Highs and Lows of Tournament Poker

Good luck acerbikas!

MTTs are fun, I love the play them! I wish you every success and hope to see you reporting some big wins in this blog over the next few years!

Gary

GL acerbikas,

waiting some niiiiicee binks,

MTT's can be frustrating, but once you win big you forget about all bad run ♦

Best of luck sir,

Fran

Originally posted by HollyMichelle
Good luck acerbikas!

MTTs are fun, I love the play them! I wish you every success and hope to see you reporting some big wins in this blog over the next few years!

Gary

Will try to keep up and do it

+103

Finally had a semi-decent day in the green. Managed to squeeze in about 20-25 tourneys. While stars were less than forgiving (after bumping me out of a 4.40 progressive knockout close to TOP100 AT < QT), party was much more lenient. Managed to reach ITM on all the more expensive tournaments I played and binked a ticket so it equated to a 135$ profit. Sadly, the bulk of it came from an 8th place finish in a 5+R 6k gtd, but I had dwindled down to a meager stack so losing a flip was to be expected.

I had an interesting hand on the final table bubble which made me torn between folding and reshoving. Apart from sharkscope telling me the guy is a winning reg, I had no idea how he played, so seeing him flat a shortie's allin made my spidey sense tingle. I put him on a far stronger range than I potentially should have, which led to my eventual demise early in the final table.

Party, $4.55 Buy-in (15,000/30,000 blinds, 3,000 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 5 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: 283,801 (9.5 bb)
MP: 140,596 (4.7 bb)
Hero (BB): 306,794 (10.2 bb)
CO: 629,514 (21 bb)
BTN: 490,774 (16.4 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J A
MP raises to 137,596 and is all-in, CO calls 137,596, 3 folds

Flop: (335,192) T 8 2 (2 players, 1 is all-in)
Turn: (335,192) 8 (2 players, 1 is all-in)
River: (335,192) J (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

I was really torn between calling and folding. ICM wise, there was a 33% jump in prize money if the shortie falls, and I hadn't quite got the equity to go multi-way. That said, if both me and the shortie fall, I still get the jump and in case I bink my 30% (which I was sure I still had) I can still survive. Results-wise of course I was not really not that happy.

That's about it for the day, will get back to tournament poker in several day's time.

Regards

While it would be fun to just say BOOM, but the hit isn't as large as it could be. I managed to close down the month with a comfortable deal in a 3k gtd tourney on party, so I ended up around 400$ richer. We were virtually even and 60BB deep + it was 3 am so I was lazy to pursue the money. That said, Pokerstars.fr were far less forgiving and chipped away at my dwindling bankroll at a steady rate.

+270

As I said, starting April I will try to come around with a bigger grind, so in case anyone's following, I hope to get a nice bink over the coming month

I hope to get a nice bink over the coming month smile

Can't wait for this to happen, hope you'll bink a nice one soon

I had a rough two week patch since the start of april, losing around 400-500$ in the process, albeit I must admit I could not keep my promise (to myself) that I will improve some more and I could not set the goals I longed for. So all in all I decided to give it a day and I will most probably outline some goals for the coming months (I had actually had a larger goal in mind six months ago which I accomplished but then went on to degenerate some and forgot all about continuing to strive towards it) tomorrow. Having read (and followed) some of the more recent and more active MTT blogs, I will also try to invest some more time into being a presence on the boards, as well as further improve my gameplay.

P.S. I have noticed that most bloggers tend to post songs/videos so I will probably start following this trend, because of my slightly unusual taste in music (power metal, melodeath, metalcore, plain old hard rock mixed in with some dnb, dubstep, etc.).

Will keep in touch.

Yeah, MTT's could be brutal in their swings, keep up the good work, and try to stay calm, once you hit a heater you'll forget quickly about the bad days Oh, it feels so nice when you bink

Also, posting songs and videos is fun indeed, I'm looking forward to watch some of your media choices

Best of luck,
Fran

Speaking of which...

Forgot to take a screenie (actually did one but then the clipboard was overwritten)...

Even though it took me a while... owning 6max

Yesterday I should have reached the final table of a 3+R Storm on the .FR site, but I messed up a hand which eventually led to my downfall (both chip-wise and psychologically). Went out in 12, 1.5k e for first, pshaw.

As I promised, I am following this up with a song

Finally some binkage. Got 2nd in 10k Big addon 5+R on party for 1k (was chip leader but lost out a few times since I could not make a single hand heads up and eventually AJ v A2 lost an allin with the deuce popping up on the river -- 1.7k :() and managed to directly buy into the 9000000000000xth tournament on stars and get to top250~ for 820$, though I couldnt land a successful flip AQ v TT for above average chips. A nice day altogether, albeit I could have done with a bit more luck towards the end (not that I didn't have it anyways). I should be happy that by what I've managed to gather I was the last lithuanian standing in the event so that makes me happy if it truly was that way. The whole of april had been horrendous apart from the two hits which only decreased the minus until the win day.

Nice scores, well done!

Top 250 is a big achievement sir! How was the field in that tournament? I skipped playing yesterday altogether.

Any plans for SCOOP?

The field was extraordinarily weak, largely in due part to the fact that 70% of the field must have got in via a satellite. That said, I directly bought into it so I took a far safer approach than I generally would in MTTs. And the guys at the table were still much better than me, although I witnessed their inability to adjust to nittier players just as well. I wasn't hoping to ladder up at first, but then I just sort of waited out for KQs+, AT+ range to make my moves and I got there in the end. I can't say I would necessarily play another Big 109 just for the sake of it, just because of the sheer buy-in (as well as the fact that I sucked out JJ v KK early on), but this tournament was a must-play for the added value.

As for SCOOP... I haven't actually written down any events I want to play -- actually, I haven't even looked at the schedule as I have a b-day party coming up this week+lithuanian snooker championship that I will have to attend, so I might just skip out on the preparation for SCOOP altogether. But we'll see, I will definitely try to play them low ones and I will also take part in the main event low for that matter. I am currently planning on grinding 180mans during the early parts of the day, so if I can fit in several satellites to SCOOP during the process, all the better.

I am currently working on a master plan involving areas I need to work on in my everyday MTT play. I seem to be overall happy with my play, albeit I guess I would be far too weak to stand a chance in games >20$+ in the long run. Since I am a calling station, I seem to do well vs most TAG regulars and maniacs, but passive players are beyond me. Nevertheless, I need a lot of improvement and I currently pinpointed several areas I need to work on:

Bubble play:

• Managing 15-25BB stacks
• Raising/shoving ranges
• Calling ranges vs shorstack shoves/bigstack resteals
• ITM vs stacksize increase

Adapting to stats facing passive oponents where PFR:VPIP ratio is 1:8 to 1:12:

• Isolating pre-flop
• Postflop aggression and line analysis
• Facing 1bb donkbets

Thinking in ranges:

• Adapting to player statistics
• Understanding standard postflop lines

I will work on making this a to-do list over the coming weeks (as well as improving my blog in general), since I am bent on improving though I still do not know where to start off exactly.

I think I might from now on make this blog slightly more philosophical in nature, seeing as I haven't had any hits in a while and I am constantly experimenting various things. I might try to actually improve my thought process whilst analyzing certain things I noticed and several things that I need to improve. I might also create new threads so as to separate some issues I found within my game and analyze them.

Will keep in touch.