return to donkaments and found a coach

haven't played a whole lot in the last week and a half. i was busy most of the week last week so i decided to let my mind clear a bit and stay away.

i think since my last post i've dropped 2 buy-ins or so at 50plo. other than that it's been short little sessions where i broke close to even playing maybe 200 hands of 100plo, lost a capped pot in a 1/2 cap plo game ($80 cap) and busted in a few mtt's.

i kinda got a thirst for mtt's again after following the coverage of the wpt fallsview (which i failed to put a $1 towards qualifying for) so one night i played the $26 plo at 8:15 along with both the daily doubles on ftp. the play in the plo tournament was absolutely hilarious. i don't have the hh's to post but it was probably the worst play i've ever seen at any time in my life. i busted in that tournament 51st out of 211 when i ran double suited Kings into double suited Aces pre.

the daily doubles didn't last long, i got it all-in on a 8 high flop w/ KK vs QQ and villain rolled a Q on the turn and in the second one i don't even remember how i busted but it was 767/1193.

this past saturday i played the 1pm $75 6 max nlhe and it went fairly well. i feel very rusty playing nlhe but thought i came around a bit during this tournament. again the play was pretty poor and i chipped up to 5k from 3k just picking on one particulary bad player. i then raised to 150 utg w/ JJ, got cold called by mp who i know calls a lot of raises in position w/ suited connectors and what not, the button (another bad player) pushes for 800 total and i'm pretty comfortable calling him. then the bb wakes up out of nowhere and shoves for 3k so i fold and mp folds. button shows TT and bb shows.................55.

a little bit later i get JJ utg again at a different table. w/ a 6k stack i raise it up, mp makes a smallish re-raise of about 2.5x and the sb cold calls. mp has about 1.8k left after his raise and sb has about 4k. i had zero reads on either player but for some reason i was pretty sure i had mp beat. usually a smallish re-raise scares the hell out of me but i had one of those gut things that made me want to push to isolate. the only problem is that the sb could be trapping here. if he's good he probably has me beat but if he's bad he could have anything and would fold (or put it in bad) against a push. i ended up shoving when it got back to me and both players called. mp had ATo but the sb was trapping and had Aces. but luckily for me it was a donkament and i flopped an underfull to take down a big pot.

in looking back i think i should give both players more credit and just call pre-flop and see what developes.

i ended up going on a good run in that tourny but eventually busted 55th out of like 236. at the same time i also played a $75 45 person sng and lasted all of about 5 hands after i got it all-in pre w/ AKs against AA and KK. action went mp raise, i cold called in the cutoff, sb re-raised, mp shoved, i cold called all-in as did the sb. not sure i hate the call since i look weak calling the initial raise so mp might be shoving a decent range to isolate against the sb. sb definitly has a hand but it's not always going to be AA/KK. the only real worry i have with the hand is that i get it all-in sharing cards with one of the other players and have to outdraw the third players pair with less than 6 outs.

it was fun getting back into some touraments and i think i'll try to play a couple from time to time to break up the grind of cash games. tournaments provide that surge of adrenailine that you don't always get in cash games.

yet another ftops event is starting up this week and while i would like to play a few events im unsure if i'll get to. there is a $535 plo on saturday along with a few others that peak my interest but i'm going to be busy most of the day saturday and might not have a chance to satellite in and i don't see myslef dumping that big of a buy-in on a single tournament. so maybe some tournaments in the future but mostly cash games i think.

speaking of cash games i've found a plo coach. im going to have my first session this week and we'll see how it goes. im pretty excited about the experience in general as i feel that having a coach is the next step in getting better. books are good, videos are great but i don't think anything is better than having a better player sweat and teach you. i think it's how a lot of great players have learned from others and im hoping that the chemistry i have with this coach is a success.

i've set my short term goals (not really sure of the timeline) to be a winning player at 2/4 & 3/6 plo online. i think i can definitly acheive this and eventually i could work my way up to 5/10 but thats too far down the road to speculate about.

another thing i have to do next year is play at the wsop. i have to! no bullshit this year. i will go to the wsop and play at least one event plus side games but my goal is to play two events.

i'm also getting off my ass and scheduling a vegas trip for late January/early February as well.

things are happening.

tg