Suck-out Sundays

Sure, it was Monday night my time but since it was Sunday in the US, I'm fine calling it "Suck-out Sundays" on PokerStars. I've checked my stats on SharkScope before and its confirmed that Sunday & Monday are two of the worst performing days for me.

The night started well with a 2nd in my 4th game of the night but it was somewhere in the middle of my 12 game drought that I wandered why I bother playing on Monday nights. There was a spot or two I should've got away from but a number of others were just plain ugly.

I'm not sure why, but I loaded up a $2.20 180 man which I'm notoriously bad at (comparatively speaking) and hoped for the best. I think its the frustration of not doing well at them that makes me want to beat them. I was playing the 45 mans at the time but after laying very low for much of the tournament started to get a stack together at the right time. A double up or two later and I was easily in to the money ... which isn't unusual, its the next step that I seem to have trouble with. Blinding out is a problem inside the final 18 so I decided to be aggressive and it paid off making the final table.

It took forever to lose anyone off the final table and with the blinds rising so quickly I thought it would be me. There were multiple all-ins and miracle cards on the river to ensure that we didn't lose a player and I was half-way through typing "can we farking lose a player please?!" when I had pocket kings in early position. I stopped typing so as to not jinx myself and pushed all-in. I got called by queen jack suited and my hand held knocking the other player out in 9th. The very next hand, kings again ... I raise and take down the blinds. I took down a few pots but mostly stayed out the way unless I had monsters. One other player was doing most of the damage and before I knew it we were 3-handed. I lost a blind vs blind battle and it wasn't looking good but I doubled up once or twice and was soon heads-up. Unfortunately the villain had a 10 - 1 chip count when it started and as I went card-dead the contest was soon over.

The $72 prize for second in the 180 was a nice reward tho and made up for my drought at the 45 man tables which also ended around the same time with a 4th. So despite feeling like a really tough slog, it was a profitable session and the bankroll is now over $1260 which is pretty much even its highest point. APL tonight and State of Origin tomorrow means I won't be playing the next few nights.

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.

March madness

I haven't been playing a lot of late, plenty of other things going on. With the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness) underway, when I do actually play, I tend to have the laptop on in front of the TV watching the action.

Since I'm not giving the games my total focus, I've been just playing a couple of tables at a time and tending to play the lower stake $3.25 45 games. They've been going well and I finally officially got over the 4 figure mark with my bankroll. Thanks to a win yesterday and a number of final tables, the bankroll now sits just over US$1050.

I'm about to unlock another VIP Stellar Reward so that'll be another $10 bonus earned. After that its another 3 x $10 bonuses before they start paying $50 each time. Those are a few months off tho with the amount and the level I'm currently playing at.

Gym has been going well still. I did 12 sessions in 12 days finishing with a return to boxing class on Saturday morning. I used to go every Saturday but got out of the routine last year when my finances took a hit during the economic slowdown. I've just been easing back in to things at the gym but boxing is a really good cardio and full-body workout and I'm already feeling it today in my calves.

Anyway, early night so I can be up early for the gym before work. Here's my current SharkScope graph:

Update

I didn't do much blogging over the last week or two because work had been so flat out and I had been focussing on getting back in the gym.

Anyway, on to some of the things I haven't yet talked about. One night last week I tried to focus on the 180 man games. Probably my weakest game of all that I've played so far is the $2.20 180 game with about a -15% ROI (according to SharkScope). Usually I mix these in when I'm playing 45 man games so my thought was that if I just played these I might do better rather than playing different game speeds all at once. It didn't go well and I played 14 of these games and cashed none of them. Sure, its a very small sample and the variance in these are so high that I'm sure this is standard, but it was frustrating all the same.

In other news, the APL Poker Classic was held in Melbourne last weekend and a number of my friends were playing in it. One of my friends David posted on Facebook that he had made it in to the money which started at the top 100 (600 starters). I didn't see any further updates and figured he had just min-cashed until just before I went to bed he posted that he finished 4th winning $35K and a spot on Team APL for the World Series of Poker (valued at $15K). So today a few of us had a BBQ in New Farm park to celebrate his win and hear some of the stories. He basically put his success down to a good run of cards at the right time and not getting any bad beats.

After my failure in the 180's the previous week I decided to just focus on the 45 man games. At the moment I'm concentrating on the $6.50 buy-ins but using the $3.25's as a warm-up to get my head in the game. I hadn't been running that well during the week and my bankroll was down under $850 a few times. The last 2 days have been better tho as I won a $6.50 game and today a $3.25 one. The latter was satisfying as I came back from a very short-stack after I walked in to someone slow-playing aces and I had pocket tens. From there I clawed my way back and actually started heads-up ahead and won when my ace 8 held up after the big blind re-raised all-in with king queen off. I finished tonight cashing 3 out of the 4 tournaments I played before dinner and the 4th one I bubbled. It wasn't anything too exciting tho as I had two 6th places and a 3rd.

The bankroll is now back up to US$980 so hopefully tomorrow night I can push through the $1000 mark again and head onwards and upwards.

The trifecta!!

Ok, so sometimes I run good. I've won 2 tournaments in a row before but tonight I went one better and took down 3 in a row!! Trifecta, turkey ... call it what you will be it feels great to take down 3 in succession and obviously its a great boost for the bankroll.

I went for a run after work with some friends, the first exercise I've done in about a week. Yes, I struggled for stamina but it was good to work up a sweat. They were heading out for drinks but I was happy for a quiet night in and to get some games happening on PokerStars.

I was just playing the $3.25 45 man games and I started off fairly solidly with two 6th place finishes in my first three games. I moved up to 5th a few tournaments later and then one miss and the three wins in a row.

I don't even remember too much detail from the individual tournaments except for the last one. Half-way through the tournament I was chipped up and someone shoved massively all-in under the gun and I had queens in the big blind. As expected, he turned over ace king and thankfully my queens held up giving me a massive chip lead which I rode through to the final table. I got down to four handed and shoved ace 4 off on the button and ran in to 7's in the small blind. The river counterfeited his pair which was a huge suck-out but gave me the chip lead and I went in to heads-up with it. My opponent fought back to even up the stacks but I took down a pot or two and then limped with kings in the small blind. The flop came queen jack rag and I bet small on the flop, king on the turn, another small bet and then he led out strong when a 3 came on the river. I re-raised he had to call turning over 2 pair but it wasn't good and it completed my trifecta of wins.

As you can see from the graph below, I'm running quite hot after a couple of very average months. I'm not sure what tournaments SharkScope doesn't track (I'm guessing the Sunday Quarter Million satellites) because my bankroll is about $150 or so more than its ever been, despite it looking about even with a previous high. Bankroll now sits just over $770.

Back in the game

Well, after almost two weeks of not playing on PokerStars, I got back in the game yesterday.

I felt I was playing well but didn't have the results at the start of the session. From the first 20 tournaments I cashed just twice and had a number of bubbles. Thankfully I then hit a purple patch cashing 4 straight games. The only downside was that I couldn't get any higher than 6th in any of them.

After a few more blanks, I finished the night with a 5th in a 180 which was a little better payout. I felt like I played it really well and it was the sort of tournament that in the past I may not have made the money or min-cashed but made some moves at the right time that got me on to the final table with a chance of a decent finish.

I played for a fair few hours yesterday and with the 5th placed finish probably only broke even. With the slow start, my bankroll actually was under $400 for the first time in months. Not good ...

After getting up early and doing some stair-running this morning, I jumped online around lunch and have pretty much played ever since. OPR hasn't caught up so I can't see all of my results. Thankfully I can see my bankroll and its back over $500 ($510 to be precise).

I played really well in another 180 man and had a considerable chip lead on the final table. I was a big chance to take it down but had some unlucky hands. Four handed I ran ace ten suited in to pocket aces and then I called a small blind shove with ace jack in the big blind, he turned over pocket 4's, I flopped a jack, fist-pumped ... and then a four on the turn, ouch! I ended up finishing 3rd which was a little disappointing.

I finally got a win in a tournament also, a $3 45 man game. Despite facing a 5:1 deficit when heads-up play began I fought back to parity and then got paid off with two pair vs middle pair. I had OPR'd my opponent, saw they weren't good and picked up they were playing very tight. So I took advantage of it, got aggressive, hit a few flops and got the win. I can't even remember when I last won a tournament so it was nice to get that monkey off the back.

I finished the night playing a few of the $2.20 satellites to the Sunday 1/4 Million. Since the tournament starts at 5am in the morning my time, the plan was to just get the win and then unregister and take the tournament money. The games are fairly soft and I'd read on the Two Plus Two poker forum that they were a good way to grow a bankroll. I qualified in three of them and was unlucky not to go 4 of 4. The only problem with them is that they're not turbo so they take a while and slow down even more near the bubble.

So it was nice to have a profitable day again. I think I probably made $70 which is ok but mainly it was good for the confidence again after poor results of late. I had a look at my SharkScope graph yesterday and it was big downward slide. Its looking a lot healthier now and my form is even listed as "hot".

Finally ... some run good!

Its been a rough month. I feel like I've been playing better but the results haven't been there. The bankroll peaked at $630 last month and has been down as low as $420 or so this month. The frustration comes from a feeling of "plateauing".

After another break-even/slightly unprofitable session last night, I posted this on Twitter:
"feel like i'm so close to killing the games but lack luck late in the tournaments"
I played 17 tournaments last night, cashing 4 but the disappointment was that my best finish was just two 5ths in the 45's. Not only that but I bubbled 3 more tournaments.

This afternoon tho was a completely different story. I had a fairly productive day at work but was in slow-down mode by 4:30 so I fired up a couple of $1.75 18 man tournaments. I finished second in one and failed to cash in the other. From there tho I went on a tear, cashing 4 straight games including two 2nd places in the $3.25 45 man tournaments.

So tonight I cashed 5 of 7 tournaments and took three 2nds. I'm not too worried about the poor winning conversion rate as I feel I played the heads-up well. In the 18 man game the guy was an extremely good player (I OPR'd him) but the other two weren't. I fought back from a huge deficit in one but my top set on the flop of a strongly raised pot got beaten by a flush draw that hit on the turn. The other I pushed with king jack off, got called by 7 9 suited, I caught a king on the flop but again the villain turned the flush.

Form on SharkScope = HOT

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:

PokerStars update

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

I haven't actually played online at PokerStars this week. I went and played an APL game on Tuesday, State of Origin 3 last night and I can't remember what I did Monday, other than go for a run.

Anyway, I was looking forward to playing and after the usual slightly slow start I won my 4th tournament which was a $1 90 man game. I was short-stacked around the 30th spot but managed to survive in to the top 20. When I was 17 of 19 I won 2 big pots in a row and was suddenly in 6th place. The heads up battle was fairly close because I had been on the same table with the guy for most of the tournament so we knew how each other played.

I did really well in the ANZPT freeroll but pushed with 6's with about 100 to go and called by pocket 9's and was out.

I bubbled a 45 man game when I pushed from early position with pocket 5's, got called by pocket 8's and was out in 8th spot. The next 45 man game I wasn't doing much until I started getting cards at the right time, pocket aces within about 5 minutes of each other and chipped up well. I struggled on the bubble when I was playing aggressively with good hands and kept getting sucked out on. I folded ace 9 suited from the small blind when someone pushed massively from early position. I was short-stacked but got aces again and doubled up and from there started to climb my way. There was an uber-aggressive newby that was shoving with very marginal hands and he pushed from the button 3 handed, the small blind was virtually all-in and called and I pocket 7's in the big blind. Against another player I might've folded ... but I knew he could be pushing with anything, called caught a 7 on the turn and took down a good pot. He still had a 2 to 1 chip lead going in to heads-up but again he was pushing with anything much of the time so I re-raised all-in with pocket 5's and he called with 2 4 suited. I won that hand and gained the chip lead and from there he ended up pushing with ace rag, I called with jack ten and hit a jack to win the tournament.

So I think I only played 12 tournaments but won 2. My heads up record for this month is outstanding and it was nice to have another day with 2 tournament wins. I'm just outside the top 3% of PokerStars tournament players on Official Poker Rankings, hopefully these 2 wins will put me over the top.

Bankroll continuing to grow, US$460. Graph from SharkScope is looking good ...

Weekend results

I played a LOT of games this weekend. Didn't have any plans so other than a basketball game on Saturday night, some grocery shopping and a few other things ... I spent the rest of my time on PokerStars. Its now 11:30 on Sunday night and I'm not sure if its the time of night that has me tired or the drain of playing so much poker.

It was a rough weekend on the tables for me too. I had so many big hands cracked by absolutely rubbish cards. I won't go in to too much detail, but trust me, it wasn't pretty.

I was mostly playing the $1 90 man games, playing a lot of them, but I also played a few of the $2 90 man non-turbo games and also tried my luck at the $4 180 man non-turbos. The only highlight from playing most of Saturday was 2nd place finish, another final table and a couple of other cashes.

Tonight went a bit better as I made final table in the $2 game as well as the $4 game ... at the same time. I lost a key hand just prior to the final table of the $2 game so instead of being in the top 4 or 5 stacks I was down about 8th. Essentially there was an all-in and two big stacks. Instead of just checking it down, I got milked by the other player with minimum bets on all 3 streets. The board came queen ten rag and I had ace king, by the turn I had the straight draw, the nut flush draw and if the ace hit I had the top kicker. Nothing came for me and it turns out he had pocket kings. Blinds were quite high on the final table and I ended up going out in 7th place.

The $4 game started well for me but by the time we were down to the top 30 I was near the bottom of the leaderboard. I tried to be patient and wait for a hand but it wasn't coming. We got near the bubble and I was just praying I could make the money. I eventually got pocket kings and I just had enough left to call the blind and thankfully they held up. Next hand I pushed it in again with ace queen off and the big blind was the only caller with ace 6 off. Again it held up and I was safely in to the money. I made final table and watched as a few people got knocked out early. With blinds rising, I pushed all-in with ace ten as an attempted steal and the big blind called also with ace ten so we split it. Next hand I'm under the gun with ace queen off and I'm still short-stack by a fair margin so I push it all-in again. I get called by pocket 8's and ace 2 off in the big blind. My hand doesn't improve and the 8's take the hand down. So I finish that tournament also in 7th for a prize of $25. I would have loved to have gone a little further as each place up from there is another $10 and there's some really good cash for the top 3.

I'm happy with the way I played. I've decided to be more aggressive on final tables in order to give myself a better chance of winning or getting in the top 3, rather than hanging on and waiting for other players to get knocked out. So shoving with ace ten and ace queen when I was short-stacked is fair enough. Besides, I usually get called by weaker hands so the opportunity to chip up is definitely there.

So at the end of what feels like a rough weekend, bankroll is at US$340.

Below is my graph from SharkScope. Not tough to see when I finished 5th in that big field tournament for $102. The first "hill" on the graph where it goes from 0 to 100 and then back to 0 is when I was playing late last year on the credit I won from PokerStars. From then on its the US$12 I deposited.