i've been playing quite steadily of late and spent even more time working on my game. so far i've been putting all my time in at 25plo which is the lowest i've ever played. something i've figured out about myself though is that i tend to jump into things head first, get overwhelmed, get frustrated and move onto something else. if i look back at prior times when i've taken shots learning plo i've started off playing 6 tables or something stupid at 100plo, lost a ton and couldn't understand why (thought i was playing pretty good) and then quit saying that game has too much variance and is stupid...
so this time i'm starting out at rock bottom, and expecting to lose. it's only natural that i lose to begin with because even though players are playing poorly at this level, so am i, just in a different way. playing this low has also helped me get used to the inevitable swings in plo so going forward i'm hoping to be a little more thick skinned towards the uppers and downers.
overall im putting more effort away from the table than ever before. to truly get good at this game (or any game) i have to increase my study when not playing. typically i've always watched training videos but i generally don't pick much up. this time around I started taking detailed notes on some series which i've kinda phased out of since it was taking me around 3-4 hours to watch a 50 min video. instead i am focusing on the concepts in the videos and generally taking a lot more away from them than i used to. i've also spent some time going through articles and plo ebooks highlighting important concepts and reviewing them periodically to keep them fresh in my mind. lastly im working a lot more with holdem manager to review hh's and try to plug leaks after play as well as figure out equities since it's entirely different than holdem.
i guess one more thing is i'm working with a coach as well and he's the best coach i've ever had, by far. i think as long as i'm working with him, working hard away from the table and playing focused i'm going to be a tough son of a bitch at the tables.
tg
Friday, April 23, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
what could have changed?
haven't blogged in 2 months which is a record for laziness. this will all change though.
last time i blogged i was grinding mtt's, committed to them and had set my one of my only goals for the year as "keep playing mtt's".
well 2 months later and i am no longer playing any mtt's. true to form i've once again switched my specialty so to speak. it wasn't anything in particular that made me give up mtt's again, i really just stopped enjoying them. i guess the one thing was the time requirement that it took to play and i had a lot of weekends where i was sitting at my computer at 11pm one tabling some donkament. i also got a little tired of staying up work night till 2am only to min cash some $20 tournament.
so one day when i only had about 2 hours of free time i started messing with some mix cash games and low and behold i fell in love with the freedom to get up and go whenever i chose. i slowly started dabbling in the mix games and would still play mtt's but it was getting harder. i would sit down for a session and just pray that i busted everything quickly. while playing some micro stake mix games i realized how crucial the big bet games were to a win rate. i also realized that i had no clue how to play plo.
so fast forward a week and all of a sudden im playing a bunch of plo, trying to learn the game and now im not playing any mtt's and it just kinda took.
that's it for now, i'll explain further in my next blog.
tg
last time i blogged i was grinding mtt's, committed to them and had set my one of my only goals for the year as "keep playing mtt's".
well 2 months later and i am no longer playing any mtt's. true to form i've once again switched my specialty so to speak. it wasn't anything in particular that made me give up mtt's again, i really just stopped enjoying them. i guess the one thing was the time requirement that it took to play and i had a lot of weekends where i was sitting at my computer at 11pm one tabling some donkament. i also got a little tired of staying up work night till 2am only to min cash some $20 tournament.
so one day when i only had about 2 hours of free time i started messing with some mix cash games and low and behold i fell in love with the freedom to get up and go whenever i chose. i slowly started dabbling in the mix games and would still play mtt's but it was getting harder. i would sit down for a session and just pray that i busted everything quickly. while playing some micro stake mix games i realized how crucial the big bet games were to a win rate. i also realized that i had no clue how to play plo.
so fast forward a week and all of a sudden im playing a bunch of plo, trying to learn the game and now im not playing any mtt's and it just kinda took.
that's it for now, i'll explain further in my next blog.
tg
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
grinding
actually did some fair amount of grinding over the last weekend playing an extended schedule both friday and saturday nights generally reg'd for everything $33 and below, $10r and below on both stars and tilt between 8pm and 11pm. On saturday i also played some of the hyper turbo's to the $55 - 70k guarantee on stars as well as a sat to the ftp fifty fifty, getting into the stars and not the tilt.
friday was balls busting most everything and going semi deep in two only to get bounced late. saturday was much better and at some points i had 10 tourneys going and new ones popping up, i built stack in almost everything i played so set a overly optimistic goal of making 2 final tables.
i ended up pretty close, busting the daily double B on tilt in 17th and making the final table of the $55 on stars. the final 2 tables of that tourney was pretty intense and i felt the pressure more than i remember ever feeling before but still felt i played really well. when down to 12 handed the field was kinda tough with a couple supernova elites that obv knew their push/fold from sngs, a couple of regs that are solid mid stakes mtt grinders and then one dude that was just horrible but seemed extremely nice in chat. anyways, once we got down to 8 handed one reg started talking chop which i found surprising since the horrible player had the chip lead and i wasn't interested in giving up an edge although there was an over 10k discrepancy between 8th and 1st. anyways, bad chip leader shot down the chop right away saying there was no way he would chop so we played it out. i ended up busting 5th for 3.9k which i was very happy with although i had a legit shot at taking down the 13.5k for first. my two defining hands were a raised pot against the bad player who had defended his bb to my utg open 5 handed (never folded his blind) and i had AJo. flop comes down Q63r and since he had been doing a lot check/raising on flops i just checked it thru, hoping to induce bluffs on the turn. turn is an Ax and he checks again, i value bet and he snap calls. river is a second Qx and thinks for a second before potting it, effectively putting me all-in. really sucked and i had no time bank so didn't really get to deliberate the decision. even though he was bad i think he had to have QX or better like 85% of the time and then maybe a weak AX the other portion. soon after that i shoved A4o from the co w/ 11bb's and ran into AQs.
good boost to my br though and i have some stuff to look forward to soon that i'll detail in the next post.
tg
friday was balls busting most everything and going semi deep in two only to get bounced late. saturday was much better and at some points i had 10 tourneys going and new ones popping up, i built stack in almost everything i played so set a overly optimistic goal of making 2 final tables.
i ended up pretty close, busting the daily double B on tilt in 17th and making the final table of the $55 on stars. the final 2 tables of that tourney was pretty intense and i felt the pressure more than i remember ever feeling before but still felt i played really well. when down to 12 handed the field was kinda tough with a couple supernova elites that obv knew their push/fold from sngs, a couple of regs that are solid mid stakes mtt grinders and then one dude that was just horrible but seemed extremely nice in chat. anyways, once we got down to 8 handed one reg started talking chop which i found surprising since the horrible player had the chip lead and i wasn't interested in giving up an edge although there was an over 10k discrepancy between 8th and 1st. anyways, bad chip leader shot down the chop right away saying there was no way he would chop so we played it out. i ended up busting 5th for 3.9k which i was very happy with although i had a legit shot at taking down the 13.5k for first. my two defining hands were a raised pot against the bad player who had defended his bb to my utg open 5 handed (never folded his blind) and i had AJo. flop comes down Q63r and since he had been doing a lot check/raising on flops i just checked it thru, hoping to induce bluffs on the turn. turn is an Ax and he checks again, i value bet and he snap calls. river is a second Qx and thinks for a second before potting it, effectively putting me all-in. really sucked and i had no time bank so didn't really get to deliberate the decision. even though he was bad i think he had to have QX or better like 85% of the time and then maybe a weak AX the other portion. soon after that i shoved A4o from the co w/ 11bb's and ran into AQs.
good boost to my br though and i have some stuff to look forward to soon that i'll detail in the next post.
tg
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
2010
been getting deep in a lot of stuff recently when i have played which has not been often. i do tend to get a little lazy and complacent after a win which i think is natural but i will start ramping it back up again.
last night was my first session in a long while and i got beat up pretty good for the most part early. i played a session starting at 6pm which is a little earlier than usual and only reg'd up till 7:15. by 10pm i was 1 tabling the $11 20k guarantee (that gets like 35k i think) so i also fired up 3 tables of 100nl full ring on stars. managed to do the run good on that and made 3 buyins while i played the next hour. by 1am i was back 1 tabling and pretty deep but eventually bounced 24th/3200ish in an unfortunate flip. i had about 35bb's and min-raised a short stack shove w/ AKhh and funny enough i get flatted by the bb. flop is 8hi with my flush draw, there was a ton in the pot plus side pot so i shove and he calls w/ a slo played QQ and i bricked off. (fav on flop!)
i did have a final table last week when i came 7th in the $11 1r1a on stars for like $850. generally im pretty disappointed with a final table that results in a poor finish but i got it in pretty bad twice when i was ninja'ing a 6bb stack and got A7 thru A9 on a 9 hi flop and binked a set with 22 vs QQ. so even though i had the chip lead at one point at the final table i can't be to disappointed with the finish.
i also got deepish in a $10r on stars that had like 3500 entrants and busted 95th or so but that tourny had like a 15k first prize and 5 figure scores for the every spot in the final table.
on to 2010 and my goals are as follows:
tg
last night was my first session in a long while and i got beat up pretty good for the most part early. i played a session starting at 6pm which is a little earlier than usual and only reg'd up till 7:15. by 10pm i was 1 tabling the $11 20k guarantee (that gets like 35k i think) so i also fired up 3 tables of 100nl full ring on stars. managed to do the run good on that and made 3 buyins while i played the next hour. by 1am i was back 1 tabling and pretty deep but eventually bounced 24th/3200ish in an unfortunate flip. i had about 35bb's and min-raised a short stack shove w/ AKhh and funny enough i get flatted by the bb. flop is 8hi with my flush draw, there was a ton in the pot plus side pot so i shove and he calls w/ a slo played QQ and i bricked off. (fav on flop!)
i did have a final table last week when i came 7th in the $11 1r1a on stars for like $850. generally im pretty disappointed with a final table that results in a poor finish but i got it in pretty bad twice when i was ninja'ing a 6bb stack and got A7 thru A9 on a 9 hi flop and binked a set with 22 vs QQ. so even though i had the chip lead at one point at the final table i can't be to disappointed with the finish.
i also got deepish in a $10r on stars that had like 3500 entrants and busted 95th or so but that tourny had like a 15k first prize and 5 figure scores for the every spot in the final table.
on to 2010 and my goals are as follows:
- have fun playing poker
- stick to mtt's
- win tournaments and make money
- play in some live events
tg
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)