9/23/2010--A deep run

I had a very near miss on a big MTT cash today. I played from 1800-2153, 3 hours and 53 minutes, and finished 108 of 4,535 for a cash of $4.98. The hand that knocked me out was a hand where I bet, villian raised, I went all-in, and he called. It was my KQ against his K9, he got a 9 on the river, made a pair, and knocked me out. Three out of four times (74.928% according to PokerStove), I win that hand and I'm on my way to a nice cash.

If that card had been anything but one of the three remaining 9s in the deck, I would have won the hand and been well above the average chip count, with just over 100 players left. And once you get in the top 100, the payouts go up fast. The final table paid from $36 for 9th place to $714 for 1st.

There is no doubt that I'm on the right track. It felt very comfortable, and I can't think of more than a very few hands (maybe 5) that I could have played better, and none were serious mistakes.

The only thing that did occur to me was that if variance is such that I can easily have a downswing of 50 buy-ins, then I need to play enough MTTs that the long-term (the statistical point at which variance will start to even out) isn't all that long. Something like 75 MTTs a month would probably even out quite a few of the big monthly swings.

75 per month is not even close to attainable right now, because there aren't enough $1 MTTs with decent structures to allow me to play several in a day, let alone 2 or more at a time. Also, because of the family situation, there will be days where it's almost impossible to play an MTT.

For example, we will have the grandchilren for around 5 hours on Saturday. When reaching a final table can take 6 hours or more, the math on that doesn't work very well.

So, for now, I will keep plugging away on the STTs (single-table tournaments), grinding up my bankroll, and playing the MTTs when I can. When I can can play above the $1 level (where the tournament choices get progressively better as you move up), when we get a second computer, and when the family issues are resolved, each of those changes will allow me to play more MTTs.

I guess the bottom line is that I played well today, I gained some invaluable experience playing in the late stages of a very large tournament, and I added to my bankroll. All very good things for my career as a poker player.