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| Thank you, shaundeeb |
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Snapped the Skid - Tournaments
Last post I mentioned how badly the year had started in both tournaments and cash. Really couldn’t have been much worse as I was 3-51 in tourney cashes with none significant. Things seem to be getting back to normal. I’ve played a couple of sessions since. I took 3rd (1300 runners) in a $10 10-minute donkathon a few nights ago for $1100+. Had the chip lead 4-handed with KK in the BB. Utg shoved with A8 and turned an A ugh……. Winning that pot would’ve given me over 1 million chips with less than 2 million chips in play 3-handed where I would’ve been a heavy favorite to take 1st place.
Even though it wasn’t a huge cash it felt good to get the monkey off my back. Kudos to shaundeeb for expounding the virtues of mixing in some lower level stuff to keep the confidence levels up. It was a nice slump buster. Ironically Shaun mentioned liking this specific event. Shaun let me know where to send your cut.
Next session I played I had a few cashes including final tabling the $50 1R 1A event, lost a flip to go out 9th meh.
Yesterday I sat down at 1PM to partake in the Poker Stars Passport TLB top 1000 promotional freeroll. This was open to the top 1000 TLB finishers for the month of December on Poker Stars. I was in the last tier competing against a field of 500 where only the Final 9 got paid. 1st place was an entry into the Monte Carlo Main Event with cash going to the other 8 spots. I had a top 3-4 stack all tourney long as we headed to crunch time. With about 6 tables left I called a shove in front of me and took a major hit when my JJ lost to 55, ouch. I actually chipped back up into contention and then started to battle the clock. With 4 tables left it was less than a half hour to the start of the Giants game, dammit Stars why of all days did this have to be today? I became overly aggressive (aka stupid) trying to build a monster stack or bust out to watch the game live, which I did when I lost a flip good at the time for 8th place with A7s vs KQ.
Full Tilt Saga Continues
Heading says it all. 1-20 this year cashing over there. Have lost in every disgusting way imaginable. Flopped top set over there at least 7 times this year and lost every single one. Open enders, gutterballs, flush draws, running quads you name it it’s been happening. I can “kind of” accept the bad side of variance but my lack of being a real factor in any tournament on that site has me seriously troubled. Not sure where to go from here, hoping to have an epiphany.
Erased the deficit – Cash Games
After starting the month in a 13 buy in hole I leave the online world to head to Borgata tomorrow almost back to even. I’ve strung together a bunch of successive winning sessions to wipe out the early New Years losses.
The New York Football Giants
Unfreakinbelievable. The Giants are heading to the NFC championship game Sunday night in Green Bay. I’ll be heading back from Borgata on Sunday morning and will have some great radio to listen to on the way home to get even more pumped up for the game. What a season!
Hope I see some of you guys at Borgata.
-Doyle-
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| Heading to Borgata |
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Reservations are set and I’ll be heading to Borgata next Tuesday morning with a return home Sunday to hopefully watch the Giants in the NFC Championship game (one can dream right?). Not yet sure if I’ll be able to make it back for the 2nd week of the WPT events, one step at a time.
This should be another fun trip. My best friend who also happens to be my long time business partner is planning to arrive on Wednesday night and stay thru the weekend. In addition, a couple of other friends from the old home game I hosted will also be there during the week. I’m really looking forward to the trip.
Borgata runs a great tournament from top to bottom. I’ll likely skip the $300 event (donkfest) on Tuesday and get settled in. The rest of the week there will be a $500, $750, $1000 and a $1500. I’m currently wrestling with where to spend my time while I’m not in a tournament.
More...
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| Back in the Groove |
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I’ve been back from AC for a couple of weeks and have finally gotten back into the online groove. Here’s a quick summary of what’s been happening.
Cash Games
First off it’s totally weird going from live $5/$10 & $10/$20 NL to online $1/$2 NL and vice versa. I’m pretty disciplined when it comes to managing myself when it comes to poker. For the foreseeable future I’ll remain at $1/$2 until I’m dead certain that I’m a solid winner in this game. I do feel like I’ve made serious strides towards that over the past couple of months and again I have to think that writing this blog and taking poker more seriously in my life are in a large part responsible. Since I’m back home I’m about break even but there’s quite a caveat to that. I detoured to Full Tilt and had a disastrous 2 days at the cash tables about a week ago, dropping about 8 buy ins. So much for that experiment. On Stars I’ve been solidly grinding profits.
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| Atlantic City Recap Part 2 - WSOP Circuit FT Bubble |
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WSOP Circuit Event
After a long and successful cash day on Tuesday I woke up early Wednesday morning feeling good. After a quick detour down the corridor to Starbucks I headed to the Poker Room where I joined a $10/$20 NL game. My session was rather uneventful. After some room service and a shower I headed over to Harrah’s for WSOP Circuit event #5.
My goal for the day was just to play my best in every situation. The whole reason for the trip was to sharpen up my live game before Borgata’s WPT series next month so this was going to be my last shot at doing so.
My first table was pretty tight and for the most part lacked action. Fortunately we were the first table in the room to break. I headed to my second table down a few hundred chips from the 5000 we started with. We were on the back half of the hour long 1st level. Table 2 had a broad range of players, several who I recognized and knew to be very good players.
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| Atlantic City Recap Part 1 |
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Well I’m back from Atlantic City and I have plenty of poker related issues dancing around in my head. Don’t think they’ll all fit in this writing so I’ll break things up a bit.
My original plans called for leaving early on Monday morning (reservations Monday thru Wednesday nights at Borgata). My friend offered me his room on Sunday night so I made the drive down to AC early Sunday morning. Had breakfast with my friend and settled in to watch the Giants play the Eagles in yet another sloppy football game that saw the Giants come out on top. Met up with my friend after the game and hung with him in the poker room for a couple of hours before heading to dinner. My friend took off after dinner and I was on my own.
Having not played live poker for 6 months this trip was completely about getting back into the groove and preparing me for the Borgata WPT series that begins in mid January.
Sunday night I spend about 4 hours playing in a $2/$5 NL donkfest and I drop $1000. Nice. The plan is to play the WSOP Circuit events at Harrah’s on Mon, Tues and Wed. so I head up to the room for a good nights sleep. Wake up way too early Monday morning and am bored so I head to the Poker Room with coffee in hand. The high limit room is dead so I sit down at $2/$5 NL again. About an hour in I’m ahead a negligible amount when a kid sits down and takes $200 out of his pocket. Dealer hands him 2 stacks of red and he moves them all in blind before receiving his cards. He gets called by K7o loses and repeats. Wash rinse repeat over and over again……….. Triples up on his 4th try and shoves $600+ in blind next hand and busts it. Next hand he’s back to $200 blind shoves………. Meanwhile I’m sitting a few seats behind him and hand after hand I can’t find a broadway card let alone 2. This process continues until half the table winds up all in on any given hand. This was the sickest $2/$5 game I’ve ever been in and as luck would have it I remained beyond card dead. After a while I become so frustrated I decide to pick up and leave.
Harrah’s WSOP Circuit Event 3
After breakfast I head to Harrah’s to register for the Monday event. The process is smooth and quick. Say hello to a couple of friends before the tournament starts and then settle in for what I hope will be a long day. We start with $5000 chips and 1 hour levels. I chip up a tad in the 1st hour. Early in the 2nd hour ($50/$100 blinds) I badly misplay a hand that costs me half my stack. One thing I’ve always been pretty good at is “live tells”. I pick one up from an early position raiser, he’s STRONG, seriously STRONG. After his raise to $275 and a couple of calls I look down to see AQo in the big blind, ugh. I say to myself that I need to throw it away but my right hand won’t listen and calls, huh? I quickly check the AJ4 rainbow flop and the opening raiser leads out for $500. Folds back around to me and the battle between my brain and right hand continues. My right hand wins, I flick in the $500 chip. The turn is a 10. I say to myself there’s absolutely nothing I can beat here except pocket KK’s or QQ’s but I KNOW he won’t bet again with one of those hands. I check with the intention of folding to a bet. Villain bets $700 and my right hand decides that it’s worth chasing a gutter ball for only $700 more. Seriously if you could see what transpired between my head and hand you’d fall over laughing. I had no self control. The river’s a brick and I check again. Villain doesn’t hesitate and tosses a $1000 chip to the center. Fold, Fold, Fold…………….. my right hand calls. Villain flips over AK and I want to punch myself in the nose or at least sever my right hand. I mean really, what’s the matter with me???
Now short stacked I know I need to step on the gas and double up or leave. I have the button a couple of hands later and with a couple of limpers I find A8 and raise it up. The BB must’ve picked up on my “move” because he shoves all in with about the same sized stack as I have. I picked up on a little something too and snap call him. My A8 is ahead of his J10o. The 8 on the flop wasn’t necessary and I double up to the mid $4000’s. On my next button I pick up KJss. With a couple of limps and a sweetener raise to $275 from the cutoff I decide to flat call. The limpers come along for the ride and we see an AsQs9d flop, yummy. It checks around to me, really? Nobody has an A here? I fire $1500 thinking that I’ll take it down here but not minding if I get a customer. The opening limper who is the same villain from hand 1 raises enough to put me all in, everyone folds and it’s back to me, OK I call. He’s got A9 and I have a trillion outs and miss the entire world with my royal flush draw of spades, meh!!!
I head back to Borgata and have quite a talk with myself. Amateurs’ play that AQ hand the way I did, good players pick up tells and trust them while amateurs’ choose to ignore them. Amateurs’ exude no self control at the tables. I’m rusty, yes, but I’m no damn amateur! The trip has started off on the wrong foot and there is more rust in tow than I realized.
I somehow willed myself to sleep, deciding that the cash tables were the wrong place for me at the moment. I woke up feeling a lot better, grabbed some dinner (Fatburger mmm mmm good) and headed for the high limit room, determined to play some good poker. I took a seat at $5/$10 NL and had a nice 7 hour winning session.
Got a pretty good night’s sleep but woke up feeling sluggish on Tuesday. This live poker stuff is tiring. Breakfast didn’t help so I decided to just relax for a while and skip the WSOP Circuit event #4 at Harrah’s. Several years ago I couldn’t have made that decision. In my mind it’s that ability, being able to be honest with myself that has made me a better all around player. There was flat out no way I was going to be able to play 14 hours of solid tournament poker and I knew it. Despite feeling tired I knew I was completely back in control and ready to do some good things at the tables. Early afternoon I sat down for a winning 12 hour session that included time at both the $5/10 NL and $10/$20 NL tables. I played really well and felt really sharp. I was now completely focused and a different person than the guy who arrived on Sunday morning.
I’ll pick up in part 2 with highlight’s of Harrah’s WSOP event #5.
-Doyle-
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| Road Trip |
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Live Poker
After some creative juggling I’ve found a way to get some time off and I’ll be using it to head down to Atlantic City next week. The WSOP Circuit is coming to town at Harrah’s. Since beggars can’t be choosers I’ll have to settle for some of the preliminary events as my schedule only allows me to get away the early part of the week and the 1K and Main Events don’t start until the latter part of the week. Maybe it’s for the best as I haven’t played any live poker in 6 months. My plan is to play a couple or three of the $500 events at Harrah’s and some NL cash at The Borgata where I’ll be staying during my trip. The structure for the $500 WSOP Circuit events is decent at best. They don’t hold a candle to what The Borgata offers structure wise when the WPT comes to town a couple of times a year. The Borgata WPT next heads this way in January so I’ll use this trip to shake off the rust and prepare me for some nice events next month.
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| November Recap |
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Cash Games:
I just wrapped up my best month at the online cash tables since I began playing 6-max back in August. I wound up winning 17 buy ins for the month. I also crossed the 10,000 hand plateau for the first time in the 4 months I’ve been playing.
I feel good about November’s results primarily because I feel good about my game. I’m confident that my cash game is in a better place today than it was when I started writing this blog back in October. I’ve continued to examine both my game and myself during this time. Doing so has helped me identify a couple of leaks, both in game play and in what I’m bringing to the table. I believe both have made a difference in my bottom line.
One of my early concerns which I voiced in a prior writing of this blog was that the size of my winning days were being dwarfed when compared to the size of my losing days. I wrote that I felt strongly that it was an issue of variance.
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| Happy Thanksgiving |
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Happy Thanksgiving
It’s been a week since my last update. As I mentioned last time I was facing an extremely busy week at work so poker had to take a back seat. In keeping with the theme of remaining consistent with this blog here we go:
Last we left off one of my friends was fighting for the chip lead at the Borgata 5K. Unfortunately he busted just before the money bubble. I really thought he was going to do some serious damage in this one but it wasn’t to be as day 3 was very unkind to him.
My Cash Game:
I ended last week ahead 3+ buy ins. This week I’m stuck a bit more than a buy in. There are so many hands that I want to post but I’ll limit it to a couple. I also want to be conscious not to post only bad beat hands so here goes. Here’s a loss first, I swear its hands like these that keep me from being a “successful” cash game player. If I could just learn to be successful against the donks I'd be dangerous.
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| Several Topics Today |
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I have plenty to talk about today. Also I want to thank you guys for your comments, keep them coming.
Borgata Deep Stack 5K
One of my two friends busted very early on a day 2 cooler when his trips ran into the same trips but lost to a bigger kicker. My other friend, Eric Bankoff, had a fine Day 2 ending the session with a big 325K stack. They begin the day with 49 players left. 18 places pay. Keepin’ my fingers crossed……….
Quick Cash Update
Sunday was good for a 3 buy in positive gain. I was wrapping up my early Monday morning session with a profit in tow when I flat called a raise from a tight UTG on the button w 76s. Sorry I’m typing this out, can’t seem to locate the hand in my files to use the converter. The BB who is a bluffing LAG type completes and we see a suited flop of J76. BB cks, UTG bets out and I raise. BB reraises and UTG folds.
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| End Of Week Update |
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Just wrapped up an early morning cash session in what was likely an end to the week for me. The last 3 days totaled to a loss of ¾ of a buy in. My week ending cash total was + 5 ½ buy ins which is just fine considering the small volume I put in.
On the tournament front just as I had done on Wednesday, I took Friday afternoon off and began loading up tournaments on both Stars and Tilt. I played 7 events in all and somehow managed to whiff despite having a chip lead or top 2-3 stack in 3 of the 7 tournaments, including the Stars 50K and the Stars $50 Rebuy. Everything felt great while I was playing. I’ve been experimenting with some new tournament ideas and I’m pleased with the early results.
Over time I’ve become much better, albeit not perfect at ignoring the day to day results in MTT’s. I’m of the belief that if I play well and make good decisions the good results I’m looking for will eventually follow.
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