Wednesday, October 31, 2012
A bad start to the day.
I woke up just before 8 A.M. today, which is earlier than usual. I had left the computer on overnight, so I checked to see if there was a decent MTT in my price range.
There was, an 8 A.M. $5.50 entry with a $150 guarantee. That's not much of a prize pool, and I was barely awake, but since I didn't play at all yesterday (an all-study day), I decided to take a shot. I entered at 8:02, and at 8:15 I was in second place. Then it happened.
I was dealt aces, someone raised preflop, I reraised, he 3-bet, and it was obvious that villian had a big hand (or though he did.) All the chips were going in one way or another, so I shoved, he called and showed kings. He flopped a third king, and I was out after playing for 22 minutes.
I know that my aces have 82% equity in that spot (meaning that I can expect to lose about 18% of the time) and I'm not one of those players who throws his mouse against the wall (there are players that claim to have broken several of them) when I get a bad beat. And there wasn't a lot of money on the line, as first prize in a $150 guarantee would be around $37. Still, it wasn't exactly a great way to start the day.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
It's a good day when I get some hours in
I"m very happy with what I did yesterday. The results weren't spectacular. I ended the night about even, at -$1.35. What I'm happy with are my hours.
I went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon I watched Fox News Sunday and the Detriot Lions football game. It was a great game, with the Lions scoring the winning touchdown with 20 seconds left in the game.
I felt guilty about doing all that. I skipped both Fox News Sunday and the football game last week. But once I got started with poker, I was on a roll. Right after the football game (4 P.M.) I looked at the available tournaments. SNGs were dead, as is often the case, but a $5.50 MTT had just started. After that I just kept going (everything is rounded to the nearest quarter hour):
1600-1715 $5.50 MTT, 61 of 112, no cash
1715-1930 Administrative time: Data entry, bankroll reconciliation, blog.)
1930-1945 Study: Flash cards (odds and outs to hit the turn.)
1945-2000 Break (I don't count breaks toward my total hours.)
2000-2245 $5.50 tournament, 91 of 785, net cash of $2.74.
2245-2300 Break
2300-0115 $3.30 MTT, mincashed, 11 of 64, net cash of $1.41.
I didn't get started until late afternoon, and I got 8.75 hours in. I am very, very happy with that. If I work all 7 days (which I almost always do) I have to average just under six hours per day to get to 40 for the week. This week, I got a nice headstart.
Results for October 21-27
Poker Profit or Loss
$1.20 tournaments
0.71 rakeback
1.00 bonus
-------
$2.91 TOTAL PROFIT
Another breakeven week--not much else to say. I was about even both in SNGs and in the few MTTs that I played. My bankroll has been hovering arond $100 for a week or so. At the end of the week it was $97.46.
---------------
Work Hours
20.25 tournaments
8.50 study
1.50 administrative
-------
30.25 TOTAL HOURS
I felt lost last week. Using strict bankroll management, there really aren't many MTTs that I can play. Between midnight and 4 P.M. there are none. What SNGs there are take a long time to fill up, sometimes half an hour or more. As I write this it's 6:44 P.M. I was knocked out of the 4 P.M. MTT, now I'm filling time until the next one, which starts at 8 P.M. After I finish this, it's time for flash cards--what fun!
I see two options:
1. Go back to waking up at noon (or later) every day.
2. Do all of my study and admin work in the morning.
I could study while I wait for a SNG to fill up. The problem there is that I don't want to get deeply involved in a study topic when I don't know whether I will be playing in 5 minutes or 35. Also, having a large block of study-only time would be a major challenge to my feeble attention span, but it's something I might try.
I am naturally a night person, and poker is a nights-and-weekends game. Doing all of my studying in the morning is not an ideal solution. When I play my favorite tournament, which goes off at 8 P.M. twice a week, I will be playing well past midnight when I go deep.
I"m starting to think that I will never be in control of my time to the extent that I thought I would. I'm not one of those 18-year olds with no responsibilities who can play 100 SNGs a day, grinding a bankroll in his parent's basement. I keep getting mad at myself for not getting in 40+ hours, and my wife always says something like: You couldn't help it because event A happened, then we had to go to location B to do something, etc.
Yesterday I was watching a video made by a $150-an-hour poker coach (I got his advice free during a 30-day free trial of a coaching site.) He opined that the most important things for a tournament player are first, good bankroll management, and second, volume (getting in as many tournaments as possible.) He referred to putting in volume as "outrunning variance." I like that term--it's clever, descriptive, and mathematically accurate.
I'm much more diciplined and organized than in the bad old days before my ADD was diagnosed, though I can still do much better. I'm spending a lot more time on study. Every month I feel like I'm a better player than the month before. The only area where I'm not making any progress is volume. One way or another, I need to make it happen.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
My longest MTT this year
I just played what I think was my longest MTT this year. It started yesterday at 8 P.M., and I was knocked out, getting third place, today at 12:56 A.M. I cashed for $46.44. It was good to go that deep, but not very exciting. I know that I'm a threat to take down a micro (under $10) tournament any time I enter, and I'm disappointed when I don't get first place. I don't get excited about final tables any more--I expect to make it that far more often than not.
I have been sticking to my bankroll management plan of mostly playing SNGs. The above tournament was the only MTT that I entered yesterday. It's ironic that now that I'm not concentrating on MTTs, I'm doing quite well when I do play.
I have been sticking to my bankroll management plan of mostly playing SNGs. The above tournament was the only MTT that I entered yesterday. It's ironic that now that I'm not concentrating on MTTs, I'm doing quite well when I do play.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Results for week of 10/14-10/20
I'm racing the thunderstorms which are on the way as I write this. I got a couple SNGs in today, now I'll try to finish this entry before I have to unplug the computer.
I was already more than a week behind in my recordkeeping when my computer went down, so I didn't do entries for the week of 9/30-10/6 or 10/7-10/13, but I was down almost $100 for those two weeks. I'll list everything in my monthly post.
Variance works both ways, especially over very short time periods like a week, and I was up $70.25 for the week, which put me in the black for the month. It's been a while since I've been a SNG specialist, and the progression of the blinds and antes is much slower than it was on PokerStars or Juicy Stakes Poker. I think I've adjusted now, and I should do a pretty good job of beating up the SNGs from now on.
Poker Profit or Loss
$69.56 tournaments
0.69 rakeback
0.00 bonus
---------
$70.25 PROFIT
---------------------------
For those of you who aren't regular readers, I keep track of things, like my work hours, that a lot of you probably don't care about--but it's very important to me. I have ADD, and I have a great ability to procrastinate, get distracted, or just plain goof off. For that reason I monitor my hours just like I'm punching a time clock. It keeps me from lying to myself about how hard I'm working at this, and putting it out there for my readers give me another reason to document that I'm getting my hours in.
This week I didn't do so well with the hours, but part of the week I didn't have my computer, and there was a lot of other stuff going on, including an out-of-town wedding, so I don't feel too bad about the week What is encouraging is that I got my priorities right, and I didn't do nothing but play poker, at the expense of studying, when I got my computer back.
My priorities are in the order that I list them: playing poker first, studying a close second, and after that, whatever administrative hours I need to keep myself and my records straight.
Work Hours
10.25 tournaments
9.50 study
5.25 administrative
-------
25.00
I was already more than a week behind in my recordkeeping when my computer went down, so I didn't do entries for the week of 9/30-10/6 or 10/7-10/13, but I was down almost $100 for those two weeks. I'll list everything in my monthly post.
Variance works both ways, especially over very short time periods like a week, and I was up $70.25 for the week, which put me in the black for the month. It's been a while since I've been a SNG specialist, and the progression of the blinds and antes is much slower than it was on PokerStars or Juicy Stakes Poker. I think I've adjusted now, and I should do a pretty good job of beating up the SNGs from now on.
Poker Profit or Loss
$69.56 tournaments
0.69 rakeback
0.00 bonus
---------
$70.25 PROFIT
---------------------------
For those of you who aren't regular readers, I keep track of things, like my work hours, that a lot of you probably don't care about--but it's very important to me. I have ADD, and I have a great ability to procrastinate, get distracted, or just plain goof off. For that reason I monitor my hours just like I'm punching a time clock. It keeps me from lying to myself about how hard I'm working at this, and putting it out there for my readers give me another reason to document that I'm getting my hours in.
This week I didn't do so well with the hours, but part of the week I didn't have my computer, and there was a lot of other stuff going on, including an out-of-town wedding, so I don't feel too bad about the week What is encouraging is that I got my priorities right, and I didn't do nothing but play poker, at the expense of studying, when I got my computer back.
My priorities are in the order that I list them: playing poker first, studying a close second, and after that, whatever administrative hours I need to keep myself and my records straight.
Work Hours
10.25 tournaments
9.50 study
5.25 administrative
-------
25.00
Friday, October 19, 2012
A Surprise Win
I said in my previous post that I was going to cut out the MTTs for a while and play a bunch of SNGs to lower my variance. Yesterday afternoon I was the second player to enter a $2 SNG. Two more players quickly joined (it takes nine), then nothing happened. It went back down to two players. It would get up to three or four again, then someone would get tired of waiting and drop out. After about 20 minutes of this, I noticed that it was almost 4 P.M. and that a $5 MTT with a fairly weak field was about to go off.
Since there was no SNG action I decided to give it a shot, one last fling with the MTTs. This was a Thursday, and I was hoping that there would be more SNG traffic on the weekend. 88 players entered, and 3 hours and 45 minutes later I won it, for a cash of $77. Since I had a little money to work with, I decided to enter another small $5 MTT at 10 P.M., and I got 11th of 88 for a small cash.
To make a long story short, three days ago my bankroll was under $20. After 4 straight cashes (the two MTTs plus a first and a second in SNGs), it's now $98.
It's nice to be back from the dead, but I'm still going to have to be very careful with my bankroll. There are some tournaments with great sturctures that cost around $10 to enter, but I have to be realistic and stay away from those for a while. In general, my tournament selection strategy will still be to play the two big weekly $5 MTTs along with a bunch of SNGs. If my bankroll keeps going up, I might throw in one of the smaller MTTs every once in a while, just to keep in practice and apply what I'm studying.
Since there was no SNG action I decided to give it a shot, one last fling with the MTTs. This was a Thursday, and I was hoping that there would be more SNG traffic on the weekend. 88 players entered, and 3 hours and 45 minutes later I won it, for a cash of $77. Since I had a little money to work with, I decided to enter another small $5 MTT at 10 P.M., and I got 11th of 88 for a small cash.
To make a long story short, three days ago my bankroll was under $20. After 4 straight cashes (the two MTTs plus a first and a second in SNGs), it's now $98.
It's nice to be back from the dead, but I'm still going to have to be very careful with my bankroll. There are some tournaments with great sturctures that cost around $10 to enter, but I have to be realistic and stay away from those for a while. In general, my tournament selection strategy will still be to play the two big weekly $5 MTTs along with a bunch of SNGs. If my bankroll keeps going up, I might throw in one of the smaller MTTs every once in a while, just to keep in practice and apply what I'm studying.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Change in tournament selection strategy
I finally got my computer back. It's nice to be playing again.
I rethought my tournament selection strategy (again) and I shouldn't be playing most of the available, MTTs, given my small bankroll. I'm going to play a lot of SNGs for a while, mostly at $1.50, to slowly but surely grind up my bankroll.
There is one MTT that I'm going to keep playing. I will still be playing the $5.50 8 P.M. MTTs with 500 or more players whenever I can. They go off twice a week with guaranted prize pools of $2,500 and $3,500.
You might be wondering why I'm concentrating on such big fields, since larger fields mean more variance, which is what I'm trying to avoid There are two things that make these tournaments always worth playing.
First, the fields are very soft. The play is bad enough that, in my opinion, my positive expectation more than makes up for the variance that goes with larger fields. Big prize polls attract fish hoping to get lucky. Compared to 100-player tournaments at the same level, the players in the $2,500 and $3,500 guaranteed tournaments are really bad.
Second, it really isn't that hard to cash. Sure, there are a lot more players, but Americas Cardroom MTTs generally pay 20% of the field, whether it is a 100-player tournament with 20 cashing, or an 1,000-player tournament with 200 cashing.
So, that's the plan. Catch up on my recordkeeping, lots of studying, lots of SNGs, and play the two big tournaments. There will be a lot of $1 to $5 net cashes from the SNGs, which isn't very sexy. I just played one for $1.50, took second, and won $4.05. But it's within my bankroll, I can play several in a day, and sooner or later I'll play one of those big tournaments and get a big cash, which will move things along nicely.
I rethought my tournament selection strategy (again) and I shouldn't be playing most of the available, MTTs, given my small bankroll. I'm going to play a lot of SNGs for a while, mostly at $1.50, to slowly but surely grind up my bankroll.
There is one MTT that I'm going to keep playing. I will still be playing the $5.50 8 P.M. MTTs with 500 or more players whenever I can. They go off twice a week with guaranted prize pools of $2,500 and $3,500.
You might be wondering why I'm concentrating on such big fields, since larger fields mean more variance, which is what I'm trying to avoid There are two things that make these tournaments always worth playing.
First, the fields are very soft. The play is bad enough that, in my opinion, my positive expectation more than makes up for the variance that goes with larger fields. Big prize polls attract fish hoping to get lucky. Compared to 100-player tournaments at the same level, the players in the $2,500 and $3,500 guaranteed tournaments are really bad.
Second, it really isn't that hard to cash. Sure, there are a lot more players, but Americas Cardroom MTTs generally pay 20% of the field, whether it is a 100-player tournament with 20 cashing, or an 1,000-player tournament with 200 cashing.
So, that's the plan. Catch up on my recordkeeping, lots of studying, lots of SNGs, and play the two big tournaments. There will be a lot of $1 to $5 net cashes from the SNGs, which isn't very sexy. I just played one for $1.50, took second, and won $4.05. But it's within my bankroll, I can play several in a day, and sooner or later I'll play one of those big tournaments and get a big cash, which will move things along nicely.
Monday, October 15, 2012
My computer is in the shop
I have been without my computer for several days, which means that I haven't played poker for several days. I'm also behind on my recordkeeping and some other things. I was a week behind on my recordkeeping before the computer locked up, so I'll be putting in a lot of administrative time when I get it back.
I was looking up something online, and suddenly everything locked up. I got a screen that said I had done something illegal. I don't remember all of the possiblities on the list, but one was that I had downloaded child pornography. Even though I knew it was a scam (I did not download anything during that computer session) it was definitely creepy to see that as a possible allegation.
It wasn't a very convincing scam. All I had to was send $200 to a certain address to pay my fine and get my computer unlocked. Also, the logo at the top wasn't the US Department of Justice. It was the Department of State. As far as I know, Hillary doesn't have the power to fine anyone.
I've been without my computer for a few days, and http://crashmasters.com/ told me that their turnaround time is usually between two and five days. I hope that I get my computer back soon.
I was looking up something online, and suddenly everything locked up. I got a screen that said I had done something illegal. I don't remember all of the possiblities on the list, but one was that I had downloaded child pornography. Even though I knew it was a scam (I did not download anything during that computer session) it was definitely creepy to see that as a possible allegation.
It wasn't a very convincing scam. All I had to was send $200 to a certain address to pay my fine and get my computer unlocked. Also, the logo at the top wasn't the US Department of Justice. It was the Department of State. As far as I know, Hillary doesn't have the power to fine anyone.
I've been without my computer for a few days, and http://crashmasters.com/ told me that their turnaround time is usually between two and five days. I hope that I get my computer back soon.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Empasizing process over results
It occured to me that I'm doing a lot of that in my posts. I talk about how many hours I work, or how I approach my studies, rather than about how much money I made that day. One reason is, of course, that I'm making sure that I have the right mindset. Daily results don't mean much.
Poker is game of probability. I make a certain play, and either it will win more often than not, or more likely, it will make money over time even if I don't win the pot very often.
That said, I do realize that results are important to the readers, so I'll try to put more of that in my posts.
As I thought some more about process verus performance, I realized that success is any field is like that. Most successful people don't talk about it. Yo Yo Ma never told anyone that he practices scales six hour a day, although every serious musician understands that that kind of focus is necessary to perform at an elite level.
Some people do talk about process, and I wish that more people would understand that concept, and not wait for the government to take care of them. Results only come after a lot of hard work. On ESPN they talk about pro football players who play jusr a few months a year, but train almost every day during the "off season."
Financial talk show host Dave Ramsey often stresses process and the link to financial success. He talks about how important it was to his career to get a finance degree from a good school. He says that you need to hang around with winnners, so that the losers and complainers don't drag you down. Ramsey famously said, "I know a lot of millionaires, but I don't know anyone who got rich working 40 hours a week." (I have a lot of work to do in that area.)
Donald Trump gets it. He said that he would be glad to give any of his children a management role in his businesses--after they got a business degree from a good school, then served an apprenticeship in the lower levels of his companies.
Poker is no different. People who watch someone "get lucky" in a televised tournament have no idea what got him to the point where he can play at that level. He might have hired poker coaches along the way (Johnathan Little had three of them). He probably read every poker book that came out, and he might have studied probabilty and game theory as they relate to poker.
He works out in the fitness room in the casino/hotel where the tournament is held, because he understands that he has to be in shape to deal with tournaments on the World Poker Tour which run twelve hours a day for a week. He almost certainly subscribes to one of the teaching sites with online poker videos which include expert commentary. Some players even study the psychology and physiology of tells--one player co-wrote a book with a former FBI agent who is an expert in body language.
When I talk about how many hours I work, or what goes into my tournament selection strategy (which I have to change yet again), it's because all of those things aren't just important. They are foundational. A lot of players who were once poker millionaires lose it all because they don't do one of of the foundational things correctly.
It takes me a while to get good at something. In 10th grade, I was playing second clarinet in the number four band in my high school. I was humilated. I seriously onsidered quiting band, but I decided instead to get better. Six years ago, I retired as the clarinet section leader and principal clarinet of an army band.
Financial success with poker has been a lot slower, and has been a lot harder, than I ever expected. The more I learn, the more I undertand how many things I'm doiug wrong. As I take care of those things, sucess will come. Of that I have no doubt.
Poker is game of probability. I make a certain play, and either it will win more often than not, or more likely, it will make money over time even if I don't win the pot very often.
That said, I do realize that results are important to the readers, so I'll try to put more of that in my posts.
As I thought some more about process verus performance, I realized that success is any field is like that. Most successful people don't talk about it. Yo Yo Ma never told anyone that he practices scales six hour a day, although every serious musician understands that that kind of focus is necessary to perform at an elite level.
Some people do talk about process, and I wish that more people would understand that concept, and not wait for the government to take care of them. Results only come after a lot of hard work. On ESPN they talk about pro football players who play jusr a few months a year, but train almost every day during the "off season."
Financial talk show host Dave Ramsey often stresses process and the link to financial success. He talks about how important it was to his career to get a finance degree from a good school. He says that you need to hang around with winnners, so that the losers and complainers don't drag you down. Ramsey famously said, "I know a lot of millionaires, but I don't know anyone who got rich working 40 hours a week." (I have a lot of work to do in that area.)
Donald Trump gets it. He said that he would be glad to give any of his children a management role in his businesses--after they got a business degree from a good school, then served an apprenticeship in the lower levels of his companies.
Poker is no different. People who watch someone "get lucky" in a televised tournament have no idea what got him to the point where he can play at that level. He might have hired poker coaches along the way (Johnathan Little had three of them). He probably read every poker book that came out, and he might have studied probabilty and game theory as they relate to poker.
He works out in the fitness room in the casino/hotel where the tournament is held, because he understands that he has to be in shape to deal with tournaments on the World Poker Tour which run twelve hours a day for a week. He almost certainly subscribes to one of the teaching sites with online poker videos which include expert commentary. Some players even study the psychology and physiology of tells--one player co-wrote a book with a former FBI agent who is an expert in body language.
When I talk about how many hours I work, or what goes into my tournament selection strategy (which I have to change yet again), it's because all of those things aren't just important. They are foundational. A lot of players who were once poker millionaires lose it all because they don't do one of of the foundational things correctly.
It takes me a while to get good at something. In 10th grade, I was playing second clarinet in the number four band in my high school. I was humilated. I seriously onsidered quiting band, but I decided instead to get better. Six years ago, I retired as the clarinet section leader and principal clarinet of an army band.
Financial success with poker has been a lot slower, and has been a lot harder, than I ever expected. The more I learn, the more I undertand how many things I'm doiug wrong. As I take care of those things, sucess will come. Of that I have no doubt.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
$2,500 guaranteed tournament
Twice a week on Americas Cardroom there are $5.50 tournmaments with large prize pools. Wednesday at 8 P.M. (US Eastern Time) is the $2,500 guarantee, and Sunday at 8 P.M. is the $3,500 guarantee.
I played fairly well last week in one of them and finished 28th for a small cash, and last night in the "$2,500 GTD" I finished 29th of 522 for a cash of $14.35. As I made the money and got deep into the tournament, I got so nervous I was sweating and my hands were actually shaking.
I know that shaking hands are a "tell" when a poker player has a big hand, but I always thought that it was kind of silly that even very good players were unable to control their emotions and movements. As one author put it, you need to have not only a "poker face", but a poker body. No matter how hard I try to be inscrutable when I play live, I guess I'm human after all.
I definitley would have liked to go a lot deeper. Several places at the final table paid over $100, and first was over $600 (first place generally pays about 25% of the prize pool.) Even though I didn't go any deeper than last week, it seemed easier to get that deep.
Every tournament, because of various factors including the size of the prize pool, speed (how fast the blinds go up), buy-in level, and even the time of day, has it's own quirks. In both tournaments, this week and last week, I had a lot of trouble at the beginning. Yesterday I lost a lot of chips in the first 30 minutes. I didn't get back to my starting stack until over an hour into the tournament. From there it went well. The way people play at the beginning of these tournaments is just crazy. In poker terminology, I was playing against maniacs.
I was playing in a textbook manner, looking for situations where I could raise and be aggressive. Almost every time I raised, it would go something like this:
We started level one with 2,500 chips and blinds (forced minimum bets) were 15 and 30. I would check my hand, raise to 90 or 120, someone would reraise to 600, and a third player would go all-in. At this point I have two choices: fold to the pressure, or be prepared to put all my chips in by the end of the hand. Since I didn't have any monster hands (and might not have risked my tournament life even if I did) I wound up folding a lot of hands. I lost every hand that I played for the first 20 minutes or so.
There are two reasons that people play like this:
1. They are just having fun, and seeing if they can "get lucky" and double their chip stack. They aren't playing optimally, and they don't care because they know they probably aren't going to make it into the money unless they get lucky.
2. Less likely, but possible, is that a serious player who values his time might take some big risks to double up early, so that he can be the "table captain," Once he has the biggest stack at the table, he can bully the players with shorter stacks and build his stack even more, putting himself in a great position to make it to the final table. A common saying among such players is, "If I bust out, there's always another tournament." A few of the pros play this way.
In this tournament, I'm sure that almost all of the maniacs are type #1. Raising a lot and pushing players out of pots is one thing. But with the hands I was seeing at showdown, these players were indeed mainacs. A pro trying to double up early is taking a calculated risk. If I was dealt aces early in the tournament with several players in the pot, I might just shove and see who comes along for the ride.
I just ran the numbers on Pokerstove, and aces win about 63% of the time against 3 players playing anything in the top 50% of hands. For a chance to put myself instantly in the top 10 of the tournament, that's a gamble for all my chips that I would probably take. But if it was any hand other than aces, or maybe kings, I would probably fold, depending on the situation. There is nothing wrong with folding every hand for 30 minutes. It's a lot better than spewing chips.
Now that I've finally figured that out, I'm already excited about playing the next big guarantee tournament. It will be really nice if I can get through the first hour with at least an average stack.
I played fairly well last week in one of them and finished 28th for a small cash, and last night in the "$2,500 GTD" I finished 29th of 522 for a cash of $14.35. As I made the money and got deep into the tournament, I got so nervous I was sweating and my hands were actually shaking.
I know that shaking hands are a "tell" when a poker player has a big hand, but I always thought that it was kind of silly that even very good players were unable to control their emotions and movements. As one author put it, you need to have not only a "poker face", but a poker body. No matter how hard I try to be inscrutable when I play live, I guess I'm human after all.
I definitley would have liked to go a lot deeper. Several places at the final table paid over $100, and first was over $600 (first place generally pays about 25% of the prize pool.) Even though I didn't go any deeper than last week, it seemed easier to get that deep.
Every tournament, because of various factors including the size of the prize pool, speed (how fast the blinds go up), buy-in level, and even the time of day, has it's own quirks. In both tournaments, this week and last week, I had a lot of trouble at the beginning. Yesterday I lost a lot of chips in the first 30 minutes. I didn't get back to my starting stack until over an hour into the tournament. From there it went well. The way people play at the beginning of these tournaments is just crazy. In poker terminology, I was playing against maniacs.
I was playing in a textbook manner, looking for situations where I could raise and be aggressive. Almost every time I raised, it would go something like this:
We started level one with 2,500 chips and blinds (forced minimum bets) were 15 and 30. I would check my hand, raise to 90 or 120, someone would reraise to 600, and a third player would go all-in. At this point I have two choices: fold to the pressure, or be prepared to put all my chips in by the end of the hand. Since I didn't have any monster hands (and might not have risked my tournament life even if I did) I wound up folding a lot of hands. I lost every hand that I played for the first 20 minutes or so.
There are two reasons that people play like this:
1. They are just having fun, and seeing if they can "get lucky" and double their chip stack. They aren't playing optimally, and they don't care because they know they probably aren't going to make it into the money unless they get lucky.
2. Less likely, but possible, is that a serious player who values his time might take some big risks to double up early, so that he can be the "table captain," Once he has the biggest stack at the table, he can bully the players with shorter stacks and build his stack even more, putting himself in a great position to make it to the final table. A common saying among such players is, "If I bust out, there's always another tournament." A few of the pros play this way.
In this tournament, I'm sure that almost all of the maniacs are type #1. Raising a lot and pushing players out of pots is one thing. But with the hands I was seeing at showdown, these players were indeed mainacs. A pro trying to double up early is taking a calculated risk. If I was dealt aces early in the tournament with several players in the pot, I might just shove and see who comes along for the ride.
I just ran the numbers on Pokerstove, and aces win about 63% of the time against 3 players playing anything in the top 50% of hands. For a chance to put myself instantly in the top 10 of the tournament, that's a gamble for all my chips that I would probably take. But if it was any hand other than aces, or maybe kings, I would probably fold, depending on the situation. There is nothing wrong with folding every hand for 30 minutes. It's a lot better than spewing chips.
Now that I've finally figured that out, I'm already excited about playing the next big guarantee tournament. It will be really nice if I can get through the first hour with at least an average stack.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Results for September 2012
I was positive for the month, and I came back from the brink when, at the end of August, my bankroll was $29.28. I was hoping to be up at least $100 for the month, but a very bad last day of the month took care of that.
As mentioned in a recent post, I'm being a lot more strict about my bankroll, even if that doesn't leave me many tournaments on Americas Cardroom that I can play. With my current tournament selection strategy, and the increased emphasis on study, it should be almost impossible to lose over $30 in a day any time soon.
Here are the numbers:
Week Profit or Loss
9/1 $0.00
9/2-9.8 83.76
9/9-9/15 47.26
9/16-9/22 -44.25
9/23-9/29 12.90
9/30 -37.70
---------
$61.97
As mentioned in a recent post, I'm being a lot more strict about my bankroll, even if that doesn't leave me many tournaments on Americas Cardroom that I can play. With my current tournament selection strategy, and the increased emphasis on study, it should be almost impossible to lose over $30 in a day any time soon.
Here are the numbers:
Week Profit or Loss
9/1 $0.00
9/2-9.8 83.76
9/9-9/15 47.26
9/16-9/22 -44.25
9/23-9/29 12.90
9/30 -37.70
---------
$61.97
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