tilted behaviour

Although all my energy is into developing Poker Asia Pacific and grinding the tournaments and cash games here in Las Vegas, I still have plenty of time to blog.

http://www.PokerAsiaPacific.com

Here are the blogs that I’ve written so far for Poker Asia Pacific.

That Winning Feeling
Boosting the Bankroll
Learn to Close
One Year as a MTT Grinder
Slow Start in Vegas
Deep Run in Caesars Palace Main Event
Cashing at the Venetian

As always, make sure to support us by Like our Facebook page and head to Poker Asia Pacific daily to catch all the latest and most relevant poker news from our region and beyond!

I would firstly like to apologise to everyone that has been coming here looking for some interesting news or stories from my travels in Las Vegas and beyond.

One reason I became so lazy with Tilted Behaviour was a lack of motivation to write on a personal level, but the biggest reason is that I have been working on a joint project called Poker Asia Pacific.

http://www.PokerAsiaPacific.com

Poker Asia Pacific is a poker news site targeted at the Asia Pacific region of Australia, New Zealand, Macau and the Philippines with the people behind it being the ones involved in Asia Pacific poker since 2007. Not only do we have the experience, skills and knowledge, we also have the drive to operate a website that provides a constant stream of the most relevant news from the region and the poker world.

Unlike other poker news websites driven by corporate greed in an effort to squeeze every dollar out of the players and the industry, we are a company run by players for the players. Yes we are hoping to make money eventually, but for the time being we are funding everything ourselves and dedicating our own personal time to provide you the best poker news website.

There are many ways to support us … Like our Facebook page and head to Poker Asia Pacific daily to catch all the latest and most relevant poker news from our region and beyond!

Thanks for supporting Tilted Behaviour over the past few years, and I hope you can continue that support by getting behind Poker Asia Pacific where my blog is now located.

With SCOOP and miniFTOPS now over, I am definitely one to admit that it was a costly series for me.

SCOOP
Played 8 events; cashed in 1.
Buy-ins: $290
Cashes: $52.56

(in total)
Played 22 events; cashed in 4.
Buy-ins: $629.50
Cashes: $182.08

miniFTOPS
Played 8 events (including multi-entries); cashed in 3.
Buy-ins: $512
Cashes: $295.21

(in total)
Played 23 events (including multi-entries); cashed in 6.
Buy-ins: $802
Cashes: $464.66

These results are down right pathetic from my viewpoint. Whether I have been running bad, playing worse or a combination of both, it’s quite shattering that I put up such disappointing results on the scoreboard.

I did make a switch to grinding 50NL on PokerStars for this week and averaged ten tables per session and did manage to stretch out a little profit even after a bad final session. The one chance I did have of redeeming my terrible downswing since Black Friday was a deep run in the $22 Big on PokerStars.

With 3,800-players, I ended up busting in 14th place after having a good stack going into the final two tables for a little over a $300 payday where $10,000 was on top for first. So close, yet so far, and there won’t be any chance for me to ship some justice for another couple of months when I return home.

The midway point of SCOOP is upon us with many people’s bankrolls a little leaner while just a rare few have padded theirs nicely.

I however am in the former group as the first week (plus one day) hasn’t seen me go too well across both SCOOP, miniFTOPS and my normal MTT schedule.

SCOOP
Played 14 events; cashed in 3.
Buy-ins: $339.50
Cashes: $129.52

miniFTOPS
Played 15 events (including multi-entries); cashed in 3.
Buy-ins: $290
Cashes: $169.45

Personally, they aren’t the worst results with one week ahead and roughly twelve events remaining that I’ll play. However it is my normal schedule that has been hurting the most. I’ve been bricking everything, or when I do have ridiculous days (went 10/29 on Thursday and 9/23 on Friday) I still manage to somehow lose money – a mix of no deep runs and cashing in the smaller events that I’ve played.

It got me thinking of two different options that I have to try and curve this downswing.

Firstly, since Black Friday, my best and most consistent results have come in the bigger buy-in events. Cashed allright in the $109 BIGGER and hit four consecutive cashes in the $55 BIG as well as a few cashes in the $22 [1r1a]. With many mid-stakes grinders saying how soft the fields are in these types of buy-ins, maybe I should stop playing all the stuff below (from $3 rebuys etc to $11 etc) and just play the bigger buy-in events although my bankroll wouldn’t stipulate this to be the best option.

So far, I’ve only received criticism for this thinking, so I drummed up another idea.

Maybe I should return to cash games. This mainly came around with my want to become a SuperNova, and although I’ve been monitoring my daily VPP intake, I know that playing my regular schedule of MTTs would make it virtually impossible. Running the maths on cash games however means that I could easily make it in a few months without a heavy grind commitment.

The transition may be a tough one to make, but playing cash for the majority of my online career – as well as live – I think I’d be able to adjust. However one of my best mates I work with gave me an idea of staying focused and motivated, but just tinker my MTT grind and play satellites for SCOOP. We both know I have a fairly decent strategy for them, and it means that I can try and dink some medium and even high seats and sell them or shot-take without too much of a hit to the bankroll.

So taking this all into consideration, this is my plan for the final week of SCOOP and final week of online poker until after the WSOP.

I’ll of course continue playing the SCOOP events I had intended to play (gotta make some money for my backer or he may get mad haha), but also grind satellites in an effort to boost the bankroll while also giving myself the opportunity to win a seat to a SCOOP Medium or High event and shot-take or sell it. Finally I’ll start grinding a few tables of cash games to see if I can make the adjustment both to my game and thinking/motivation behind playing.

I have to say that even through this downswing, I’m doing my upmost to stay super motivated and focused, but deep down it really kicks you in the stomach. Forgetting about that stuff, this week is a new week, and anything can happen!

Good luck to all those out there and I hope someone in my Skype-grind sweat-chat dinks something!

It really is fairly simple. I want to ship all the SCOOP biscuits my way!

With 38 events gracing the 2011 SCOOP schedule over three different buy-in levels starting tomorrow, I plan on playing roughly thirty events ranging from the $5.50 rebuy to the $109 main event. I definitely don’t plan on doing any shot-taking by playing the medium or high events, but if my normal MTT grind doesn’t get in the way, there is a good chance I’ll play a few satellites here and there.

Although someone is buying half my action after I made them a little bit of money during the recent miniFTOPS, the series is still going to cost around $900. Hopefully I’ll not only just profit, but I don’t think winning six events is too much to demand right?

And speaking of miniFTOPS, that is also on for the next two weeks with forty-five events in their schedule, but unlike my heavy SCOOP schedule, I’ll just play a handful of events in a hope to dink a silver jersey.

For everyone else out there on the SCOOP/miniFTOPS grind … good luck!

The past couple of weeks online haven’t been too flash for me.

Ever since I won the $4.40 [1r1a] on PokerStars and came fourth in the $26 NLH on Full Tilt Poker, my online bankrolls have slowly been declining. Although I shipped the $60 Tuesday Turbo at Crown and then followed that up by chopping the $100 Mixed Holdem (NLH/LO8) on the Saturday, I truly want my best results to be on the virtual felt leading up to the WSOP.

Today for example saw me run like complete cactus shit! I went 3/47 over both sites and virtually no money. The worst part was that I was eliminated from 22 tournaments courtesy of a three-outer or worse.

The way I look at it, I’m hoping that I get all my run bad out before SCOOP … I’m definitely hoping that’s the case!

With such a terrible day, and past few weeks on the virtual felt, I had to take a step back to review my game. Not my physical game, but my mental game.

You see, everytime I was copping a ridiculous beat I was smashing my keyboard, throwing poker chips or even punching the wall. I read this article however that made me see things a bit different, well really force me to turn my blinkers off as who doesn’t want to get their money in as an overwhelming favourite? If your aces get two-outered sobeit as you made the right play, and just got unlucky. Variance says things will even out in the long run.

Consequently here are a few notes I picked up:

Don’t care about results, as long as your play is fine, be happy.

Focus on the things you can control and in improving your game.

Poker is a lifetime game, so there is no point feeling miserable for a day because you lost a coin flip.

Do you want your ego stroked and to be comforted? Get on with it!

The final point more has to do when I would berate to friends about how bad I’m running or by posting these junkie hand histories. No point whining about things, just get on with what is important … as Charlie Sheen would put it … WINNING!

After yesterdays semi-triumph online my friend Tom told me to come up to Melbourne to help him celebrate his victory in a $109 on PokerStars earlier in the day where he pocketed around $17k.

Never one to turn down a trip up the highway to do something, I joined him and Mateusz at Crown to play the $10 rebuy which I had proved victorious several weeks earlier. Since we were the first ones to sign up, we all started on the same table as our late arrival mate Brendo found himself fortunately on a distant table.

As we started the tournament with $100 worth of rebuys in hand, I told Tom that if he moved all in, I would move all in dark – unfortunately this would have been a great time to shut up as whenever he did move all in it was always with premium as I was left to work some magic with a 4♣ 2♣ or some other junk. Inevitably as we reached the end of the rebuy period, I was in for the clean amount of $100 – the most out of us four as we headed upstairs to the roulette tables so Tom could get a gamble fix.

I had two $5 chips in my pocket and chucked them on the table with one of them on the 29/32 and 8/11 split. Dink! The ball dropped in the 29 and I was returning to the tournament with $90 in hand – just $10 short of my tournament buy-in LOL!

I wouldn’t last too long however as my Jacks lost to Q♣ J♣ and A♥ Q♠ when an Ace fell. And since we decided beforehand that instead of a money last longer we would do push-ups on the tournament floor, I was bound to busting out 30 right next to the feature table where I had been eliminated. Mateusz would follow soon after and do 20, while Brendo finished it off with 10. As for Tom, he managed to luckbox a fourth place as I was located on a $2-3 NLH table where I managed to double up after floating with A♠ 5♠ for a gutshot, backdoor flush draw and ace-high and spiking the wheel on the turn. I raised the turn and he called, and I shipped over his bet on the river with him calling with nines. MBN.

The following day Mateusz, Tom and I went down to the park to re-live our days of playing football. We had a kick, strained a few muscles and pulled out some freaky goals before retiring for another year with some lunch.

Mateusz was working, so Tom and I ventured into Crown to play the $60 Tuesday Turbo tourney where I had made the final table a few times previously. I doubled early with Ace-Jack against a banana’s King-Ten before moving tables where the beautiful Leyla was dealing away. We must have had some connection because I found a double with Queens against King-Jack and then knocked out two players with my Aces against their junk as I was moved to the feature table.

I grinded away for a while, made a three-bet shove with junk because I’m the boss and eventually made the final table sitting second in chips with around 20bbs. With only the top eight being paid, things didn’t start well as I back-to-back hands when I was forced to fold after opening an Ace and then losing a pot when the big blind defended with King-Four against my Eights.

Once we made the money however – a measly $80 – I waited patiently and picked my spots doubling with Ace-King and Ace-Ten against the same player before we were soon three-handed as I held nearly half the chips. Play see-sawed back-and-forth before I was soon heads-up and offered the guy a chop although I held a nearly two-to-one advantage. Yes I know it’s a terrible thing to do since I held such a lead, but it’s something I do in small tournaments regardless of the chip situation (well unless its a 17-to-1 advantage).

Leyla returned to deal to us, but it wouldn’t bring the same luck this time as I lost Ace-Queen to his 10-3 to give-up the lead. With the average stack now at 10bbs Leyla exposed the K♠ which would have matched up with my 6♠ – and being short I would have pushed from the button. Instead I received another six, and when my opponent called with Ace-Three, I flopped a set and he turned an ace but would see the pot pushed to me … thanks Leyla.

On the final hand I woke up with Jacks and instantly called his 5bb ship only to be shown his Queens. Leyla had my back again though as the board bricked out until she dropped a Jack on the river … weeeeeeee!

For the win, I pocketed $734 to continue an outstanding record at Crown in 2011. So far I’m 4/7 with three final tables and two wins – hopefully I can notch a big result soon in a major tourney, and if I can put in another request, I hope it’s in a few weeks at the WSOP!

Taking the day off on Thursday to hang out in Melbourne, I returned to the virtual felt on Friday for a big slog over the weekend.

However the final three days of the week weren’t too profitable as I went 3/24, 7/37 and 3/17 with no notable runs. Sunday saw Black Friday take its full affect with problems re-installing Full Tilt forcing me to not bother playing there and instead spend most of my time playing sit-n-gos.

Ahhh, Monday was upon us and I was refreshed and ready to crush some poker souls once I started regoing from about 2am. Straight out of the blocks I found the games a lot tougher – which is a direct contradiction to what the majority of Australians have been saying since Black Friday.

The reason behind this is that most of the Aussie grinders play mid to high-stakes MTTs where many of the really good American players dabble, however down with the plebs at the lower limits (anything from $3.30 to $22) it is the terrible Americans that are the lifeblood of the low-limit grinder.

I was pretty much punting stacks left, right and centre in the early goings before I started to develop some stacks in a few of the smaller buy-in tournaments. Of course I busted the big stuff – Sunday Millions, $55 DNG, $22 [1r1a] – without making much of a run at the money, but at least I was getting somewhere.

As my tables were reducing I was currently sitting 5/33 on PokerStars with two tourneys remaining while on Full Tilt I was 6/25 approaching a potential multi-entry merge spot final table. With two stacks left in the $5.50 NLH ($8,500 GTD) I saw one stack disappear in 45th place as one entry remained. I battled fairly hard, but nothing really went my way once I made the final table as I was bundled out in 6th place for $327 when I lost a race with Ace-Queen against Five-Three!

Registering some profit on Full Tilt, I moved my attention over to PokerStars where I was running deep in the $3.30 Rebuy ($60k GTD) where nearly 8,000 players had taken a seat. With $12k up for grabs – a mammoth amount for a low-stakes grinder – I was hoping that this could be the day, but when I made a standard 15bb shove from the small blind with A♣ 8♣ and had the big blind tank-call with A♦ K♠, I was busto in 62nd for around $125.

However just before this tourney had wrapped up, I finally ticked off another goal for 2011 when I won my first online tournament (now have achieved 3 of my intended 8 goals for 2011).

It was the $4.40 [2r1a] and it made me feel so good to reach the final table as it was one of the toughest days grinding online so far. I have a thing that when I reach a final table I tag all the players in blue and write down the tournament, winnings and profit, ROI, ABI, AFS and ITM in the notes section so that when I come against them in the future I have some idea of who they are. It was unbelievable to see that every player bar two had roughly $50,000 in winnings with 25%-plus ROIs – this is why I thought today was such a tough grind!

I had chips entering the final table and changed gears several times – starting fast and then slowing down before we reached four-handed and I picked it up again. Once I started to gather momentum I believed nothing was going to stop me, and in the final hand (after probably 30 hands of heads up) I limped the button with A♥ 3♣ and LevyVianna bumped it up with A♦ 10♠. I shipped, he called and I flopped a three, turned a flush draw and held to take down the $1,000 first prize. What a relief!