tilted behaviour

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!

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!

A few weeks ago I went a little on tilt after finishing runner-up for the second consecutive night in a SCOOP satellite.

Consequently my tilt involved stacking off in some sit-n-gos and hitting the cash game tables. I got one and two-outered numerous times, and thus my account took a major hit. After regaining my composure and returning to MTTs, it has been a slow dwindle as my account slowly was ground down from the high point that I hit a few weeks ago.

Recently however I have switched my grinding up to follow the USA schedule to a tee – registering from 2am till around 7am (depending on how I’m feeling), playing till after midday and sleeping till around 9pm and repeating each day.

This week started with the mega-Monday grind that involved running at 4/25 on PokerStars and 4/23 on Full Tilt for a losing day. Tuesday however saw me kick some ass as I final tabled the $26 NLH ($19.5k GTD) on Full Tilt. Unfortunately the poker Gods wouldn’t want me to collect the big payday of $5,500 (or $3,400 for second or $2,500 for third) when it delivered this hand – I opened the button, TyRust shipped, I called it off.

Although I fell a few places short after grinding away for seven hours, that in combination with my 7/28 across both sites saw me edge out a nice profit for the day to top off a good day on the felt. Today saw me go 6/27 before having a nap and heading up to Melbourne to play a home game with the boys. We played $0.25 – $0.50 NLH and I ran my $100 up to $360 – but it could have been a more profitable session as I let two players keep some chips behind in two big pots. First holding A♣ Q♣ against King-Queen and then Kings against Ace-King on a A♠ K♦ 7♦ board – with the final hand being a pot worth around $500 before I let my mate keep $100 as insurance.

Back to the online grind tomorrow!

After spending the weekend in Melbourne gambling, playing poker, blasting each other at paintball and hitting Chapel Street for a few drinks, there was no other way to top things off then by playing poker on Sunday evening.

Heading to Alex’s apartment across the road from Crown, we rocked up to find a $1-2 NLH table going and another in the midst of being set up. With no free seats available, I decided to grind online for a while, and although I wanted to play some tournaments, I opted to mass-rego for sit-n-gos instead.

I’ve been tinkering with my SNG game recently and been playing a fair few of them to both build the bankroll and increase my frequent player points … SuperNova Elite is only 997,000 points away!

Playing predominately $11 SNGs (non-turbo), I’ve also dabbled in some $12 Turbo 45 and 180-mans as well as a few $16 Turbos. The session was fairly awful as I bubbled a couple of SNGs and took some pretty terrible beats, but I still managed to push out a $15 profit after playing the following SNGs.

$11 SNG 3/11 (one win, two thirds)
$16 SNG (turbo) 3/7 (two wins, one third)
$12 45-man (turbo) 1/3 (third)
$12 180-man (turbo) 0/3

Looking at these results (going 6/18 in regular SNGs and 1/6 in MT-SNGs), I felt that I probably should have converted more in the regular SNGs, and was unlucky not to win the 45-man when I lost two big flips three-handed.

I’ve been struggling in getting results in the MT-SNGs, but seem to be doing all right in the regular ones. This however was my first sole SNG-grind session since I’ve mainly been playing them to accompany my MTT grind, but I feel that I’ll probably do some of these grind sessions more regularly in the future.

As for the home game, I eventually got a seat on the super agro table and opted to buy-in for the minimum of $50. I limp-called it off with Ace-King against two other players and won with a superior ace-high before eventually cashing out $200 after winning another small pot with a shove over a three-bet and a few prop bets.

This Sunday I decided that I wanted to play a full MTT schedule for a whole week. My first goal was to knock back 100 tournaments over the six days I was going to be able to play, and of course try and win some money!

With the alarm set at 6:45am, I awoke everyday and grabbed some Ribena from the fridge and some fruit before taking to my desk at 7am for the hopefully long grind.

For my first transition into full-tim MTT grinding, it wasn’t too successful. I made a final two-table run in the $3.30 rebuy, and some deepish runs in the $11 rebuy, but overall here is how my week turned out.

Sunday
PokerStars – 2/7 (cashes)
Full Tilt Poker – 0/2
Absolute Poker – 0/2

Monday
PokerStars – 4/15
Full Tilt Poker – 2/17
Absolute Poker – 0/1

Tuesday
PokerStars – 2/9
Full Tilt Poker – 1/12

Wednesday
PokerStars – 0/4
Full Tilt Poker – 1/9

Thursday
PokerStars – 4/11
Full Tilt Poker – 3/12

Friday
PokerStars – 2/6
Full Tilt Poker – 1/5

Although I continued my semi-decent ITM-rate going 22/112 over the six days, I was very disappointed in not managing to make any money.

Most of my cashes came in the smaller buy-in events as the bigger events – such as the $22 (1r1a) and $26 KO multi-entry – didn’t reap much success. Overall I broke even on PokerStars and lost on Full Tilt Poker, but on the other side of things I was happy and my commitment to sticking to the grind and getting into a rhythm.

Although my bankroll took a small hit, I feel that it puts me in good shape for the upcoming few weeks when Full Tilt Poker’s miniFTOPS kicks into gear with 45 events over two-weeks alongside the sixth installment of the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series. Taking the weekend off, I’ll be hitting my straps again from Monday onwards with the opening of the miniFTOPS and the big fifth anniversary edition of the Sunday Millions. Shares are available on Chip Me Up for the Sunday Millions and two $55′s as well as the upcoming JHDSS $340 Eight-Game and $340 Terminator.

If I can snatch a big score online or at the JHDSS, I’m probably going to take a shot at the upcoming ANZPT Perth or head over to the Philippines for the Asian Poker Tour. Hopefully within a few weeks time I’m in a position to choose between the two … or even take a shot at both!