out strongly and after a little while I called as did the player behind me who I knew had a strong hand. The turn was a blank and was checked around and the limper led out solidly on the river which was another blank. I wasn't sure what the limper had whether it was a flush or a set but I disappointingly folded my kings and the player behind me called with jacks. The limper turned over two pair ... 2 ... 8 ... suited (clubs) and took down the pot. Yes, he called a solid raise and a call with 2 8 suited ... that's the sort of game I was playing in, raises not respected and very little folding.
Thankfully I got a good chip-up when I raised with tens got two callers and the board came out ten high. I checked when first to act and the last player shoved all-in on a bluff and I of course called and took it down. That same player re-bought and went on to build a stack and I eventually went on to face him heads-up. He had a huge chip-lead but I got a good double-up early. From there I ran in to a few of his hands, took a couple of coolers, got no cards and was eventually knocked out. I got the $150 second-place prize so made $100 and had a good night of cards, beers and pizza with mates.
