SwingSwingSwing's Poker Journey

I've just had one of those very disappointing weekends where nothing seemed to go right.

On Friday, with fanciful dreams of a nice wee holiday in the Caribbean, I entered a couple of $7 Steps SNGs on Stars. In the first I finished fourth, winning $1.50. Not much to say about that one. In the second I finished 3rd, giving me another go at a Step 1, which I haven't played yet.

On Saturday, after watching some live SNGs on PokerStrategy I decided to play some of $6.50 Turbos. Two bubbles and an 8th. After that I went back and played a regular $5.50 and finished 7th.

Thoroughly peeved with SNGs, I played some shorthanded limit holdem $1/$2. I used to be OK at this game but you wouldn't know it now. Donked off about $50 there and then turned the computer off. 

Sunday comes around and I try another SNG. Bubbled. Pushed JJ into QQ. What can you do? 

Next up, the BritBloggerment at its new home on Full Tilt. It's now a Turbo and I didn't enjoy it one bit. I'm not a great fan of Turbo's generally but in what is meant to a friendly, chatty meet up, the Turbo format seems to get in the way and it degenerates into a shove fest too quickly. I'll probably not play it again.

It was the monthly TMF $10 tournie next. We were down to the final five players. It's folded to the SB, who pushes into me with A9s. I call with my Aces and lose to a flush. I mean, for fuck's sake. An 88% preflop favourite, better than Aces versus Kings.

I don't normally tilt, but that was the final straw. I fired up another $1/$2 limit table and donked off another $50 before I managed to regain control, turn the computer off and go to bed.

I hate poker. 

...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.

1. I have the bankroll
2. From previous experience, the play isn't much better than the $3s (just that I ran baaaad)
3. 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. 

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. 

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. 

1. To get my Sharkscope graph back into positive territory.
2. 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! 

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.

That's the PokerStars Battle of The Planets bonus cleared. I had to earn about 34 FPPs per day before July 9th to make it in time so I've finished way ahead of schedule. But I've lost money overall. Some of this was being unlucky, some was me making stupid calls.

Early last week it was the stupid calls that were my undoing. Paying off large river bets from tight players is just not a good play, especially with Ace high :-) I learned my lesson though and played considerably better (well as much as Short Stack Strategy allows) and I managed to recoup the earlier losses by the middle of the week. Then over the weekend, in the final push to clear the bonus, I hit some bad luck. In the space of 4 hours, I had Kings cracked by threes, Jacks and sevens losing $70 along the way. Switching to limit didn't help as my Aces fell to AKs for another $20. So I lost more than the bonus was worth in the process of clearing the bonus.

Now, I've got a dilemma. I only need 300FPPs to reach Silver Star and 4 days to do it. I might give it a go.

I missed the BritBloggerment last week as I was at my cousins' wedding but managed to make it along last night. I cashed in third place which was OK considering that I was completely card dead once the bubble burst. I was folding so much junk that Amatay thought I had disconnected. My final hand was a shortstacked push with K3s. Amatay called with QJs and when the flop gave him an gutshot royal flush draw, I knew that my goose was cooked. A non-flush straight card came on the turn and I hit the rail.

No BritBlogger for me next week as I'll be in south Germany hopefully catching some nice summer weather.

Until next time.

I played slightly more poker last week due to the fact that the expiry of my Stars Battle of the Planets reload bonus is looming. By my calculations I need to earn about 35FPPs every day from now until July 9th to get my $80. This isn't factoring in my holiday in Germany at the end of June or my cousin's wedding or various visits to friends so I really need to get a move on.

So I've been shortstacking 0.50c/$1 NL full ring. I'm ahead of schedule in terms of FPPs but slight down in terms of cash. My table selection strategy, namely sit at the table with the biggest average pot, is paying dividends when it comes to accumlating FPPs due to the number of donkeys who are willing to gamble their large stacks on marginal hands but is not so helpful as the same donkeys are quite capable of calling my 20BB all-ins with pish. For example, I'm UTG with AKo. I've been quite cagey with AKo in early so I limp in. There are a couple of other limpers and then the loose aggro big blind bumps it up to 8BB or so. Now given this guy's play so far I reckon there's a very good chance he's at it. There's around 12BB in the pot and I've only got 18BB left so I push all in. The limpers fold, the big blind calls with K4s and hits his four on the flop. Rebuy, please. As I've said before, Domination - What is it good for?

If I wasn't so risk averse, I'd be tempted to buy in for the max and nut-peddle. It might get me a bigger payday against these donks.

BritBloggerment rolled around on Sunday as normal but it wasn't good for me. At the first break, I was top 3 after taking a race against Rosie and winning with JJ. First hand after the break, it's folded to me in the small blind and I min raise with KJo hoping to take an easy blind from TanOrpheus who hadn't sat back in. Just before I pressed the raise button, Tan reappeared. He re-raised me a large amount. Now what I should have done was cut my losses but no, I decided he was full of shit and called. The flop came all low cards missing me entirely. I checked, Tan bet, I folded. What should have been an easy blind steal turned into me losing over a third of my stack. My stack then dwindled and decided to push 12BB with a pair of twos from early/mid. But Tan had woken up to a pair of tens and after a bit of a pause he called. Goodnight Vienna.

Ho hum. But I've still a positive ROI so I'm happy!