thx for reporting! GL also in the next week.
Kind of many different rooms that you are playing at,yeah?
CU,SvenBe
Howdy!
Yeah quite a few rooms in total but ATM I'm mostly (99%) playing at Party + some games at MPN. Will have to draw even more attention to playing at Party though as I need a total of 1000 PartyPoints in a month to clear the $100 bonus (last months have been somewhere around 500 points/month but I was playing at OnGame then as well).
On a sidenote I just may be able to reach Platinum here at PokerStrategy this month for the first time ever as well. Will just have to make sure I find some time to also learn/review my game and run good ♦
Going to make a small update today because I'm not sure how much time I'll have on Monday for a decent update plus I do feel like venting a bit would be useful ATM. So, as you may guess, this week has been pretty horrible. I've been losing money every day since last Sunday and it just seems to be getting worse:
Starting last Sunday I have played:
199 games
Had an ROI of -18.55%
Lost money at an hourly rate of $14.28/hour
Gametype wise I've lost ~$70 playing DoN-s and ~$170 playing usual FR SNG-s
Now I'm not sure if this swing could be considered "normal" at these games or not (especially considering the ROI and hourly rate), but somehow it did console me a bit when I checked some of the regs at my games from SharkScope and saw that they are/have been going through similar or even longer stretches of downswings.
Even though I am currently nicely on track with clearing my $100 bonus, I'm considering dropping the goal of clearing all of that bonus since I'm not very comfortable playing large volumes when I'm obviously not doing so great at the tables. I tend to lose confidence when playing like that and I personally believe that when you are not confident in what you are doing, you can never really succeed. I can't say I've been tilting much, which is nice, but I have made some spewy moves, especially today when I finally felt that the downswing was starting to affect me mentally. Another issue is that due to general lack of time I haven't worked on the theoretical side of the game much lately, I've been checking some hand histories and seeing if what I'm doing is right ICM wise but nothing more, and honestly I think I should be reviewing my games more than I am at the moment as well. Luckily the bonus is released in 10% increments so even if I don't clear it all it will still help my BR a bit.
Tomorrow is unclear, I may or may not be playing the $15k GTD Super Bounty, depending on how much I have energy left in the evening. If I do play then I will probably launch some SNG-s as well, if not, then maybe solely SNG-s, maybe I'll take a day off from poker. We'll see. Tomorrow + next week will also probably be crucial in whether I'm gonna go for the full bonus or not. Will have to get my game together and hope for the downswing to end.
/rant, thanks for reading and hopefully you are doing better at the tables than I am
Gonna give you a taste of Estonian rap again as well:
Alright, so my 7-day workweek is over and I still have almsot 11 hours until the next one starts so I decided to complete a late registration to the $15k Gtd Super Bounty with the main goal being to ship it I'll also launch some SNG-s on the side but try to keep the number of tables low, maximum 6.
We'll see how we do
Hope everyone is having a great Sunday night on or off the poker tables, we'll see you when we see you
# of tourneys: 174
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $554.61
Triobet (MPN): €43.13 = $50.04
PKR: $4.88
PokerStars: $0
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $740.97
Weekly Change: -$210.88
The worst week (so far) since my opt in to the bankroll challenge is now over. Hopefully we'll be able to turn this around and make sure this one remains the worst one
The 15k Gtd Super Bounty was not a succesful one for me this time either, I screwed up with this hand:
Hero raises to 420, UTG+1 raises to 808 and is all-in, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2,691 and is all-in, fold, fold, Hero calls 2,271
Flop:(6,415, 3 players)5♣A♣J♦
Turn:(6,415, 3 players)5♠
River:(6,415, 3 players)K♦
Hero shows 7♣7♦ (Two Pair, Sevens and Fives)
Main Pot [2,649]: (Pre 20%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
Side Pot#1 [3,766]: (Pre 55%, Flop 13%, Turn 5%)
UTG+1 shows Q♠Q♥ (Two Pair, Queens and Fives)
Main Pot [2,649]: (Pre 56%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)
BTN shows A♠T♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Fives)
Main Pot [2,649]: (Pre 24%, Flop 78%, Turn 90%)
Side Pot#1 [3,766]: (Pre 45%, Flop 87%, Turn 95%)
BTN wins 3,766 BTN wins 2,649
In a normal tournament this would have been an easy fold. In a bounty however... I think I should have still folded this hand. Unfortunately I made the decision to call as soon as the short stack shoved. I had made a few notes on the guy who shoved 2nd which also "helped" me with the shove a bit: I had seen him go all in preflop with ATo, ATs and AJs before.
So personally I'm thinking that against these 2 opponents: one very short, other appears to be a LAG fish, I should call with 99+, AJs+, AQo+
Had the other guy been a more "normal" (tighter) player I'm thinking TT+, AQs+
I'm probably going to post this hand in the eval. forums soon as well to get some insight from MTT regs/pros.
So being crippled after that hand I folded 99 @6BB stack when there was a raise + reraise before me, which may or may not be the right move. I think I actually should have shoved, but again it's very on the edge for sure. They had AJo and 77. I would have made trips on the turn with that hand and won BTW.
So I finally went all in with 44 frm BB @ 4BB deep and lost to 99.
# of tourneys: 46
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $524.96
Triobet (MPN): €43.13 = $48.31
PKR: $4.88
PokerStars: $0
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $709.59
Weekly Change: -$31.38
Did not play any games Monday - Friday, reasons:
1) Time
2) Motivation
3) Energy
Due to lack of all three I did not force myself to play. Furthermore, I got sick on Friday and am not feeling too well right now either. Hopefully will be able to get more games in this week though.
# of tourneys: 149
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $638.55
Triobet (MPN): €44.27 = $50.09
PKR: $4.88
PokerStars: $0
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $824.96
Weekly Change: +$115.37
So far I have released $60 of the $100 bonus. Probably will not be able to clear more than $70 by 7 February when it expires. On the weekend (Friday & Saturday, did not have time to play on Sunday), I saw an unusually large amount of fish at Party which got me thinking that I should probably try to do some game selection. So far I basically haven't done any, so it may lead to a tad higher ROI I hope. This may bring some volume issues but as I'm not inclined to grind very hard anyways I think I'll be okay. Will keep you updated.
Edit: Oh and I made it to Platinum on PokerStrategy for the first time *feeling like a real grinder*
# of tourneys: 68
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $564.70
Triobet (MPN): €46.62 = $52.88
PKR: $4.88
PokerStars: $1.91
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $755.81
Weekly Change: -$69.15
Not much volume this week as I had other activities and the results are not very good either. Didn't manage to clear any more of the Party $100 bonus so the final score is $60/$100. The slight profit in Triobet came from a €4 win in the SNG Challenge of January.
Goals this week is to practice more ICM situations (didn't get more than 90% correct last week with ICM Trainer and PT4 ICM Quiz, which I think is not good enough) and to get at least a tad more volume than last week.
Overall life's been pretty good for me, even though I'm very busy. My friends and I have made some decent progress with different ideas we're working on (I may get into some of this here in the future) and I may be able to finally buy myself a new car soon (well, used, but new for me :)). It may require withdrawing some of my poker funds but hopefully I will not have to do this.
# of tourneys: 93
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $508.80
Triobet (MPN): €48.35 = $55.20
PKR: $15.78
PokerStars: $1.52
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $712.74
Weekly Change: -$43.07
A rather disappointing week poker wise again. Not much volume, not much studying & reviewing done, some bad plays, some bad luck - you know, the usual. Managed to more than triple my PKR BR though thanks to a $6 ticket that I won from the PKR Forum Postcount freeroll. I wanted to take a shot at some MTT with it right away but after thinking for a while I decided to reduce the risk of busting this with one game by coming up with this plan:
1) Play a $6 DoN with the ticket. If I bust then it's finito of course, better luck next time.
2) If win, then play a $6 MTT and keep the other cash in the BR for micro stakes SNGs or possibly something else in the future
Well step 1 is completed, the game went very smoothly so I won $10.90 with that ticket. Now I'm either going to play 1 x $6 MTT or 2 x $3 MTT's with the money in hopes of binking something.
I also won a $10 $200k GTD Sat ticket from Party's Click and Go Promo. I'm yet to play the satellite.
On a personal note I'm a tad sick (again!) and (still) pretty busy with other activities so I'm not making big plans for this week poker wise.
# of tourneys: 72
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $634.35
Triobet (MPN): €48.42 = $54.80
PKR: $12.28
PokerStars: $3.34
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $836.21
Weekly Change: +$123.47
So I'm in the green zone and probably should be happy with the previous week. Well, unfortunately no (it almost looks like all I do is b*tch in this thread...). Well sure, I ran really hot in those few SNG-s I played. All good. On Sunday I won a $200 ticket (!) to $200k GTD from the Click & Go promotion from Party. Niiiice, even better. I also had 575+ PartyPoints which meant I can take a shot at the $15k GTD Super Bounty as well. Hell yes. So it was decided: Sunday was going to be a big MTT day. The tourneys start. I manage to increase my stack by ~20% in three MTT's within the first levels (from 10k to 12k in 200k, from 5k to 6k in $15k Bounty and from 5k to 6k in some PKR $3.50 tourney). Great, can't complain. Next up: the $200k does not meet it's guarantee and has a ~$23k overlay. So I get a free $200 ticket plus additional value by the tourney not getting enough players to reach the guarantee? Well, why not? All good.
Then things started going sour bit by bit. First I lose 1/3 of my stack at the bounty with AA running into a flushdraw and folding on the river. Card dead in the $200k Gtd. Was eliminated from $10 $200k GTD Hyper Satellite (the ticket I won last week, remember?). Okay, happens. Besides, I already got one ticket Then one by one I got elimninated from several freerolls and the PKR tourney.
I defend the blinds in the bounty tourney w AQo frm BB and this happens:
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 300, SB calls 225, Hero raises to 2,781 and is all-in, BTN raises to 3,250 and is all-in, fold
Flop:(6,331, 2 players)J♠6♣9♠
Turn:(6,331, 2 players)3♥
River:(6,331, 2 players)9♣
BTN shows K♦K♥ (Two Pair, Kings and Nines)
Hero shows A♦Q♣ (One Pair, Nines)
BTN wins 469 BTN wins 5,862
Now the $200k GTD remains. I was actually surprised by how good the players were. I mean, you would guess they would be good playing the biggest tourney PartyPoker has but I expected to see some fish/whales who'd play it just to brag about being able to spend $200+ a night for some good ol' fun playing poker. But that was not the case, at least I did not meet any of them. The gameplay was very aggressive, lots of preflop action, reraises, 3bets, etc. I think I could count on one hand the times where I got to see a free flop from the BB. I just played very tight, very cautiously (well honestly I did not run too good either so I was kinda forced to be so tight) and tried to observe the opponents as much as I could. Here's a hand from the early stages of the tourney where I went all in a tad too hastily for such a big tourney. I think I should have just called his 3bet to keep him in the hand since the 4bet all in is a really obvious KK+ range. I thought about making a small 4bet as well for a second but I don't think that would have been any better since it also implies a monster hand.
For the next 1 hour+ I was again just running out of chips. Called one minraise w 88 frm BB (missed the flop) and got some blinds by shoving AJ (below 10BB) but the situation did not improve significantly for a while. Until this hand:
Okay, so I was back to 20BB which looked good. From there I won a few small pots, lost a few small pots, standard game. Kept playing tight as I did not want to risk my below average stack with speculative hands. E.g. folded 88 from UTG+1 to a UTG raise. Whenever possible I tried to open first in with any half decent hands (e.g. 44, KTo, etc). However, as time went by my stack still got smaller and smaller. And about 1 hour after the double up with AA I was in the BTN with a 6BB stack. My position was 152/153 players. Everybody folded to me and... well I don't think folding in this situation would have been an option. I mean, it was not a forced all in so technically it was an option but I had to take action to not just dry there and slowly lose any fold equity (and the possibility of winning any significant amount of chips with a double up)
So 6+ hours of play and I finished in 153 with 135 paid. So obviously I'm not thrilled with the end result but I am glad I got the chance to play such a big tourney and sincerely hope that this will not be the last time I can play a tourney with such a huge buy in and/or prize pool
Peace and good luck at the tables!
It's Estonian independence day tomorrow so I'll continue with Estonian hip hop in the music section:
# of tourneys: 26
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $613.90
Triobet (MPN): €49.41 = $55.47
PKR: $12.78
PokerStars: $5.58
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $131.44
Current Total BR: $819.17
Weekly Change: -$17.04
amount of games this week. No worries though. Remember I mentioned the possibility of buying a car a post or few back? Well, I didn't buy a car... However, a friend of mine is planning to go to Australia soon so he was looking to sell his PC which he built about a half a year ago. Having longed for a decent desktop PC for a while, I jumped in and ended up with a very good deal. It's got an Intel i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 3GB Radeon 280X graphics, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD + new 256 GB SSD which I additionally bought. 3DMark 11 results for those interested: Graphics Score 9711, Physics Score 6133 and Combined Score 6378. I got the PC on Thursday and spent most of my free time getting it (and some games) set up properly. What also added to the time spent on the PC was my own stupidity when trying to install the SSD and some darn error which didn't let me install Windows (note to people who need to install Windows from a flash drive: DO NOT use Kingston brand USB sticks when doing so. Simply by choosing another brand you may save yourself from hours of headache and Googling for "a fix"). Anyways, as said the rig is pretty nice which is the reason I'm most probably going to spend more time playing games now which potentially means less poker. We'll see how we do.
# of tourneys: 18
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $598.45
Triobet (MPN): €49.94 = $54.22
PKR: $12.78
PokerStars: $9.03
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $144.47
Current Total BR: $818.95
Weekly Change: -$0.22
The reason for low amount of games: see last post (PS. I also got a new desk+chair to go with the new PC plus I will be installing a second case fan today after work due to the fact that the processor seems to get rather hot while gaming). Maybe I will even post a few pics of my setup. Not much to talk about pokerwise, won $4 from Stars' all in shootout + €12 from February's Triobet SNG Challenge, which I withdrew along with some cash I've won with Triobet's free bets and casino offers. So €12 = $13.03 according to Google ATM which was added to the "withdrawn funds" section. Hopefully I will find some time and motivation to get some more volume poker wise as well in the near future. But honestly I'm not missing it that much right now, I mean I've never made any serious $ per hour from it and I'm having as much fun as I can without poker as well
# of tourneys: 48
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $544.14
Triobet (MPN): €49.67 = $52.58
PKR: $12.78
PokerStars: $8.03
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $144.47
Current Total BR: $762
Weekly Change: -$56.95
Also playing some hands of NL2 cash at Triobet so I could participate in the Game of Drones freeroll. I need that darn drone. Very, very low volumes though. But only 200 raked hands needed so nvm.
# of tourneys: 98
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $415.20
Triobet (MPN): €54.26 = $58.73
PKR: $9.28
PokerStars: $9.03
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $144.47
Current Total BR: $636.71
Weekly Change: -$108.99
Added some MTT's at Party to try to find new motivation and meaning to poker. Got to one FT and finished 8th QQ vs 33. Also got a 3rd place at a Triobet €50 freeroll for €3+ something... Other than that, well, see the "Weekly Change" above and make your own conclusions
# of tourneys: 64
Current BR at different sites:
PartyPoker: $423.05
Triobet (MPN): €54.33 = $59.84
PKR: $9.28
PokerStars: $6.45
Unibet: $0
Withdrawn funds: $144.47
Current Total BR: $643.09
Weekly Change: +$6.38
Remember I mentioned that I was playing some cash tables at MPN to participate in the Game of Drones freeroll because I needed that drone? Well...
Very happy with that obviously, even though I'm afraid the drone's camera is not going to be as good as I hoped for. But hell, it will definitely be a cool toy if not anything more. Besides, it's always an option to buy a (used) GoPro, attach it to the drone and get some cool footage that way. Anyways, the ETA on the drone is 28 days (from 4 or 5 days ago) so I won't be seeing it before the end of April. I'll surely post a video or two made with it.
Other than that, I'm actually contemplating quitting poker, at least for a while. Been very unmotivated to play and/or learn in the past months and truth be told, even though my ICM game has mostly been pretty good, I probably won't be able to get out of that extended breakeven/downswing I've been on unless I work hard on my ICM + postflop play + MTT play. In addition, as throughout my "career" I've been (broadly taken, I have no maths to back this up) a breakeven player and kept my bankroll rising thanks to loyalty bonuses ($50k GTD Super Bounty tickets) and various promotions. However, with the recent changes to the loyalty scheme at Party, a player that plays as much as myself is going to lose more than 50% of their points value. Also the overall quality of promotions has been going downhill for some time now. I used to wait eagerly for the $5k bankroll booster freerolls on Sundays on Party but now when they were smoothly changed into $2k bankroll boosters, it just seems pretty pointless to take on a herd of fish in order to fight for the 1st place and $300 something. Honestly PokerStars' $100k Privilege freerolls are a better promotion that this. Yes I got lucky with the Click & Go promotion once but overall this is not a very attractive promo either. They could at least make it so that you get extra prizes with every xx amount of points you earn but whatever.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do though. First I have to think what I am going to do with my Party BR should I quit poker. I am still keeping my eyes open to buy a new (=used) cheap car but honestly I'm not looking to add my Party BR to my car budget, but I'd rather invest it into something that could possibly earn some profit over a period of time when managed correctly. Like poker
FFS, this is why I went to study economics and entrepreneurship more than 4 years ago, to learn to be my own boss, use my money wisely and do something profitable with it. In 4 years, I still haven't been able to figure out what it exactly is what I want to do.
TL;DR: won a drone, probably quitting poker, don't know what's next.
Here's a song+video from Hanf Kung, whose new mixtape is just pure awesomeness.
I'll also launch some SNG-s on the side but try to keep the number of tables low, maximum 6. 
amount of games this week. No worries though. Remember I mentioned the possibility of buying a car a post or few back? Well, I didn't buy a car... However, a friend of mine is planning to go to Australia soon so he was looking to sell his PC which he built about a half a year ago. Having longed for a decent desktop PC for a while, I jumped in and ended up with a very good deal. It's got an Intel i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 3GB Radeon 280X graphics, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD + new 256 GB SSD which I additionally bought. 3DMark 11 results for those interested: Graphics Score 9711, Physics Score 6133 and Combined Score 6378. I got the PC on Thursday and spent most of my free time getting it (and some games) set up properly. What also added to the time spent on the PC was my own stupidity when trying to install the SSD and some darn error which didn't let me install Windows (note to people who need to install Windows from a flash drive: DO NOT use Kingston brand USB sticks when doing so. Simply by choosing another brand you may save yourself from hours of headache and Googling for "a fix"). Anyways, as said the rig is pretty nice which is the reason I'm most probably going to spend more time playing games now which potentially means less poker. We'll see how we do. 
(PS. I also got a new desk+chair to go with the new PC plus I will be installing a second case fan today after work due to the fact that the processor seems to get rather hot while gaming). Maybe I will even post a few pics of my setup. Not much to talk about pokerwise, won $4 from Stars' all in shootout + €12 from February's Triobet SNG Challenge, which I withdrew along with some cash I've won with Triobet's free bets and casino offers. So €12 = $13.03 according to Google ATM which was added to the "withdrawn funds" section. Hopefully I will find some time and motivation to get some more volume poker wise as well in the near future. But honestly I'm not missing it that much right now, I mean I've never made any serious $ per hour from it and I'm having as much fun as I can without poker as well 
