Decemeber to remember...

Yes, I'm still alive and playing. I've been slacking on the updates but this by far is my best month to date.  As you know I went thru 2-3 months of straight hell with my downswing and binking the little micro was what got this heater started.  chrisp200 and KULP were over throughout decemeber in the 'grind room' and we pulled in some serious cash. KULP had a breakout month too, having an epic sunday. Final tabling 33KO and the 15k Superstack, which he shippped for $7.5k. weeeeeee. then followed it up with a final table and 2nd place in the daily $40k on stars. sicko?  chrisp on a bit of a downswing but keep at it. new year is coming and should be fun things for us in the near future.

I guess that brings it to me and what I did this month. Five 4 figure scores and 1 out right win. I also had a shot for my first 5 figgy score in the 42k gtd on ftp but ended up taking 3rd. I ended up with around $11-$12k profit!  It's finally nice to see all my hard work pay off. The countless hours of reviewing HH's, watching vids, browsing forums. Trying to find the anecdote to fix the downswing. had some nice run goot in there which was much needed.

The cubed was pretty wicked. No real 'tough' spots that I ran in to. Played solid and shipped it. So this year I shipped the PS $10 cubed and FTP $10 cubed. woo woo.

On to this year...I never would have thought I would be where I am at right now a year ago. cliche' i know, but seriously. I had a shitty 9to5 job I hated and just started 'grinding' micro stakes MTTs and getting destroyed. In March it finally clicked and I was .000001% away from a potential $35k score only to be stabbed in the heart on the river.  Now looking at it in hindsight it might have been the best thing for me. Having that much money at that point in my career might have been detrimental. But after that close hit I hit my biggest cash to date and of the year. 1st in the $10 cubed for $5.3k.  Few months down the road I get fired from PLS and denied unemployment. I had no choice but to grind my money out while being backed still. I ended up getting unemployment a month or two later which put some lax on me but kept the grind up. I was interested to see the comparison of when I worked 40hrs a week and played on my time off vs full time playing. So I worked/played for 8 months and played full time for 4 months or so. Heres the breakdown...

Strange how that works? lol, gg PeeEllEss and ty :D


2010 MTT Profit Totals























I can thanks enough everyone that has helped me this year become the player I am. chrisp200,kulp,plzjusthold,dapretzel, p5s forums, ptp forums, pxf vids, my skype group. If I missed some I'm sorry but thank you. 2011 is going to be huge. I will post 2011 goals and such tomorrow or so.

Happy New Year Everyone!

FINALLLYYYYYYYY! It seemed like forever since the last time I've made a post about anything decent tournament-wise. After a really shitty week in the Micro Comp it was much needed.  I started off yesterday waking up around 9:45 or so and planned on going to Rivers Casino to play the $65 11am crapshoot. They have the same tournament everyday.  But I ended up taking too long to get on the road and missed it. So I pondered what I should do for the rest of the day.  I swore off online poker sunday night until the new year...obviously didn't work. I played a full schedule and FT a $12 180 for 5th I think. FT'd a $10 on UB for 3rd....ATs lost to A7o all in pre for heads up play. Then I FT'd a $3 6-max $4k GTD and shipped it for $1294. THANK GOD.

So this is it, 12th month of the year....the last one. It's funny how this year has been and the different directions I went. I started off playing 'micro mtts' this Jan. Not new to the game but NEW to the game. The last 11 months have been crazy at the tables. I have learned and grown so much as a player this year. Without going off to much on a rant, hopefully get some decent volume in for December and hit the new year hard. I'm not out of the woods yet but this is a start to some kind of hot run I hope. No matter how bad the downswing is stay positive, review , and run better? glglgl

Micro Mayhem

Downswing continues.....been working real hard away from the table still, watching vids and review HH's. I just joined this competetion...http://www.pocketfives.com/f7/*micro-mtt-team-competition*-begins-11-29-a-608900/

basically any tournament from $1-$6 and $3 1a1r and $3 rebuys and under count. Same comp me and chrisp200 played few months back earlier this year. I got a new team though since chrisp is crushing the tables right now. I picked up the 2 guys that were leading scorers last comp. I also entered a winner take all $20 singles comp. Its worth $140 and has 8 people in it.  I will prob want to kill myself after this week jst for the fact that its micros. But the bankroll is low and I need some motivation so this couldnt have happened at a better time.

miniFTOPS starts next week and also the miniFTOPS competition that runs 3.5 weeks I think...$100 buy in, snake style draft..5 players per team. We shall see. Anyways got a bunch of micro donk tournaments starting so glgl

Pokewhore

What a game we play. The past 1.5-2 months at the tables have been absolute hell. Watching what seems to be every hand get it in and the chips going the other direction and then ding, 'youve been eliminated' noise.  It's happened all too much but what can you do?  Expected, standard, etc etc etc. It's poker. I've said it a lot latley but this is still currently my worst downswing in the 6ish years I've played. For some odd reason my HH's weren't being saved again so any semi deep run I had I've been unable to look at them to see the leaks that need plugged.  Seems to be working today so hopefully I'll have some tournaments to look at.

We can't always blame variance on the problem.  Finding new ways to accumulate chips is something that every player needs to add to the arsenal. Everybody has their standard push hands, calls hands, etc etc etc. But what about the in between? What separates the sickos from me? What if we kick back from 16-18 tables to 10 or so and find more spots to pick up chips. Maybe it isnt the best +EV situation for you but I think in a vaccum, in that certain moment where you have a read and decide to make an unorthodox play. You get called and lose so what? You have many more tournaments to get at. MTTs are getting tougher and are only going to get worse thru the years. Staying ahead of the curve is important and obviously finding new ways to increase your edge is a must. Training sites and books and forums can only get you so far. It sets a good foundation to build upon. Who cares if it looks silly if you get called, you tried. It's an art..rough drafts of shit to see if it needs cut out or kept. Don't throw it out because you got called and lost, take a look back and see if you saw something that maybe it was a bad time to do. I'm rambling on about some basic common sense but sometimes I think it's missed. We get so wrapped up in our own situation, downswing, upswing, whatever and we forget to review our games. It's easier to just pass it off on bad luck, right?  So the new goal is going to be atleast 1-2 tournaments per week need to be reviwed. I'm not sure if any serious players follow this besides the usuals but I encourage you to do it also.  Even if you find 1 spot that you could have got chips, thats a + for the review session.

Also I was talking with Jay(plzjusthold) and we are going to try a new set up.  12 tables to begin the session and then cutting back as you get deeper(thats what she said). This will get us paying more attention to detail in the mid-late stages. We will see how it goes, Sunday today..got a nice schedule going. GL at the tables.

Epic Fail and a Return

asdjf;aklsjdfajfl;asjdflasjdflasjdflajflasdfjlkjm,zcvnpq893u19785 0l;and anf

Thats about how I feel right now. 2 weeks of playing SNGs, played about 1300-1400 games and got creamed. This is by far the worst downswing I have experienced in my 6 or so years of poker.  I reviewed after every sesh using SNGWIZ and it said I was doing everything right(atleast 80% of the time). And still, loserrrr. Bascially SNGs are DEAD.  You have a bunch of wannabe sng pros that play worse than breakeven poker and ship money back and forth to each other.  None of the regs adjust to pushing ranges against regs in the blinds and they call even lighter on the bubble. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

3k downswing in SNGs and another 2kish downswing in MTTs in Oct.  yaaaaa, and im a winning player? Pretty sure this is normal and expected so I'm not gonna make this a cry post. I played good, ran like shit, and here I am.  SuperNovaElite is no more. I don't play cash so its bascially impossible unless I had about a $10k BR to run $27 and $38 SNGs. Whatever happened to the 100 buy in rule for SNGs?  Needs to be about 500 BIs or more these days.

Anyways, heres the plan...I'm back in the MTT game. I'll be playing on UB, FTP, and PS. mini-FTOPS is next monthish or so, pretty excited to be back in the game for it.  As much as I wanted SNE , there is nothing better than getting deep in a tournament and shipping it. 

Also props to the newest Pittsburgh online player, focusdriver112 (on ftp), also my roommate....he shipped a $5.50 on FTP yesterday morning for $190. First NLHE tournament he's won, NJ! This is also after a solid performance in the $3r $14.5k on ftp where he took 14th or 15th I believe. And to all the downswingers, keep your head, get it in good. GLGL

1st week

First 7 days of the month are done and I played about 700 games. Mainly 27s and 38s. I hit about a 60-70 buy in downswing..pretty sick.  The regs in these games amaze the shit out of me with their play. Unless its just me, they dont seem to adjust to the player they are shipping late. Which is fine with me, its eaiser to play like that.

I've been 18-20 tabling pretty solid and just hope to hit a nice upswing. SNGwiz is showing pretty much every push and call is good so just need to keep pumping up the volume. I'm currently at Platinum VIP with around 11k-12k for the first week. Also I hit 3 stellar rewards for $50 a pop. Now if i can end this horrific downswing I'll be happy.

whats going on

Been a very long time since I last updated this. A lot went on in Oct, mainly towards the end of the month. My brother got married so I was busy with that.  Ended up throwing a halloween party too at the end of the month which was wooord.  MTTs were not so kind to me this month, I ended up busting my stake and being on an $1800 downswing :( .  I was playing pretty damn good all month but nothing went my way deep. Nothing you can do there but keep going. 

Since I'm still not working and this is my sole source of income I have decided to take another route. MTTs are fun and I will always love them, because after all that is poker. But I was offered something I couldnt refuse. SuperNova Elite. For those of you that dont know that is 1 million VPPs in 1 year on Pokerstars.(I think only 30 or so have made SNE this year. Very small % when you think about all the people in the world that play on Pokerstars.) You get 5.5 VPPs per $1 rake. So its a shit load.  I have worked a solid deal out and a play schedule that should get me there by Oct of next year.

For November I am looking to get 50k VPPs and 100k VPPs in December which will land me at SuperNova for 2011. These 2 months are the key months for this to work out because of all the bonuses I'll be able to get as SuperNova.  After all is said and done and I hit SuperNova Elite by the end of next year I'll get around $110k in bonuses, including 2 live $10k packages to any event...mostly likely WSOP ME and PCA.

I've switched my focus from MTTs to SNGs....right now 9 man turbos with the option of moving to cash games and MTT-SNGs.  Right now I have just over 3k VPPs for November and already hit Gold Star is 2 days. I'm running mainly $27 9 mans and adding $38s to the mix.  Hopefully I'll be at $38 soely by the end of the week to get the VPPs going.  I run anywhere from 16-20 tables, looking to get to 25+ by Jan 2011. I've played about 325 games in 2.2 days or so. Looking to get around 1500+ VPPs per day right now to stay on track.

I'm gonna try to make some changes to the blog to show my updated VPPs and so forth but havent figured out what I want to do yet. So follow along and stay tuned. :)

Rolly-coasters

So its been about a week since I updated.  The 60 hour week went down the tube.  What a time to start a downswing, I played hard for 3 days and couldnt win anything, so instead of playing more I decided to take off a day or two. I went to Kent on saturday for their homecoming and had a lot of fun. I don't really remember but I think I took friday saturday and sunday off..came back refreshed. 

I final tabled the $3r $14.5k GTD on ftp only to bust out 6th.  It was pretty epic....there were around 2900-3000 runners and CHRISP200 and I both made it to the final 2 tables. He ended up going out 11th.  So close to a final table...we've never made the same final table of a big tournament like that before.  Also I won a small tournament too for 2 FTs. The next day I had some nice runs but nothing really came thru. I ran like poopoo but some how FT the $22 Big Antes 360 CAP.  I shipped it for around $1475 (no ss:(). So for 2 weeks I was on a $1300-$1400 downswing and took a break....came back and within 2-3 days went on a $2kish upswing.  Thats where I'm at now...I took yesterday off to get some stuff straightened around and just relax. Back at it today, hopefully the upswing continues and I can FT a few today. Gl out there today

updates

Updates real quick on this week...I've played everyday this week. Been switching my schedule up to play during the night..usually 8 or 9pm to 3-4am.  The play is pretty laughable.  It seems you can gain better stacks during the night play but then again it might just be me. I like it though and will continue to play that a few times a week.  The sun is out today and there is nothing better than grinding when the weather is good. Good weather, Good attitude.

Anyways...3 days and a shitty as 19.5 hours played.  Day 1- 9.5hrs , Day 2-5hrs , Day 3-5hrs.  So I have 4 days to get 40.5 hours in.  Today I will be registering from about 1:30-2pm to 11pm or longer. Need atleast 10-12 hours today, shouldnt be too hard.

I final tabled $22 360 CAP Big antes last night and had an all in with AK vs AQ vs JJ for 200K (chip lead with 6 to go) if i would have won the flip. JJ held.  nothing else really...lets hope for a ship tonight.


Also last month it was hard coming up with 10 final table songs (brag) so this month I've decided to just designate one.  Enjoy and gl

Day 1

Played about 35 yesterday for -$381.  I had a few hopefuls but they ended up falling through. Played pretty good though so nothing to complain about.  I clocked in 9.5 hours for day 1 and started day 2 at 730pm tonight. I'm registered till about 2am so looking for another long session and hopefully put me back in the green.  Havent ran too well just yet, knocked out of about 4 but got a lot more coming. and tonight is turbo night on stars...starts at 11pm..hopefully ship something...gllglgl

60 Hour Poker Challenge

Alright I know this is prob easy for most pro grinders because they play 50-60 hours a week.  I set this goal at about an avg of 10 hour days 6 days this week..maybe more. I'll register for 8 hours min. which should hopefully give me over 60 hours.

1 week...60 hours...hopefully at least 4 figure profits.  


Started at 9am this morning and will update throughout. Busted out of a few already and I'm registered till 5pm on FTP and PS.

I love 2nd place

I Final Tabled 2 tournaments yesterday. 1 was a small $2 rebuy on ftp...500 for first, got to heads up..had about 1.1 mill to his 475kish.....All in pre AGAIN A8o vs A6...spikes the 6....from there is was a battle...i had him all in twice when i was ahead and he caught both...ended up taking 2nd. FT the 360 CAP $22 big antes....entered 4/9 with about 45 bigs....had perfect seat ....CL was 2 to my right. few hands in i wake up with AQ on the button...cl raises and instead of smooth calling i 3 bet...he 4bet and imade a terrible 5bet jam....he showed AK...gg out in 9th. Didn't like how i played that at all.

$3r $60k GTD on stars.....was short stacked to 9 bigs at one point in the money, played solid patient poker to and was up to about 40 bigs...then hit a brick wall and was up and down from 12-30 bigs...got to about 100 people and i have 27 bbs on button. aggor raises from the HJ....image is pretty loose...my image, ehh i just won a huge pot 3 bet shoving with KK a few hands before to double up. blinds 12.5k/25k plus ante..he raises 58k....he's raise/folded before and we both have around the same stacks....he might have me by 20k in chips. i thought about it and i shoved. he insta called with 77 board flopped open ender but i couldnt get there.

in hindsight this shove was terrible. here i am short stack ninja'in my way thru 7100 people for a shot at 12k, up to 27 bigs and i spewwww. pretty upset with my self but nothgni you can do. learn from mistakes and press on.


I'd like to leave with a hand from yesterday. Lately against thinking/good players I like to make calls like this oop with pp because they are firing off a Cbet most of the time.


    PokerStars Game #50452447526: Tournament #314010910, $20+$2 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XIV (200/400) - 2010/10/01 13:52:38 ET
    Table '314010910 9' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
    Seat 1: Minus790 (24532 in chips)
    Seat 2: grompok (22573 in chips)
    Seat 3: Hoppi777 (5126 in chips)
    Seat 4: teddyrowe9 (19147 in chips)
    Seat 5: OMGitshunt (9078 in chips)
    Seat 6: FoRsAkEn03 (15464 in chips)
    Seat 7: paultorico (5123 in chips)
    Seat 9: cusexcuse (4780 in chips)
    Minus790: posts the ante 80
    grompok: posts the ante 80
    Hoppi777: posts the ante 80
    teddyrowe9: posts the ante 80
    OMGitshunt: posts the ante 80
    FoRsAkEn03: posts the ante 80
    paultorico: posts the ante 80
    cusexcuse: posts the ante 80
    teddyrowe9: posts small blind 200
    OMGitshunt: posts big blind 400
    *** HOLE CARDS ***
    Dealt to FoRsAkEn03 [Ts Th]
    FoRsAkEn03: raises 511 to 911
    paultorico: folds
    cusexcuse: folds
    Minus790: raises 2426 to 3337
    grompok: folds
    Hoppi777: folds
    teddyrowe9: folds
    OMGitshunt: folds
    FoRsAkEn03: calls 2426
    *** FLOP *** [7c 6h Qh]
    FoRsAkEn03: checks
    Minus790: bets 3337
    FoRsAkEn03: calls 3337
    *** TURN *** [7c 6h Qh] [Tc]
    FoRsAkEn03: checks
    Minus790: bets 8337
    FoRsAkEn03: raises 373 to 8710 and is all-in
    Minus790: calls 373
    *** RIVER *** [7c 6h Qh Tc] [4d]
    *** SHOW DOWN ***
    FoRsAkEn03: shows [Ts Th] (three of a kind, Tens)
    Minus790: shows [Kd Ah] (high card Ace)
    FoRsAkEn03 collected 32008 from pot
    *** SUMMARY ***
    Total pot 32008 | Rake 0
    Board [7c 6h Qh Tc 4d]
    Seat 1: Minus790 showed [Kd Ah] and lost with high card Ace
    Seat 2: grompok folded before Flop (didn't bet)
    Seat 3: Hoppi777 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
    Seat 4: teddyrowe9 (small blind) folded before Flop
    Seat 5: OMGitshunt (big blind) folded before Flop
    Seat 6: FoRsAkEn03 showed [Ts Th] and won (32008) with three of a kind, Tens
    Seat 7: paultorico folded before Flop (didn't bet)
    Seat 9: cusexcuse folded before Flop (didn't bet)
    


heres my thought process....first....dude is a supernova...2nd his 3bet sizing screams 1 hand to me..AK.  he re raised me 3.6x which is huge....why would you raise in position any other hand (maybe AQ) that huge...even this is huge.  i mean obv if he raises 2.5-3x I'm still calling. (note: this is why you should keep your 3bets pretty effing close to the same whether youre bluffing or not so you arent playign with your cards face up)  any ways...at the point he 3 bet me, i dont think you have to 4bet shove all in or 4 bet at all...you are oop but set mining with his stack here isnt terrible...now obv we cant just assume he has AK here all the time because of his bet sizing but TT should fare well here...flop comes and its Q high...ugh not too good for me yet i still feel im a head in this hand. the plan was to check/call no matter what....i think there was well over 7k in the pot post flop...he fired out same bet...3337.  hmmm...interesting...jj? nope ak obv...i know it mr supernova......turn BOOM T ....gg rest played out fine and he showed up with AK

the only thing maybe different.....i should prob check/raise the flop...i got lucky on the turn but felt like if a K or A showed on the turn i could get away from my hand...moral of the story...if you are up against a thinking player dont be afraid to call the cbet...esp if you are running HEM and he's cbet 100%....either check/call and take it away on the turn...or check/raise the flop and get him to fold.  you'll be surprised how many of them will fire out a cbet and check down the river and you flip over 44 and take the pot.  pay attention to the habitual c-bettors.  and also note yourself so you cant be exploited....mix up the play....check top pair....delay c-bet on the turn. etc etc , stay fresh, dont be a book.



September was a good month....played a little over 400 games and profited around $4500-$4600ish. sooolidddd.  I didn't play 600+ like I wanted to.  Oct goal is 600 games with atleast $4K profit.   

Final Tables and stuff

Oh where to begin.  September....SOLID month.  I haven't updated in a while so here we go....this month I've final tabled 10 tournaments..with.....0 wins.  If I remember 3 of them are 2nd. and the rest spread out from 4th-9th.  I can't complain but leaving a lot of money on the table.  I've been playing probably by far the best poker I've ever thought about playing. Started the month off pretty sick with 2nd in the $3r $10.5k on FTP , then decided to go on a horrendous downswing throughout the middle of the month.  So last night I started late, around 9pm.  Registered for pretty much anything I could and was 18 tabling at one point.  I final table bubbled the $3r $10.5k last night after I was in the BB with AK.  I was 2/10. CL is on the button and has limped 60% hand, I pot and he call. flop K9T rainbow. Check, he bets 187k(pot size) and I ship my milly on him(pretty dumb reviewing HH now) and he insta calls with KT...blank.blank. gg 10th.  2/10 AVOID THE CHIP LEADER DUH. I dont know how many times I've read that in Kill Everyone but CMON MAN. dumb.

I followed that up with a small FT, $11 KO, first was $572. ended up getting my shortie stack KJs into JJ. GG in 5th for a few hundo.  Then the epicness started....sitting solid in the $26 $15k KO 6max and the $11 6k 6max on stars.  I entered the FT of the $11 stars 6/6 with 45bbs. Yes 45bb stack and in last....such a sick deep stack FT.  Few solid players, few donkeys....ended up getting KK in pre with about 35bbs, bb showed AK and binked A on the flop. GG.  I had 1 to go and I couldnt not win it.....I was wrecking it with 2 tables to go in the $26 on FTP, ended up having over 1 mill of the 2-2.5millish in play.  Finally ended up getting heads up with a guy who had about 550kish at 12k/24k +ante...me hoovering around 2milly after knocking out someone.  Few back and forth hands and I'm really playing heads up well, dwindling him down.  I'm on the button...min raise...he ships its, I call....A9s vs his A8o...flop A8K...blank blank.  one double up...no problem I thought. we are even in chips and he asks for a chop. if it was the guy i just knocked out who was pretty sick i would have taken it. but i knew i could beat him so i declined chopping and went for the win...Honestly I dont win al ot but my heads up game is sick so I wasnt pissed or concerned at all.  few hands later i min raise the button with KTs and he calls  flop T98. BINK....have to be good right?  he checks...i bet just over half the pot...he 3 bets me...hmmmm..ok if you have the straight or 2 pair or trips GG NH whatever...i ship it....he calls with....yes yes here it is Ac8c. (either the T or 9 was a club)..turn Club...river...no dont do it..cmon let me ship it please? one time?  CLUB. FUcK ME. he's got a gazillion chips and i'm down to 25 bbs...few hands back and forth, i get KQo in vs his A3o and he holds. gg. 2nd place $2562. 

Still can't complain I had a +$2900 night, ended my current stake(get to move on to bigger games) and get to profit some for me.

I wasn't able to get a SS from the Stars final table 6th but it was about $293 i think.


September so far:

2nd largest cash of the career and so far 2nd largest month. Couldnt come at a better time. Really sick swings and 2 nights straight where I lost every hand all in. I stuck with it, played my A game and really pumped out some volume.  Thats all it takes. Review HHs, watch videos and PLAY PLAY PLAY.  Until the next update....GL at the tables.


oh and shout out to KULP for shipping 2 tournaments in 2 days and chrisp200 for 3rd place finish last night in the $1r Rush Rebuy for $1500. nj guys....pittsburgh players ftw.

Good Sunday

Ended up playing another solid 12 hour sunday session and it went pretty well. I played 27 total games. Plus $215 WCOOP Event 3 $2 Million Gtd., which I totally bricked in.  I couldnt get anything going in it and when I would get a good hand I would be out flopped or sucked out.  Sick tournament , $335k for first place, would have been nice...maybe next time.

Since I binked a nice hit in the 3r I got another stake for a little bit higher levels...

MTTs to Play:

$0 - $1000
$22 freezeouts and below with field sizes of 91+.
$5 rebuys and below.
- 7 buyins can be counted to the Bankroll, however, you must reach break
- This includes non-turbo 180s on PS.
- This doesn't include turbo 180s on PS nor the turbo 90s on FTP.
- No HU MTTs, NL only, only GTD turbos allowed, No shootouts.

$1000+:
$33 freezeouts and below with field sizes of 91+.
$5 rebuys and below.
$10 1r 1a
- 7 buyins can be counted to the Bankroll, however, you must reach break
- This includes non-turbo 180s on PS.
- This doesn't include turbo 180s on PS nor the turbo 90s on FTP.
- No HU MTTs, NL only, only GTD turbos allowed, No shootouts.

$2400+: End stake a re-evaluate

pretty solid because this is what I was playing in April/May area which were the most profitable months for me this year. I final tabled the $22 $5k 6-max tournament yesterday, brining in the only FT of the day. I was playing pretty solid throughout the tournament and got unlucky when my K9o got out drawn by 79o on an all in on the flop 9 T 6 board....8 on river gg. still paid solid $700ish.  Also made a deep run in the later $3r $40k GTD on Stars....ended up going out 30th for about 90ish. I had Q8s and made a raise and got 3bet by the small blind. He was pretty active and so was I(folding to 3 bets a lot) so I decided to 4bet bluff him. he insta called with 99. I hit a Q on the flop and picked up a flush draw on the turn except it was his 9...bricked on the river. gg. 6.5k for first....damnnnn.Still made $378 on the Sunday so I cant complain. My month is off to a solid start so far.

Not sure if this includes rebuys or not but it has to be pretty close. obv not sustainable but hopefully we can keep up the pace and have a good month after such a bad beat month with getting fired and so forth.

Sheeep

Well pretty solid first 4 days of September.  I played a huge session yesterday. Started at Noon and registered until 9:40pm. After all said and done I put in 17 hours of work.  Pretty rough day though I didnt cash anything until about hour 7 or 8.  Ended up getting really deep again in the $16.50 Turbo $30k GTD. Had around 17BBs and I opend shoved KK into the buttons AA. GG me in 25th, $70 :(  first was $6.3k.  Also made a nice run in the $12 Double B ran JJ into AQ no flippy for me. gg.  Was down to one of the last tournaments of the day.  Reg'd at 8:30pm ...8 hours later I took 2nd. Went in with about 2 to 1 chip lead on this donk who had 67 total games played.  ended up doubling him up on a bad play...few hands later i button shove JJ with 15BBs and he called with 33....spikes 3 on the turn. GG.

So relieved to hit something like this finally after the last few days of getting close and getting zippo. I ended my "Yellow Belt" stake and prob will make it to the next level. We will see in a few days.

that about wraps it up so far....ran like butthole in august and hopefully turn that around in september.

Septemberrrr

August didnt go so hot, ended up down for the month. I'll have to get a Sharkscope Screenshot here in a bit.  I played good but just didnt run good at all.

The first 3 days of the stake are in the books and I have 3 final tables.  No wins :-/ . Up about $300 on the stake...I said in the first post about it , if i tripled it i would end..actualy I have to double it to $1200 and move on to the next stake.  I've been running a few $4.40 180s to fill screen and they are pretty soft. Might continue to do that.

Since I'm over $800 I'm allowed to add some games.

$801 - $1,200:
$22 freezeouts and below with field sizes of 91+.
$5 rebuys and below.
7 buyins can be counted to the Bankroll, however, you must reach break
Only non-turbo $180 man tournament may be played (the $4.40 and the $11)
Only NLHE tournament, turbo with GTD prizepools only, no shootouts, no HU.


Stars:$193.88
FTP: $490.28
Res: $200

Running Bankroll: $884.16

Profit: $284.16


Hopefully end this level of stake and get on the next one. you heard it here....Sept will be the biggest volume/profit month in my history.

Donald Trump'd

Sooo pretty shitty ass August as far as cards go. Still got 2 days to go and its kinda looking up.  Where to start....sooo I go to work on thursday and put in a full day and about 5 to 5 my boss comes and gets me and wants to have a meeting.  Turns out my 'performance' hasnt been up to par so they fired me. Outta mine..but not really..so in to mine. They can SMD.  Right now I'm in search of a job and also playing again.  I went on a terrible downswing and have 0 bank roll.  I applied for a few stakes and finally got one.  It's for $600 and pretty much covers what i already play.

MTTs to Play:

$0 - $800:
$16.50 freezeouts and below with field sizes of 91+.
$3 rebuys and below.
$5 2r 1a
7 buyins can be counted to the Bankroll, however, you must reach break
Only non-turbo $180 man tournament may be played (the $4.40 and the $11)
Only NLHE tournament, turbo with GTD prizepools only, no shootouts, no HU.


I either bust or triple the BR and have the chance at getting another stake at higher limits..once the BR reachs $1200 I can add more games. Thats where I'm at...good luck to me in job hunting and on the felt.


Stars: $200.69
FTP: $200.30
Reserve: $200

Total: $600.69

sigh

Only played 2 or 3 times this week. I pulled a 45/180 man sesh and ended up winning 1 $6.50 45 and 1 $12 45 man and a 3rd in $12 45manner.  ended up giving back that plus more yesterday....played about 28 tournies and skunked all but the huge $1.10 turbo on ftp. Was sitting top in chips with 20 to go and couldnt run goot. had 2 sick stacks in the $9.5k gtd KO and $3 cubed but nothing really went further than 20ish from the money.  The mullet race is pretty even, I'm down about $161 and chrisp200 is down about $61 i think.  Gonna hopefully bink something soon.

Only have about 20-30 more VPPs till i release my monster $25 bonus on stars. look out....thats all i got.

Epic Race to $10k

Perkins and I have decided on a race to $10k profit starting yesterday August 7,2010. Once $10k profit has been reached the other person will have ONE WEEK for redemption. Loser has to get a mullet for 3 MONTHS.  In the event of a tie it will go in to a 1 week over time period with best overall profit deciding winner. Sit n Gos and MTTs ONLY. Result will be tracked on sharkscope/opr.

 Poker Alias: chrisp200  (ftp and stars)

2010 Online Profit: $9,533

Largest Cash: $8,807

Lifetime Online Winnings: $52,276*

2010 FTP OPR Rank: 2,723 of 712,243

2010 PS OPR Rank: 313,167 of  1,432,603

Favorite Poker Player: FoRsAkEn03

Best Known For: Perkin chips off (see also chip spew)







VS

Poker Alias: FoRsAkEn03  (ftp and stars)


2010 Online Profit: $8,799

Largest Cash: $5,333

Lifetime Online Winnings: $38,775*

2010 FTP OPR Rank: 3,720 of 712,243

2010 PS OPR Rank: 12,411 of  1,432,603

Favorite Poker Player: bax

Best Known For: TBA

*according to PocketFives profile

hello august

Well some things have changed since the last post.  I got a new lay out and shit....looks aight I guess.  I've played 1 session since my last post to start of the August and the team comp.  Did pretty decent. 

Very soft field......I ran pretty hot, not only sucking out but running KK in to QQ and I think possibly AA into another hand....so shit was going my way. Heads up I think I had about 1 mill to his 180k....mind you blinds 12k/24k +ante...yes he had under 10bbs.....TT into A4s....boom double....few hands later, ship AQ into Q9....straight on turn....final hand I shipped A3o into 77, gg me for 2nd.   Not shabby, increase the roll about 20%....micros are sooooo easy so this should be fun for a few weeks.

I have 16 games played for +$218.  I took $250 out so my BR is about $1k still.  The first week of August is pretty busy for me.  Tomorrow I have a 1/2 day at work then I'm heading to Cleveland to see Rebelution then coming back that night, getting a few hours of sleep and driving my current room mate to DC. Then driving back...should be a good time. I dig roadtrips....gives you some time to ponder. 


No updates yet on the team comp so thats about all I got. Hopefully I dont miss another sunday but I think I might miss another one, gay. So hopefully starting August 9 I'll grind hard to get some points and cash before I move down to Moon to the new spot. Thats all I got, friday should be sick

gl at the tables

July wrap up and a new start (long)

Pretty solid month as far as MTTs go.  I had a solid start July 3rd taking 5th in the 33K gtd KO for $2.2k and then on friday I shipped the $2 rebuy PLO RUSH tourny for another $881.  Took 4th in the micro team comp and had some fun..sucks it was only 1 week and I didnt get to play as much as I wanted or we could have had some better results.

July Goals

- play atleast 400 MTTs this month - I played 313
- Achieve Platinum Star (got Gold Star last month, was silver star by july 3rd, so should be easy) - I still missed this by about 2000-2500 points but I am Gold Star still for August
- bink 1st 5 figure score (this will always be a monthly goal) - 5th in the 33K GTD for $2.2k(not 5 fig but i'll take it)
- ship 2 tournaments - $3.30 1k CAP 4-max for $480 and $2r PLO turbo RUSH for $881
- profit for the month - $2356
- win the 1v1 competition - huge fail...ended up busto in the Quarter Final Rnd.
- end stake with backer and be on my own bankroll by August 1st - wooo, not much profit for him but we still ended the stake.


July was pretty solid from my Goals stand point. no 5 fig score :(

on to August....

I'm in another Team Comp for all of August on PTP. Pretty solid team right now, already have some nice finishes and it just started Sunday.  I havent played since Friday night win.  I'm currently in the process of moving at the end of August and helping the new room mates move in this weekend. Should be a good time, both of them are pretty pumped to start to learn to play some online so I will try to teach them as much as I can and hopefully be posting their montly graphs as well. 

After chopping and squaring everything with my backer I have a starting roll of about $1100.  Pretty much back to square one, jan 1st 2010.  I'm 10000000% better than I was back then so this shouldnt take long to build up.  I will most likely be withdrawing atleast $400-500 a month hopefully to pay for rent but still continue to grow my BR.  I'm going to shoot for a goal of bare min. $15k by December 31,2010, really I would like to have somewhere between $20k-$25k to start off 2011 (the year I will become a pro, hopefully hah) This would be the ideal situation...possible?  maybe?  I'm only up about $10k this year in MTTs so I think if I stick to the game plan and grind these bitches out I can hit atleast $10-$15k or so by the end of the year.  I've been close to winning more than I'm paid at my current shitty ass job so its possible and only a matter of time. I make some crazy plans about bankrolls I'm going for and it always seems to fail. So we arent too worried if I dont get there...I just want to have a consistent side income that pays for my living expenses for the most part so I can some cash too.

August Goals

- Play atleast 450 MTTs (I'm pumping this up from last month because of the month long comp..last comp I played around 600 that month, I think I can get over 450 easily)
- Stay Gold Star on PokerStars (I'm playing lower limits than used to for the time being so I dont think platty star will be something I can do so I'll try to hold on to gold)
- 5- Figure Score
- 4- Figure Score (this should pay rent)
- Win the PTP Team Comp
- Win 4 tournaments any game

Pretty much looks like last month....I doubled the tournament wins for this month to give me some motivation.  This is going to be the first month I will be trying to 'pay myself' which is motivation in itself.

My starting bankroll will be $1114.23. I'm going to use my own discretion on what to play...sadly the $26's will my 'shot taking' right now....really anything under $11 will be fair game. $3r and under and mixed in $22's and $26s until I can get above 1700ish or so.  Try to keep around 100-150 buy ins and if shit hits the fan I'll reconsider my approach but this has worked the last 7 months so hopefully I wont fail at life and go broke AGAIN.

also I bought about $150 worth of PS bonus that I can hopefully clear this month to add on to the BR.


Bankroll: $1114.23

tail end of jew lie

Well its been a week or so since the last update.   The team comp went good....we ended up taking 4th out of i think 20+ teams.  Chris and I thought that it went from Sunday to Sunday but as we were hanging out Saturday night we saw it was over that night...so our sunday plans of making a come back took a shit.  chrisp200 had an epic showing in the comp pullin in like 2400 or so in points....it was atleast a top 3 score if i remember out of 60+ people. pretty sick to kill micros like that.  i think i had around 1000-1100ish point.  bad showing, had some potentials but just ran like shit.  it was still pretty fun and we got 22 bucks out of it..so profit of $12! woooooooo.

I've played 300 mtts this month with excellent results. Now if i can stop dropping it on the other games I might actually build a roll?   This month will prob also end my stake. Started in Jan with $1000 stake and ALMOST hit the 10k mark end of March.  and then almost again in april,may etc etc.....my br management was good at points and terrible at other points which is why its been up and down.  After i hit something decent i would bump up in stakes and run bad and lose money. DUMB.  So once this gets to around $2k I'll chop it up giving a bit of profit to my staker since I feel bad I couldnt hold on to any profits for the both of us.  After the stake I have to think what I'm going to do. I'll come up with some elabarote plan that I'll follow for a few weeks and then my ADD will kick in and I'll switch it up.


July is almost in the books and I'm not sure if I'll play tonight but here are the highlights

Final Table Bubbles: 2
Final Tables: 6
Wins: 1

my highest cash was the 5th in the 33k KO for 2.2k....my epic win was in a 4max for a huge $380 , better than nothing though.  I might have to be grinding the micros for a week or 2 to get the roll up....we shall see...i might ship something by August 1st and have profits to share with my backer and me.

Gl at the tables

hi

I've been slacking again on updating this. I haven't been playing a ton either, which blow. I did just ship a micro tournament 2 days ago. $3.30 4-max 1k cap on people for a whopping $480. Better than nothing though and I was + monies for the night...always a plus.

The 1v1 comp is going into round 3....I'm already wayyyy behind getting crushed..if it wasnt for the 3.30 win it would be worse. I think my opp has about 1400-1500 points and I have around 700-800ish. So I need a few more nice scores this week to advance. Also the P5s Micro Team Competition starts today. Basically its a $10 buy per person with teams of 3 each. chrisp200 is my other team mate and another guy we picked up. Top 20 scores for the team count with a max of 8 scores per person counting. Buy in's that count go from $1-$6(including rake). chrisp200 already off to a solid start (even though it doesnt count yet) but he final tabled 3 tournaments on friday night...took 3rd 4th and shipped the last one. So hopefully we can continue to winnn...oh and our team name is Team All We Do Is Win....so maybe? I'm also in the singles comp winner take all for $20..i think its up to $220 or something right now...not too shabby.


It's sunday and I'm working til about 1230 today so I should have a nice afternoon schedule to fire up when I get home...and FTP brought back the big little tournament...2.20 buy in for a potential 5 fig score..woo.

Gl at the tables.

July and Summmerrrr

Havent posted in a very long time. Something weird happened for atleast 60% of June...not sure what it was but I had about 3% motivation to play. I'm out of the funk and back in it. I havent been playing crazy amounts of games so far but I've had some decent success....I've had a few close ones but ended up falling short. I think I Final Table bubbled 2-3 times the last 2-3 times I played....the last was the $22 6-max 5k on stars..ended up taking 7th...QJ < 77 need to win a flip. Then Saturday I played 2 tournaments...42k GTD and 33K GTD KO both on FTP...I final tabled the 33k and was about 4/9 when bubble burst....I didnt get too many spots to really open up at the table because we were all realtivly shorties...i busted 5th for 2.2k which was much needed. I'm still hoovering around 3-4k mark with the bankroll, even after the big 5.3k win at the end of may ive been up and down. I'm really trying to focus on my mid to late game because thats what getting me in trouble. I've decreased the amount of games at 1 time so around 6-8.


The 1v1 competition is underway and we are on to the 2nd round. all results are kept at www.bluffcatch.com top 5 scores count and i believe its 2 week periods....i honestly dont know, but i know i have to play a bunch because jeff is pretty solid.


Pittsburgh Poker update: well July 8th at 6am is the first day pittsburgh pa will have table games...this includes poker! this is great news, I'll be down there probably checking it out and playing some cash games, seeing how i can hold up with all the regs around here now. should be a good time.


July Goals

- play atleast 400 MTTs this month
- Achieve Platinum Star (got Gold Star last month, was silver star by july 3rd, so should be easy)
- bink 1st 5 figure score (this will always be a monthly goal)
- ship 2 tournaments
- profit for the month
- win the 1v1 competition
- end stake with backer and be on my own bankroll by August 1st

easy enough, nothing crazy...gl at the tables

Being Weird

No idea whats going on right now....I've just had no desire to really site down and grind out like I usually do. After the disappointing finish last week, I played a 1/2 session sunday night and got raped. I lasted about 3 hours and played around 10-12 tournaments probably. Either sucked out on or just making terrible calls for a lot of chips. I dunno whats up with me right now but hopefully I get out of the funk. The bankroll is dropping and I'm not playing as much as I did. The 1v1 Competition is underway and I have a first round bye currently. Basically how the bye works is I still get points for my tournament finishes and then if someone registers late for it and ends up playing me I will have a bit of a lead on them. So most likely it'll just roll over to the next round. Hopefully this gives me some motiviation to start playing more and playing a shit load better.


In other news I had a fun ass weekend except for the part where I broke my fucking toe...its pretty bad, really black and blue, swelled up, barely can walk. It hurts constantly but whatever.....night glow n the dark frisbee can be dangerous I guess.

Thats all I got, gl at the tables.

slightly +ev to -ev to jack shit (poker and life post)

I finally got to play my regular weekeday schedule last night and was cruising pretty good. I was in the money of the $11r on stars and got in a huge fucking pot QQ vs AK....all in pre, 100k pot which would have been damn near around 80-90bb stack...QTx flop...x turn...J river gg me. i wasnt upset or pissed off, i played short stack throughout the 'after rebuy' period and picked some great spots to chip up...this one just didnt go my way so what can ya do. woulda been sick $12k for 1st. pretty much everything else i ran like shit. got down to the last one, $26 $32k gtd on ftp..8.3k for first. here i am sitting chip leader with 2 tables left...about 3-4 decent guys left and the rest just some guys that havent been deep and/or havent played much. So i was just destroyign the final table bubble when this hand came up.

we are 5 handed with 10 people left...i just made a horrific call with A4o against the tightest player in the world, but still had a nice amount of chips...might have been 3-4 outta 10.

this guy is a thinking player, pretty solid stats and for some reason i felt if it was folded to him he was going to push and i was going to call.

FullTiltPoker Game #21503075929: $32,000 Guarantee (165579556), Table 120 - 10,000/20,000 Ante 2,500 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:10:35 ET - 2010/06/10

Seat 2: padreschargers (452,212)
Seat 4: kirillbynja1987 (422,964)
Seat 6: FoRsAkEn03 (541,825)
Seat 7: BARBUS84 (460,557)
Seat 8: CashleyCole (440,600)
padreschargers antes 2,500
kirillbynja1987 antes 2,500
FoRsAkEn03 antes 2,500
BARBUS84 antes 2,500
CashleyCole antes 2,500
kirillbynja1987 posts the small blind of 10,000
FoRsAkEn03 posts the big blind of 20,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FoRsAkEn03 [4s 4h]
BARBUS84 folds
CashleyCole folds
padreschargers folds
kirillbynja1987 raises to 420,464, and is all in
FoRsAkEn03 calls 400,464
kirillbynja1987 shows [Ac 5s]
FoRsAkEn03 shows [4s 4h]
*** FLOP *** [Th 9s 8s]
*** TURN *** [Th 9s 8s] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [Th 9s 8s 8c] [9d]
kirillbynja1987 shows two pair, Nines and Eights
FoRsAkEn03 shows two pair, Nines and Eights
kirillbynja1987 wins the pot (853,428) with two pair, Nines and Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Duration 23s
Total pot 853,428 | Rake 0
Board: [Th 9s 8s 8c 9d]
Seat 2: padreschargers (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: kirillbynja1987 (small blind) showed [Ac 5s] and won (853,428) with two pair, Nines and Eights
Seat 6: FoRsAkEn03 (big blind) showed [4s 4h] and lost with two pair, Nines and Eights
Seat 7: BARBUS84 folded before the Flop
Seat 8: CashleyCole folded before the Flop

Now I figured since he knew what he was doing he would be pushing here with a pretty wide range...he had about 21bbs to start the hand...yes its a huge fucking hit to my stack which is another reason to maybe fold...also the fact that everyone to my left is so nitty and tight that i can profitably steal blinds atleast 3 outta 4 times against them ,gaining a lot of chips with minimal risk. on to the math

the pot is laying me about 46.9% ehhhhh not very good but ok..lets look at how we do against his ranges.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 48.109% 47.57% 00.53% 2008845264 22580808.00 { 44 }
Hand 1: 51.891% 51.36% 00.53% 2168534784 22580808.00 { 22+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, A5o, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }

This is just over 30% push hands, which i think is super fucking tight for this player...but as you see we are about 48% ...so slightly on the + side

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 50.401% 49.88% 00.52% 2752003572 28639218.00 { 44 }
Hand 1: 49.599% 49.08% 00.52% 2707761480 28639218.00 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q4s+, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 87s, A2o+, K7o+, Q8o+, J8o+, T9o }

This is slightly over 40% which might be still on the looooose side of things but with the FT bubble in full fucking effect its possible since I'm folding out here more often than not..so he can push maybe even wider.

but regaurdless against his range we are slightttttly ahead. Now i snap called this dude and didnt even think twice about.....heres where i failed...knowing that everyone at the table but him is pretty shitty i think we have a better shot at folding and abusing the people who are scared to get their chips in before the final table....there was about $200 difference between 10th and 9th place...for me i could give a shit less...i want the 8.3k and nothing else. in hind sight i think we can fold, but at the same time i dont mind pushing small edges...win a flip here and we are over 1 mill with 9 to go and really no one in our way.

next orbit comes around and this hand comes up.....

FullTiltPoker Game #21503103490: $32,000 Guarantee (165579556), Table 120 - 10,000/20,000 Ante 2,500 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:12:09 ET - 2010/06/10

Seat 2: padreschargers (452,212)
Seat 4: kirillbynja1987 (865,928)
Seat 6: FoRsAkEn03 (317,722)
Seat 7: BARBUS84 (418,057)
Seat 8: CashleyCole (264,239)
padreschargers antes 2,500
kirillbynja1987 antes 2,500
FoRsAkEn03 antes 2,500
BARBUS84 antes 2,500
CashleyCole antes 2,500
kirillbynja1987 posts the small blind of 10,000
FoRsAkEn03 posts the big blind of 20,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FoRsAkEn03 [Js Qc]
BARBUS84 folds
CashleyCole folds
padreschargers folds
kirillbynja1987 raises to 863,428, and is all in
FoRsAkEn03 calls 295,222, and is all in
kirillbynja1987 shows [4s 6s]
FoRsAkEn03 shows [Js Qc]
Uncalled bet of 548,206 returned to kirillbynja1987
*** FLOP *** [4h 6h Th]
*** TURN *** [4h 6h Th] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [4h 6h Th 3d] [7c]
kirillbynja1987 shows two pair, Sixes and Fours
FoRsAkEn03 shows Queen Jack high
kirillbynja1987 wins the pot (642,944) with two pair, Sixes and Fours
*** SUMMARY ***
Duration 19s
Total pot 642,944 | Rake 0
Board: [4h 6h Th 3d 7c]
Seat 2: padreschargers (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: kirillbynja1987 (small blind) showed [4s 6s] and won (642,944) with two pair, Sixes and Fours
Seat 6: FoRsAkEn03 (big blind) showed [Js Qc] and lost with Queen Jack high
Seat 7: BARBUS84 folded before the Flop
Seat 8: CashleyCole folded before the Flop


now this time i felt the same.....if it was folded i know...KNOWWWW he's going to be pusshing so fucking light.

math...

its still kinda ugly but we are getting about 47.3% on the pot...so its really a coin flip no matter what

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 50.009% 48.41% 01.60% 6057540552 200350758.00 { QJo }
Hand 1: 49.991% 48.39% 01.60% 6055275564 200350758.00 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J4s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, A2o+, K5o+, Q7o+, J7o+, T7o+, 98o }

this is slightly over 50% of push hands so again we are getting a bit more points here...

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 54.280% 52.71% 01.57% 9152006028 272519136.00 { QJo }
Hand 1: 45.720% 44.15% 01.57% 7665718260 272519136.00 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T3s+, 93s+, 83s+, 73s+, 63s+, 53s+, 43s, A2o+, K2o+, Q2o+, J2o+, T6o+, 97o+, 87o }

here its about 75% of the hands.....so 54.2% and the pot laying 47.3%...all day?????? of course.

maybe....

ive had this hand up on pokerxfactor and parttime poker forums and discussed with a few fellow sicko players....hand 1=insta fold...hand2= alittle closer but i think the consensous was a fold.

lesson learned....you really need to weigh ALL options you have and not look at spots with just 1 hand. so i fold out and have almost 600k and abuse some more and sitting around 750-800k at the final table with minimum resistance...or maybe get a decent hand and bust a shortie. or maybe get sucked out on....whatever it is i think waiting in some spots will create even better spots to get chips.....yes i put a lot of chips on the line with 44 call there...was it a soul read? i dunno...did i get lucky he only had a5o? i dunno...if the bored didnt brick out i'd be in great fucking shape and wouldnt be posting about me getting raped on the ft bubble and being 8.3k richer. but thats not the case...i already reviewed the whole tournament and believe it or not , there were only about 3 or so hands (the a4o i didnt post) that i really effed up on....just sucks because they were reallllly deep and not the time i want to be fucking up. i mean my philosphy was if we are ahead why not call? if we are flipping why not call? wait for JJ and push into AQ or something and lose a flip? isnt it the same thing? push those slight edges because they will be profitable in the long run? does the ft bubble factor in? why not be top 3 in chips rather than bottom 3 in chips? i dunno, maybe i fold there and find better spots and ship the tournament anyways. i like/dislike my 2 calls here but we learned from it and had some great players input that needs to be listened to.

this is already a long post so ill keep the life part of it short......a slightly +ev situation has been brewing for quiet sometime and one that i thought went from a coin flip to AK vs QJ 60/40 kinda deal..which then i thought went to AA/22 80/20...shitttttt. what i thought was aces into pocket 2's turned into...whats the capital of thailand?...bangkok...kicked in the nuts....i just shipped my AK into AA...gg me. so a few months of what i thought was good (obv bad read) and im back to where i started...the zero sum game....it sucks but thats life. im sure the 3 people that read this have no fucking idea what im talking about but whatever...so anyways with that behind me i'm going to now put my full concentration (its been about 80%) into playing. i already missed a few good opportunities fucking around with this shit that i should have known better but whatever. my goal is to get to 7k+ and chop 50/50 with buck and then go on my own roll and start cashing out a few hundo/thousand/million per month and maybe just fucking maybe 1 fucking time i can ship something worth quitting this dumb ass, mind knumbing, going nowhere job im in. i figure full tilt alone owes me about $40k ...so thats a start.


***cliff notes***

-pass up marignal spots to gain better spots later
-sometimes things arent what they seem
-full tilt owes me $40k for the ass beating they put on me this year

ship it?

Well Sunday was a success. I ended up playing 50 on sunday and had some nice stacks but nothing at all was holding. It looked like the month of May was gonna blow ass but I got down to my last 2 for the night. $3 rebuy and $11 1rebuy 1addon , both on stars. I was pretty deep in both and ended up busting AK to KJ all in pre....pretty loose call from the guy with KJ but he binked a J on the flop and it was lights out for me. Took 92nd for 60ish....6.5k for first. Nothing you can do there....so I get to the final table of the 11 cubed 3/9 and ended up running sick hot....I cracked AA twice all in pre first time was KJ(revenge) second time was KT...ended up getting heads up with the guy and he asked for a chop but i politley declinded because i wanted to play to win this bitch. I ended up shipping it for $5.3k , biggest cash to date! Felt so good to finally run good when i needed it , even if i was behind. Sunday success.




Thats about it for now, just going to be mixing in some $55 , $75 and $109s into the regular schedule and also maybe a sunday major here and there.

sunnndayyyy

Pretty big sunday imo today...mem day weekend tons of fish out..should be a good one. Havent ran good on a sunday since early aprilish so hopefully today will be good. Right now im registered for about 30 tournaments on FTP and PS combined and will be adding some more later, so hopefully i can get around 40 or so in today and be up on the day. hopefully start by binking something early.

already started the day off with some connection problems but thank god only 3 tournaments are running...better to start the day off like that and hopefully it wont come back when i have 39802 tables open.

heres to a good sunday, good luck to all the grinders. and please for the love of anything holy let me run gooooooot.

frustration sets in...

this weekend was absolutely horrendous. I played pretty hard friday-sunday when I could and just couldnt get anything started. I had sicko stacks in a bunch but just nothing could materialize again. There is nothing more frustrating than sitting with 100bbs in multiple tournaments and then come out and min cash 1 of them....3 days in a row. That was grind session this weekend. I feel I played pretty well in MOST of them but there could still be some leaks and laydowns that need to happen. Besides that its just running better. I'm not going to continue to write about how i got beat by this and blah blah blah, its negative...and we dont need that. Instead from here on out we are going to stay positive. A positive mind is essential to playing good, solid poker and if you dont have it then it's going to cause you to spew chips or 'tilt'. I remember back from my SNG days the amount of beats I would take...and it would seem like they were rapid fire, one after the other. then a few sessions later it was like I couldnt lose a single pot no matter how bad/good I got it in. This is how cards go and you cant forget that...if you have any negative thoughts or negative feelings during your play because you took a bad beat this is going to fuck youre play up. Those other 7 tournaments you have are going to become spewfests because your head isnt in the game, youre thinking about what could have been instead of whats right now...7 tournaments....nice stacks....still alive. Why would do you multitable? for me i multitable because I want to give myself the best chance at winning as many tournaments as i can, and i want to have the best shot at that..and since volume is the key(besides know wtf you are doing) thats why we mulitable. just because 1 is gone doesnt mean you should fuck the rest up because you got 2 outted...get over it and move on. Keep your head clear about each hand going on and not what just happened.

Recently Ive been trying to review and tweak my game, I've been watching the shit out of pokerxfactor videos and trying to pick up on some things I'm doing wrong or just not doing at all that will give me an edge over the competition. It seems to be working better but I think I need to go further. This week I'm going to try to pick apart a few MTT hand histories of mine and check spots where I'm reshoving into monsters or just shipping light in general. While it may feel like the 'right' move, I dont really know until I run some numbers and check it out. I hate being results oriented but it just seems like I'm picking terrible spots and just running into monsters. I was browing one of the forums today and found a really great quote from a well respected, sick ass grinder ...i seriously think he played 5000 mtts/day for a few years straight. So I'll end this long rambled, probably doesnt make much sense post on words to remember from one of the best online grinders around....

"If you're not getting it in bad you're not getting it in enough" -ShaunDeeb



(i'll leave a good song for those 3 followers to listen to)

few updates (long)

I slacked on getting this updated after the competition sunday, mainly because of the disappointment that was the weekend. I'm not blaming it totally on this but it was some cause, I'm knee fucking deep in 12 tournaments in the middle of my session on Saturday and BOOM, the power goes out. Now I'm sitting in the money in the $22 4k gtd (2k for first) with a pretty healthy stack, sitting probably in the top 10ish in chips. I also have the $216 miniFTOPS 2-day event going on and a shit load of other tournaments that either just started or where in the middle stages of play. I had been playing pretty solid and got tilted as fuckkkkk when this happened. So I gave it 10 mins before calling franchizzle and heading to his house to play on his computer. I was honestly about ready to pack up my computer and monitors and just set up at his place for the night because the 2-day event wouldnt end until about 1030pm and I planned on getting to day 2. Anyways, I get over there and logon and I'm pretty much crippled in the 6-max tournament and busted out 19th. I had rapid fire bust outs in a few others and I'm down to about 7 or 8 games. I honestly cant remember most of the tournaments I was in but it ended up getting down to the 2-day event.

My stack didnt do shit for a good 4-5 hours if not more but the structure is so sick in that thing at no point was I in push/fold mode. I played pretty solid poker and was really pumped about my post flop play(something i've been trying to work on). We ended up getting into the money with about 2 hours to go until the 1st day went on break. Around the 45 mins left mark I had a pretty sick stack at about 50BBs after winning a pretty big flop all in pre for another guy.

the hand :

i had all the players marked and pretty much was at the same table the for 7 hours straight, it was a pretty solid table and also had some guys that were pretty straight forward...soooo the 1 or 3 straight forward guys raises (he's directly on my right) so i decided to give him a standard 3-bet with Q9s.(he had over 100k i nchips and i believe i had around 40-50k cant remember) , folds back around to him and he smooth calls. ok good right?

flop
xx9...woo top pair...nice...he checks to me....i fire out my standard c-bet of just over half the pot...and he check raises me all in. holy shit easy fold on a normal day right? so i time bank and really thought about what he would flat me with there....i dont know if it was from playing so much or just being a fucking idiot but i called and he had AA...very well played by him. me on ther other hand....what a fucking amature move. my thought process wasnt there....i gave him such a standard set of hand ranges that i didnt even bother to include the big hands such as kk/aa...and the fact that i had him noted as a pretty striaght forward player who hasnt been out of line the whole day, this is an easy fold....50bb stack going into day 2 playing for $150k...obviously my bad.

so i was pertty bummed about busting out like that but it was totally my fault and thats the only way to learn from your mistakes so whatever

sunday was pretty solid too, i was debating on playing the SCOOP-Low main event ($109) along with the $22 500k gtd SCOOP-Low and the miniFTOPS main event ($75). I decided not to play the scoop main and just add a few other games into the mix along with the ftops main. So i fire up the regular sunday games, double duece, most of the $26s gtd on ftp, $11 qt mill on stars etc etc.

I'm running pretty good in the scoop event and ended up getting into the money but just went totally card dead and ended up busting slighlty into the money...but still i think 20k people played and i monyed it so it was alright i guess...still would have been nice to hit.

I had a pretty solid showing the $26 42k gtd (15k for first i think)..got down to 31 players and im in the BB with 67s. now i successful 3-bet all in the SB when it was folded to him and he raised it, but this time he raised it 3x, which was different from the last time. for some reason i always believe when people do this they are just trying to buy the pot, but the last 2 times i pushed light they always show up with a hand..so lesson learned....DO NOT RE SHIP IF SOMEONE RAISES PRE 3x's. unless of course you have another read on him and he's showed down jack shit when he's done this...but again i didnt have enough info to even think about making this profitable...he woke up with AQo which my push isnt terrible i guess because its still 41/59, so its not like a total domination and if i win there im in a great spot to FT and possible go on for a sick ass score. but nonetheless i still think i can fold and maybe find a better spot but i guess ill take 60/40s all day long deep in a tournament when i can..better than being totally dominated but i still hate the push with his bet....if he would have bet his standard 2.3-2.6x then i think another shove would have been fine, even if i did do it the orbit before....i think he would probably fold out or even make a light call and as you can see against almost the top range im really not that big of a dog unless he makes some bogus call with a6 or some bull shit. anyways sadly i was out but still made a few decent bucks.

ftops main event.....so not only did i have connection problems saturday but this carrier into sunday and this tournament i think had a small impact on that...it was pretty early...we started with 7500 chips...i think i was still hovering around 8-9k at this point and had 77 on the button....utg+1 raises and i smooth call...flop comes down k7x. he bets out, i call. turn is a Q ....he bets out again and i put in a re raise..really thinking we are playing for stacks here and hes got a big broadway hand, he was pretty tight....so then..boom all my games are up but nothing is happening...i click reraise again...nothing, WTF....so the fucking full tilt 'connecting' thing comes up and i come back and its on the next hand....at first i was pretty pissed but then figure maybe the poker gods were saving me from his flopped trip kings..so whatever. i still build a nice stack and had a nice nice niceeeee fucking pot with AA when 2 dudes shipped it, i was up to 80k with blinds at 300/600/antes. sitting 35/4k people..still a long way but god damn it felt good again to have a nice stack in a huge tournament($153k for 1st) and a lot of play left. as i brag about how fucking awesome my post flop play has gotten in the last few weeks this hand goes back to how to play like a newb and not think thru each decsion.

hand...

a few hands after i raped those dudes with AA i get KK in middle position. (i really need to get the HHs so i can just post it instead of this)

limp from utg+2, i raise up 2499 and get a call from the button, sb , bb and the limper...jesus christ really? alarms should go off now to play VERY cautious on the flop.

flop comes 98J w/2 diamonds. the sb fires out a pot sized bet which i believe was around 8k+, folded to me, i call. I really cant remember what the turn was but it was a blank. the sb fires out about 12-13k into 24kish pot. i instantly...and i seriously believe it was 3-4 seconds shove all in (im sitting on 66k still after the flop bet call which is 110bbs?!) he insta calls with T7o for the straight ball, gg me. again i dont know what i was thinking here because i clearly wasnt..i was worried about having KK in a sick tournament and trying to get as many chips as possible and i didnt slow down one bit. woudl i ever put him on a straight there? very possible....he's getting a trillion to 1 pot odds pre flop so calling with hands like QT, J9,J8, small pps etc etc are obviously in his range...pretty newb stuff that i should know. sadly on friday i was involved in a pot and i folded AA on the turn...ive never done this before but figured i was beat so no need to go crazy. i could have easily folded kk here and put him on atleast 2 pair..or maybe call a turn bet and see what the river shows and maybe he checks to me hoping i bet ..or if the river bet is huge just fold it. all options so you dont blow a 100bb+ stack. but whatever another spot to learn from.

the team comp ended and Team Gags won it all. A lot of low stakes guys really stepped it up and shipped some shit...i ended up taking 11th overall in the low stakes out of 27, so alittle above average. If a few things would have went my way i could have easily done better, but thats poker. really looking forward to the next competition which im hoping will be around WCOOP time in sept.


i think thats about all i got...chrisp200 on a sick heater right now, shipped 3 tournaments in 1 day. very nice to have him back grinding mtts.

i took monday off and watched some DoubleDave videos on pokerxfactor because i was seriously just disgusted with the results of the weekend and really pissed at myself. so i refocused and played a decent schedule tuesday. i only got semi deep in the $5r 12k gtd 6max on tilt but finished around 20-30ish i think, i forget. i did get raped in the $75 40k and the $55 10k but what can ya do..get the cards in good and smile. i took off yesterday too and watched another video, trying to get my game up to bar when im deep in a tournament before the final table. really slacking in that department but we are getting there.

bankroll is still hoovering around 3k so hopefully by the end of May i'll be atleast over the 4k mark, its fucking annoying going from 3k down to 2k up to 2.5k down 2k up to 3k, rinse and repeat. volume wise though i really hit it hard from the comp, i think all in all it was 456 MTTs played in about 3 weeks, pretty solid...and im over 1100 already for the year. I think that is well over the total amount of MTTs ive played in my whole career. haaah so pretty sick....i'm really hoping to get atleast 375 mtts a month to keep my volume up because with volume comes da monies.

anyways this is super long but one last thing i want to accomplish by June 1st.

-min of 5-6k bankroll
-ship a 5-figure score(obviously bankroll will be way bigger than that)
-ship 5 tournaments (any game)

pretty big goals hahahah but i think its something thats achievable in 1.5 months. gl me and to the other maybe 2 or 3 people that actually read this.

Taking my Shot

Here we go , last weekend for the Team Comp....played pretty solid 11 hours yesterday and ran deep in the $3 rebuy on stars ended up shippin the button with Q9 into bb's 77 and couldnt win a race, no problem though. Had a lot of nice stacks yesterday but crapped out.

Today I'm playing the $216 6-max 2-day MiniFTOPS events! 30 mins levels 5k starting stacks. I really thought about it and I decided to go for it. been playing pretty good lately so we will see if it pays off!


Other news i finally ended that shitty downswing on stars with a $16.50 $30k GTD final table....ended up getting KK in vs AQ with 6 left..A on flop gg..first was 6.5k :( seems i cant win those 'races' when we get so fucking deep! thats alright I'll save my one time for the big event today....also playing the $55 PLO and $22 HORSE for SCOOP and the $10 rebuy PLO miniFTOPS plus other regular schedule tournament....big day today! gl at the tables.

SUCKsess

Only 1 whole week left in the competition...things are getting heated. sick night last night for my team mates....szu shipped the sunday mully for 55k...fly44 took 10th....also delux shipped rebuy for 12k last week...dapretzel crushing final tables nightly....currently we are sitting in 7th with some scores missing...so we may be up to 5-6th area. I'm sitting in 10th right now :/

Played a half day schedule yesterday because of mom's day and i got raped. I registered for the 5pm SCOOP ($22 2-day event) and the $33 deep stack FTOPS. I ended up coming back around 615 and still had about 9k in scoop and 4k in ftops. few hands into the scoop i get KK in the SB with about 6.5k stack...ended up 4 betting all in pre into AA gg me. Built up a sicko stack in the FTOPS ....only like 14k people showed up to play. Anyways, a terrible terrible turn bet bluff to an UTG sicko mtt raiser....

villian: 30k (i really dont remember but we had aroun the same amount of chips)
me: 26k(roughly)

really i cant remember the blinds and shit but he was utg and raised about 2.3-2.4x....i was utg +2 with 55 and 35bb+ stack...my first instinct was to fold, i opr'd him and he was fucking solid so i figured he might have a wider range and trying to UTG steal so i elected to smooth call(only about 5% of my stack i do remember that) with the intent to fold to a squeeze(might be a leak but my table was the kind of table that would be playing monsters pretty stando minus 1-2 other people that seemed pretty decent) anyways we get to a heads up pot and i have position..

flop: K 4 8

he bets out about half or little over half the pot (i really wish i had the HH but its at home). My problem with spots like this is I try to make an assumption on what he's doing with little to no reads...he was new to the table and prob the first hand he played...so fucking fold u idiot...but no i decided to float him because his bet just seemed like it was kinda weak.

turn: K 4 8 8

he checks....i really was thinking of checking behind and just check/foldin the river...but instead i throw out about 6400 into 10k and he reships in my face. i ended up folding and lost a decent portion of my stack (had about 16-17bbs after this hand). I'm spewing with low pp's recently and it needs to stop. gotta have a solid read on somebody before you go making moves and blowing stacks...there was no reason for it.

so a few hands later im in BB with 77 and another dude raises 2.3x and i ship it, he timebanks and calls with AJ...JJx flop gg me....about 300ish from the money....not that it mattered because i was playing for first but just gayyyyyyyyyy.

also i donked out of the $5 rebuy 6max on another small pp....spewed my stack with 44 into aa ..gg..i did min cash that but no points for the Team comp.


Saturday was another disappointing day...not much happened there.

friday i shipped the double A for just under $1800, so my huge downswing finally ended on a good note.

also on stars, since my 4th place in the 8.80 for 1400 ive been on a 80-90 buy in downswing along on that site, they hate me. please one time? ship me a scoop? or just any tournament again? dont hate.



i think i was around chip leader when the final table came about. Only 1 real solid dude and he busto'd 5th. one of the easiest FTs ive played in...got down to heads up and ended up getting my A8s vs A9o...binked the 8 on the riv gg sir...+1782 and 96 TLB points. now if i can rinse and repeat 5 more times with some high 4 figure scores.



MAY so far



i got crushed on UB i only had about 200 over there and lost it in about a week. 0 cashes. even after my win friday it still puts me about break even over the last 100 this month. better than the last 100 games i had...stars i just a killer, if i could run good once on that site it would be great...look...



i know sick sample size right? 225 games this year on stars isnt shit but its just frustrating compared to this.....



so i have like almost 3x's as many games on tilt so i guess i shouldnt be bitching too much....my first 350 games on tilt i was breakeven so i guess its stando. remember more volume=more money. so even though the QQ gets sucked out deep in a tournament to KQ , YOU WANT THAT. it makes us more monies in the end.

Ill have some team updates maybe tonight/tomorrow once most of the scores get updated. Pens play tonight, i might play i might not, need to increase my volume a lot ...currently i have 259 tournaments for the whole competition which is about 15-16/day. eh so so, would love to be at 450+ by the end of the comp and have atleast a 5k roll which is double what i have now. up and down up and down.

Dear RNG....

....today starts the miniFTOPS and as you know the SCOOP is already going on. Can you please let me run good? The past few weeks youve pretty much kicked me in the testicles multiple times with steel toed boots. I know sometimes you like to give the other players a hint of hope and making them think they are actually playing good and good at poker but seriously? fucking stop. When they want to give me their chips and money, LET THEM. This is a 'run good' letter so please please please let it happen. I need the points and I need to get my bankroll to $50k and the only way to do so is if you help me out once in a while. remember the QQ < KQo all in pre with 17 to go in the double duece (1st was $35k) and you prison fucked my ass....not cool. I'm not asking for a 'one time'..I'm asking for an 'all the time'...just for the next few weeks and then you can go back to your old whore ways.


Thanks,
TJ

SwingDown

gayyyyyyyyyyy....what a fucking time to have one???? right in the middle of comp too. been pretty shitty week...just up and down and up and down...ended up playing the 2 sunday SCOOP events, terrible bluff gone bad about 3 hours in the 6-max event. ended up busting...then i dont even remember what happened in the 2-day event but it was probably pretty bad. Everything else has taken a shit, I got some money on UB because it seems like a gold mine..well it is....but if i can run fucking good one time maybe?! sitting top 5 in chips in the $3r and just couldnt win shit...63 paid, 64 left im down to about 15 bbs...55 ship all in, called by AJ...gg me on the bubble, awesome. i shouldnt be bitching about it i know it happens and you gotta run good to win these things..more annoyed than anything. I took yesterday off and most likely will be taking today off (pens playoff game) so i should be fresh for wednesday sesh. i got work this weekend 8-12 sat/sun so thats fucking gay and its mothers day, so i dont know how much volume i'm going to get in.

The competition is so so, I'm sitting in 9th and my team is in 14th. DaPreztel just had a sicko night finishing 3rd in the $55 1R1A and also sick 5th place in the $109 1R1A PLO SCOOP event...it doesnt count towards the comp but it was pretty sweet to watch him run deep. The other guys are doing great too, we got a lot of time left so hopefully these other players blow their load early and then we can sweep in and close it. plenty of time and events left.


I got nothing but I'll leave you with the last 108 games ive played...sick stats....bout a 50ish Buy in downswing..pretty stando. bankroll management!