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SwingSwingSwing's Poker Journey
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I've only gone and won a $5 sit'n'go |
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Written by SwingSwingSwing
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Sunday, 19 October 2008 17:39 |
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...and I'm over the moon. As the regular reader will know, I've got a target of winning $177.70 before the end of the year to get my SNG results into positive numbers and at the last update I was up a mighty $11. That $11 was won playing the $3.40 SNGs on Stars. I was running at 17% ROI but it was still going to be a slog to reach the target. After a bit of thinking I decided to move up to the $5s. There were a number of reasons for this. - I have the bankroll
- From previous experience, the play isn't much better than the $3s (just that I ran baaaad)
- My general SNG play has improved
The first three games were OK - third, bubbled and third. Just cashing felt good as it broke a ten game non-cashing streak from my previous attempts at the $5s. The next four I finished 7th, 6th, 4th and then a 2nd place. The poker gods were not kind to me in the final hand of the 2nd place game. We both saw a flop, I hit middle pair and pushed. Opponent had top pair. Bugger. I hit my kicker on the turn. Woo Hoo!. He hits his kicker on the river. Double Bugger. The very next game I finished in 8th, running into slowplayed trips, my lowest finish in these SNGs. At this point, I was getting a bit down - I didn't think I was playing that badly but I was susceptible to being trapped. Then I did something unusual. I played a $10 SNG........and I won it. Woo Hoo! $45 to me. This game really boosted my confidence. The quality of play was much better than the $5s but I held my own. It was five handed for what seemed an eternity but I kept my composure and picked my spots well. With my confidence boosted I headed back down to the $5s and it's going great. Played 6, ITM in 4. Cashing 2nd, 3rd, 2nd and finally, after 57 career $5 SNGs, I grabbed a win!  I'll leave you with a graph showing SNG results since I reformulated my target in September. Only $124 to go.
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Written by SwingSwingSwing
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Tuesday, 30 September 2008 10:53 |
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So, how am I doing on my goal to win $177 dollars at SNGs before the end of year?
Since my previous post, I've played 19 $3.40 regular Sit'n'Gos with a ROI of 17% - winning a grand total of $11. So only $166 to go!
Looking back at the results, I'm quite happy with the results. I definitely need to improve my Heads Up play though as I've not managed to win one of those 19.
I played the BritBloggerment on Sunday and finished in 6th. Very disappointing as I'd played well and was unlucky to go out when I did. The blinds were getting high and I doubled up when I pushed QJs and help up against Clouds pair of 7s. At this point we'd played around 150 hands and I had not many premium hands. I remember thinking that I'm due to get Aces soon. Then, lo and behold, a couple of hands later, when I'm in the small blinds, the aces arrive. It's folded to me and I'm against a large stack in the BB. My stack was too big to push, so I made a standard raise and hoped the BB would react. The BB makes my day by pushing and naturally I call. He turns over Kings. I mean could it get any better? Unfortunately, it didn't. A King appeared on the flop and despite turning a flush draw, I missed and was out. I took it well though! I'm still running at 15% ROI in the BritBloggerment so I can't really complain.
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Written by SwingSwingSwing
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Thursday, 21 August 2008 11:17 |
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I'm not much of a goal-setter. Never have been, probably never will be. For my poker playing I have two targets; to get better and to be in profit. Both very woolly and in the case of the former, quite hard to measure. Occassionally I may set a more specific target and at the start of the year I set myself two. - To get my Sharkscope graph back into positive territory.
- Be profitable at all my regular limits in limit 5 Card Draw.
Target 2 was achieved last night. When I started playing 5 Card Draw on Poker Stars, the lowest limit available was 50c/$1 and as such that was where players new to the game would be. With so many bad players there, making money was easy. Easy, that is, when the games ran. 5 Card Draw isn't the most popular game around. My win rate at 50c/$1 is 3BB/hr (i.e. $3) single tabling. For a bit of excitement, I would take shots at $1/$2. On the face of it, it didn't seem like a tougher game. There were more solid regulars than at 50c/$1 but still a fair amount of fish. But I was getting a hammering. Now I was only taking shots, so after losing I went back to my regular level to recoup losses. For even more excitement, I would take the very occasional shot at $2/$4. $2/$4 is very different, far fewer fish and more aggressive regulars. When playing at $2/$4 I was there purely to hit and run. If things were going bad I'd leave pronto. If things were going well, I'd leave pronto too just to "lock in" the profit. So I was making money at 50c/$1 and $2/$4 but taking a beating at $1/$2. Then PokerStars introduced micro limit 5 Card Draw and all the entry level fish dropped down leaving 50c/$1 pretty barren. I didn't really want to go down with them so decided to concentrate on $1/$2. And last night, thanks to hitting trip Aces when drawing 4 to a solitary Ace in the Big Blind I managed to get back in profit at $1/$2. Woo Hoo! So now it's time to focus on my Sharkscope stats. Apart from the playing 5 Card Draw, I haven't been playing much poker. I had a few days off work which meant that I missed the announcement and the start of the Full Tilt Bloggerment tournies. Oh well. I suppose it gives me a break for a bit!
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SNGs are meant to be easy |
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Written by SwingSwingSwing
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Monday, 08 September 2008 14:26 |
Sorry for the lack of updates - it's been a busy time at Chez SwingSwingSwing recently with trips to IKEA and subsequent assembly of various bits of furniture and having two extra doggies in the house while a friend was on holiday. Four dogs, especially when one is a hyperactive collie pup, is quite a bit more work than our two.
So what have I been doing poker-wise?
Well, as mentioned in my previous post, my other target for the year is to get my Sharkscope winnings into positive territory. So I've been studying and playing Sit'n'Gos. In order for to better understand my goal, I also spent a bit of time analysing the results that Sharkscope has for me.
My graph looks a bit strange, with a sharp fall at the start and then a plateau and then more losses. It wasn't until I'd downloaded my results and looked at them that I realised why. The sharp drop at the start was when I first started playing poker online. All the websites said that SNGs were great for getting your feet wet so I jumped in. Now in 2005, Stars didn't have any micro level SNGs; the minimum was $5. I played a few of these, fixed limit mind, and took one hell of a beating. It didn't take long to realise that I'd soon be busto so I switched to cash games. The plateau phase was a period when I took a fancy to playing the 70FPP satellites to the Sunday Hundred Grand. These have no monetary cost but the results were tracked by Sharkscope. Only the winner got the ticket. I played about 40 of these and won 2.
The rest of the graph is what I would call "proper" Sit'n'Go play. And with that in mind, I'm going to adjust my target. Rather than say "get Sharkscope figures back into positive territory", I'm going to say "get my proper SNG results back into positive territory" basically writing off my early fixed limit SNGs as a learning experience.
So my revised target is to win $177.70 in SNG's before the end of the year. Shouldn't be too hard, should it?
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Written by SwingSwingSwing
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Tuesday, 05 August 2008 11:35 |
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I think everyone who plays poker will agree that it is a frustrating game. You can play poorly and be rewarded. You can play perfectly and yet have little to show for it. The last few days have been frustrating for me. I've played 12 SNGs or small field MTTs this month. My ROI for these is -64%. Now it's only a $39 loss but the frustrating thing was the way the games played out. of the 12, I bubbled in 5 of them and cashed twice, both of them second places. Of the second place cashes, the first I went out when my opponent pushed all in preflop with Q4s into my Aces and he hit his flush and the second catching the idiot end of a straight was my undoing as my opponent had the non-idiot end. Bubbling 5 out of 12 shows that I really need to relearn bubble strategy and so I've created a little timetable of PXF videos to watch which I'll be working on this week. For some of the 5 I think I played correctly but there were a couple that I know I butchered. The worst one was a $3.40 I played last night. There are five players left with the blinds at 75/150. My stack is 2785 which is comfortably in second place. Two to my left is a player who plays nearly every hand, something like 60% VPIP. She's taken a big hit (though she still has 2000 chips) and she's been pushing a fair bit the last orbit. Acting after her is the other villian in the hand, the chip leader with 5850 chips. I'm in the BB and check after Loosey-Goosey and ChipLeader limp in. I've got A7o and flop two pair on an As7s5d board. My first reaction was "yeehaw - time to get some money off of Loosey-Goosey". I bet out 600 and Loosey-Goosey, as I'd hoped, reraises all in. What I didn't pay much attention to was that ChipLeader called her all in. The action came to me and I reraised all in with my two pair without even thinking about ChipLeader's action meant. The cards get turned over. Loosey-Goosey had T7o for a pair of sevens which was exactly what I was hoping for. Unfortunately ChipLeader turned over a pair of 5s for bottom set and I'm toast. ChipLeader knocks us both out and the other two players who had about 10BB each suddenly find themselves in the money. Absolutely horrible, horrible, horrible play by me. I was so consumed with getting money from Loosey-Goosey that I had not even stopped to think what ChipLeader was doing. And he was the only player who could bust me. And he did. Oh well, lesson learned I hope.
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