MTT crash and burn

For the first time in a couple weeks, I decided to put in a good night of playing MTTs. I played a total of 7 tournaments, and I cashed in 3 of them and came real close in two others.

For the first time, I played in the Big Daily Double tournaments, which are $75 tournaments that start at 9 PM CST. In the first one, I went out in the first orbit with AA vs TT all-in pre-flop. Someone at the table said they had folded a Ten, so the turn was a 1 outer. Nice way to start off the night, huh? I thought the $75 tournaments would attract better players, but that is obviously not the case when you have people willing to get it all-in PF in the first orbit with TT. Daily Double B went a lot better, but I busted just short of the money in 24th place. This one I lost with your standard coin flip when my AK couldn’t outrace 88. Is it common to call an all-in with 88 getting only 1.5:1 odds?

I also played the donkfest which is known as the $26 26k guaranteed. I never really got anything going in this one. I flopped trips with KQ on a QQ7 rainbow board. I bet out on the flop and some donk called with [Kh] [Jh]. Turn brought a 2nd heart and he called my turn bet. River was 3rd heart and he led out, I could really put him on a hand that beats me, but I just called anyway and saw his runner-runner flush. Not sure calling a flop bet with no pair, no draw, one overcard on a paired board is a good play. I’ll have to think about that one a bit.

I played the PokerStars $15+1.5 9 PM tournament and cashed in that one taking 46th place. I was running really well in this one, and had a decent chip stack through most of it. But the short stacks started to chip up against me and I ended up going out with T8s vs AJo. It folded to me on the button and I had to push with pretty much any two cards with an M of 2.5.

I also played both of the $10 rebuys. I cashed in the PokerStars one again (I think I cash in this thing 80% of the time). I ended the rebuy period with a really nice stack. Once I took the add-on, I think I was in the top 20 of chips. For a while I was cruising really nicely, and was at a really passive table. Then I got switched to a much more aggressive table. Add in being card dead, and I just couldn’t accumulate any more chips into my stack. I ended up going out in 76th place out of 1400+. I finally had to take a stand with QJs and got called again by AJo.

I also made it really deep in the FullTilt $10 rebuy and busted out just short of the cash. This one hurt, because I was 2nd in chips at my table and ran into a total cooler versus the table chip leader (who then went on to win the whole thing). I was sitting pretty with an M of 17.5 and an above average stack. Some short stack with 1/3 of my stack pushes all-in in middle position. I have AKo. I’m not sure if just calling, or pushing myself is a better play with people left to act behind me. But of course, the big stack who was left to act had AA and knocked us both out and went on to a massive chip lead. What did the short stack have and push with an M of 6? He had K5s.

And finally the 10PM $24+2 6 max Knock Out tournament. This one hurt even more because I had a commanding chip lead throughout THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT. When the money bubble burst, I had TWICE as many chips as 2nd place. I was hitting hands, picking off bluffs, and being really aggressive. I had my A game going. Down to 14 left, and I am still the chip leader. Then this hand happens:

Full Tilt Poker Game #6987914870: $11,500 KO Guarantee (52997896), Table 80 - 1000/2000 Ante 250 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:29:12 ET - 2008/06/27
Seat 1: Gazornick (34,043)
Seat 2: Darryn83 (36,005)
Seat 4: Caulaincourt (86,202)
Seat 5: KayOughtiK (3,366)
Seat 6: OMGitsPokerFool (151,636)
Gazornick antes 250
Darryn83 antes 250
Caulaincourt antes 250
KayOughtiK antes 250
OMGitsPokerFool antes 250
KayOughtiK posts the small blind of 1,000
OMGitsPokerFool posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to OMGitsPokerFool [Ac Qs]
Gazornick folds
Darryn83 folds
Caulaincourt: wow no suck out
Caulaincourt folds
KayOughtiK raises to 3,116, and is all in
OMGitsPokerFool calls 1,116
KayOughtiK shows [Kd 4h]
OMGitsPokerFool shows [Ac Qs]
*** FLOP *** [6c Td 4c]
*** TURN *** [6c Td 4c] [4s]
*** RIVER *** [6c Td 4c 4s] [3s]
KayOughtiK shows three of a kind, Fours
OMGitsPokerFool shows a pair of Fours
KayOughtiK wins the pot (7,482) with three of a kind, Fours
dflo43 sits down
dflo43 adds 32,474
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7,482 Rake 0
Board: [6c Td 4c 4s 3s]
Seat 1: Gazornick folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Darryn83 folded before the Flop
Seat 4: Caulaincourt (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: KayOughtiK (small blind) showed [Kd 4h] and won (7,482) with three of a kind, Fours
Seat 6: OMGitsPokerFool (big blind) showed [Ac Qs] and lost with a pair of Fours

I’m sure you are wondering, “WTF? Big deal, some donk won a 40/60 when he barely had 1 BB left”. But this was the beginning of the end for me. At first glance, it looks like I only lost 3366 chips, but all of my luck must have been included in the pot, because this guy went on a tear. I couldn’t hit anything from here on out and this guy rode those 3366 chips all the way to 2nd place. A chip and a chair I guess.

A few orbits later, I got it all-in with another short stack and my AQ couldn’t beat his A3. Then I tried to steal with K5s and got called by an average stack. Flop was AK8. I c-bet and he pushed. Easy fold. A few hands later I raised with A7o and had to fold to resistance after the flop. Later, it folds to me in the SB, and I push and BB calls with A9 and I lose that 40/60. Now all of a sudden I have a below average stack.

I couldn’t steal anymore. I was getting called/3-bet/check-raised constantly. I couldn’t play back because I wasn’t hitting any flops. I finally went out when I pushed with 33 from the CO and an M of 5 and got snap called by A6 for half of his stack. Out in 12th place.

It’s kind of frustrating to make it so deep and to have nice ship stacks in so many tournaments in one night, but not even making a final table. How do people like lucko do it?

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I think I have figured out the reason why my cash game results have been so terrible in the last two months. It’s because I’m not really studying the game much lately. I’m not watching any Cardrunner videos. I haven’t posted any hands online for discussion. I haven’t read any more poker books. I haven’t downloaded Hold ‘em Manager yet. Not sure why I haven’t done these things lately. Laziness? Probably. Maybe because it is summer time and there are so many other things to do. It’s extremely rare for us to get the kids in bed before 9 PM. Heck, we’re lucky if we get them in bed by 9:30. That doesn’t leave too much time for poker.

I’m also convinced the games have gotten a lot tougher the last couple months. Full Tilt 200NL is chock full of regular TAGs/LAGs now. There are a ton of players playing 200NL now that were at 400NL a few months ago. I think some of that has to do with the summer time and a lot of the recreational players aren’t playing right now. I also think another reason why the games are tougher has to do with the release of PokerTracker 3 and Hold ‘em Manager. With so many stats available to people (especially the PF 3-bet stats), everyone is getting better reads on people. And that is easily compounded by the fact you can datamine at Full Tilt. I think I may start playing more at PokerStars. Maybe I should try and get some money on BoDog?

Cheers!

Burned Out

I hate to say it, but I think I'm getting a little burned out on 6 max NL Hold 'em. I didn't put in many hands in May, and I've put in even less this month. I looked at my PokerTracker numbers for the month, and I've only put in 2000 hands. I think it has to do with the weather being so nice and me being a little bit more tilty lately. For example, I played the other night, and I was up a quick $350, mainly due to a flopped straight versus top two pair for a 250 BB pot. But 20 minutes later it was all gone and I logged off. Total hands played that session: 250.

So I'm trying to figure out what to do between now and when 6 max gets back to being fun. I played full ring for the first time in a long time last night. I ended up even after about 30 minutes, but the play at 200NL full ring was absolutely terrible. I think I may play around with full ring for a while.

I also am thinking of playing more Omaha. I've always had fun donking it up at Omaha, so maybe I'll give that a few more shots. I'm even considering Sit-n-gos. Not sure what stakes I should play though. What stakes would you recommend to a 200NL player? $30 SNGs? $50?

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Unfortunately, it looks like WSOP is out for me this year. Trying to plan a trip on short notice without kids is really difficult. I'm thinking of setting aside some of the $10,000 I won to go to the WSOP next year during blogger weekend and entering in one of the $2000 events. Plus, we are still planning on going to Vegas this fall. Also, I've been meaning to get some of these set up. It's about time, to tell you the truth.

3 Years

3 years ago this week was when I first deposited money onto an online poker site. That site was PokerStars, and I deposited $50. A month or so earlier, I had gotten into poker from seeing it on TV and reading about the World Series of Poker. I started playing some play money games soon after that at PokerStars.

After a while, as I was learning the game, I got sick of playing with fake money. The players there wouldn't take it seriously, so it became harder to learn anything from playing. So I convinced myself to deposit $50 and play some of the microstakes. I told myself and my wife that that would be the only money I would deposit online. When it was gone, I'd move onto something else. I've stayed true to that, and other than another $50 deposit when I opened up my Neteller account, I haven't had to deposit another dime from my pocket.

I've come a long way. I started out playing nickel/dime limit Hold 'em and $5-6 Sit-n-gos. I came close to going busto a few times, but for the first couple months, my roll fluctuated between $25 and $125. Then I stated to take this game a little more seriously, studied, and improved my game.

It's funny looking back at my very first post made in August of 2005 when I started a journal over at Bet-the-pot.com. Here is the link.

I've come a long ways, and I would have to say that my poker playing has been pretty successful up to this point.

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No concrete plans have been made yet as far as WSOP and Vegas. I've pretty much ruled out playing in the Main Event due to one big obstacle: vacation. I just started this new job at the beginning of the year, so I get crap for vacation. I burned up every hour on our trip to Florida, and as of right now, I have only 2 days of vacation built up. That won't cut it in order to play in the Main Event.

So right now we are looking into going one of the next two weekends and play in a Friday event. Our local airport has direct flights to Vegas on Thursdays and Sundays, but the Thursday flights don't get into Vegas until 2:30, which is too late to play in any Thursday events. I'm bummed about that, because the Thursday events would be perfect for me to play in. We'll see though.

Cheers!

ToC Recap

EDIT: I removed the pokerxfactor replays, as it was screwing up the format of the blog

I just got done reading loretta8's recap, and I really like the hand history viewer he has on there, so I decided to copy it. (Edit, looks like pokerhandreplays isn't working right now, so I'm going to use pokerxfactors replayer)

Here we are in the first level and the 5th hand of the tournament. My stack was down 300 chips when I called a raise, then called a small re-raise PF with a small pocket pair. This small pocket pair hit the flop nicely :)

Level 2 had two interesting back-to-back hands. The first I just called a pre-flop raise with a good suited ace and I flopped the nut flush. Original raiser checked and I bet, but they folded. Next hand, and I call out of the BB with a suited connector. I flop the straight and get it in vs ChippyMcStacks who flopped a set. Total cooler for him.

This hand obivouly brought me up into the top 3 chipstacks, and I stayed up there until the final table. I stayed fairly active the next few levels, but I wasn't involved in any interesting hands. Then during the 8th level, I limp in with a small PP in EP.

This hand easily kept me near the top of the leader board. Once the antes came into play, my table got very aggressive, and I really tightened up. I still had a really big stack, but two of the three people with higher stacks were at my table. But this hand put me back on top.

I really really contemplated pushing here, but I decided to play it weak and flat call the min-3-bet, lol. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I despise min-bets, especially PF. Obviously that flop is the perfect flop, and I was freerolling against him.

Now with my bigger stack, I decided to start playing a little more aggressive. Well, with osu754 at your table, you will never be the most aggressive. The following hand I decided to make a move on him, which obviously didn't work, lol.

I call osu's raise out of the blinds with 44. OSU had been running about 40/30 since the antes kicked in. Flop came KQ8 and I checked raised him on the flop. He called, so I folded to his pot size bet on the turn. Oh well

Not soon after this, the final table bubble burst with me being in the middle of the pack. I was involved in another hand we he who does not fold. This time with me 3-betting PF with AK in position and him flatting the 3-bet. Flop was 9h 6h 5c. I checked behind with my whiffed AK. Turn was a 7 and I folded to his pot size bet.

I don't know, maybe I should have c-bet this flop. I didn't because osu had shown he doesn't like to fold. Oh well.

Then I folded the next 20 hands. Stole with T9o and 8000 chips at the 300/600 level. Then folded the next 8 hands and then stole with A8o.

Then came my big suckout of the night. osu raises from UTG, which means his range is slightly less than any two cards. I'd say about top 90% of hands. So I push my 12.5 BBs in. Much to my surprise, scottc25 also pushes. Oops. Then osu calls Scott's push!

I think I'm supposed to say "Boom". That brought me back to life and an average chip stack with 6 left. I then went back to folding ways. The next 21 hands, I attempted to steal with just two hands. I folded to a 3-bet by cmitch with A5o, and won the blinds with A9o. The only other good hand I had in that stretch was KQ, but I folded that to a bet and 3-bet in front of me.

The next hand that I was involved in was when I busted cmitch in 6th place. It was folded to me on the button (First time in about 30 orbits since that happened) and I opened pushed my 14 BB with QTs. cmitch called out of the BB with K9o, and I won the 45/55. After that hand, the stack sizes were:

oossuuu754 (33,366)
wwonka69 (12,822)
Loretta8 (57,579)
OMGitsPokerFool (24,072)
katiemother (10,161)

I dwindled down to 18,000 in chips in the 600/1200/150 level. Then I found AKo on the button and raised it up. osu came over the top and pushed and I made the easy call. He had AJo and I doubled up. This brought me up to even with loretta for the chip lead.

Two hands later I knocked out wwonka69 to burst the bubble when I held AK again, and him holding AQ. At that point, the chips stacks were:

oossuuu754 (16,233)
Loretta8 (35,810)
OMGitsPokerFool (54,013)
katiemother (31,944)

With the prize bubble burst, and me having the chip lead, I started playing my game and became a lot more aggressive. I stole as often as I could. For the most part, I got away with it. I did fold 77 to a 3-bet by kateimother though. Eventually, osu was knocked out in 4th place, and the three of us left were pretty much even in chips. I lost just over 1/5 of my stack when I attempted to steal with Q3o. katiemother call from the BB and the flop was JT3. I c-bet, but she called. We checked it down after that and she won the pot with AT.

A few minutes later I called a raise from the BB with QTo against loretta. Flop was T97 and I raised his c-bet and took down the pot.

The only other interesting hand from then on out was the one "move" I made during the whole final 3. I called a raise from katiemother with KJs and the flop came A98. I led out for 2/3 pot and she folded.

I didn't have to do anything else as loretta and katiemother got involved in two all-ins with loretta coming out on top both times and knocking out katiemother.

I'm pretty happy with how I played. I did play unusually tight, but that was more because of how my table was playing. For most of the tournament, at least three of the top 4 chip leaders were at my table, and playing very aggressive. I didn't get AA or KK at all during the whole thing, and got QQ once (Which lost to a short stacks Ax). The only other big pocket pair I got was TT, and I folded that PF to a bet and a push before the action got to me (One had JJ, and the other had TT, so I would have been drawing virtually dead). I was fortunate enough to hit some big hands early to build up a nice stack, and I went on a good run of cards for a brief stretch at the final table.

Congrats to loretta8, katiemother, and oossuuu754 for a great match. And a huge thanks to Alcanthang for setting all of this up. Oh, and if you're not playing poker over at Full Tilt, what the hell are you doing? Stop playing at Absolute and Ultimate Bet and get on over to Full Tilt. If you don't have an account there yet, go on over to raketherake, get a rakeback account, and profit. Look at the prizes they just gave away! They just gave away $40,000 during the BBT3!! Thanks Full Tilt!

Cheers!

Ummmmmm, Wow!

I'm still kind of in shock.




Thanks to OhCaptain for railing me and everyone else who was there rooting me on.

I'll put up a nice recap post tomorrow.

Cheers!

Tournament of Champions Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big Tournament of Champions Freeroll where four huge WSOP prizes will be given away. Two $12,000 WSOP Main Event Packages, and two $2,000 WSOP packages. I won Riverchasers* and the Mookie this month, so I will have a chance to win one of these packages. The field is really tough, so I'm going to have to be on my A game and hope that luck is on my side.

Other than that, I haven't played much poker at all the last week. I played the Big Game on Sunday night, getting knocked out in 19th place, while playing one cash game table. I lost three buy-ins at the 200NL tables. And then I played about 100 hands of 100NL on Wednesday night for a brief half an hour. That's it. I'm actually a little burnt out on poker right now. I have no desire to play. Of course, the coolers and bad beats I've had the past two weeks adds to my lack of motivation to play.

I'm half tempted to take the whole month of June off. But I've been in the Full Tilt Iron Man promotion for so long, that if I don't make at least the lowest Iron man level, I lose out on a lot of extra FPP points.

I considered making a move down to 100NL, but my brief time playing 100NL on Wednesday convinced me that it might not be a good idea. I actually think there are more donks at 200NL. Plus, I have good reads on all the regulars at 200NL. The 100NL tables were so nitty, it was unbelievable. I think there are more donks at 200NL than 100NL because when some recreational player who has played 1/2 live goes and deposits money online, he wants to play the same limit.

Anyways, I plan on playing some cash game tables tomorrow while the ToC is going on, so hopefully things will turn around.

Cheers!!