I've been bouncing around with poker recently without really feeling like I've been hitting my stride. I've hit some good streaks to just about make up for some of my less than stellar play and so i've danced back and forth around the break-even point without ever looking like actually making significant profit. I've actually cashed-out some pretty nice totals, but always it's come after first losing a buy-in or two, making the actual day's profit something less impressive.
Anyway, this week things have clicked back into place - I'm finding it much easier to tighten my game up, rather than just saying I'm gonna tighten up and then still playing marginal hands and chasing speculative draws. I'm thinking a lot more too, trying to put people on likely hands and picking up on particular players' styles and using that to my advantage to judge what size bet they'll call, when to bluff or when to just check it down.
I've ended tonight after a couple of hours just over one buy-in up ($4.88). It's a nice win because it was done wihtout any of the horrible swings I've had recently where I've dropped to a very short stack or even lost a buy-in before hitting that big win to bring me back into profit. It's made me think; If I can keep control of my game like tonight, then when those big pots do come then firstly, it will add up to a lot more profit overall, and secondly, I'll have more cash to throw into the pot when I've got the nuts and therefore potentially win an even bigger pot!
So, fingers crossed I can keep this play up and start having some more consistently profitable sessions.
P.S. I won some money in a freeroll for first time, woo! Party is running Surprise tournaments at the moment and I battled my way through a 4,500 player freeroll to win ... $0.02. I placed 428, and had a decent stack so I could have gone further and maybe even got into to $0.07 band, but it was getting to bed time. Still, I can now say I am a winning player at tournaments!
Showing posts with label MTT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MTT. Show all posts
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Sunday, 8 July 2007
ups and downs (mainly downs)
I played quite heavily this weekend, playing on both Friday evening and most of Saturday. Well, actually I'll revise that. I played poker on Saturday, on Friday I just sat in front of the computer and doled out money to anyone that asked.
I basically did everything it's possible to do wrong on Friday; I played with lots of distractions around (the window was open because it was warm and so the television was on ridiculously loud to drown out the noise of the city); I called big raises when I should have read from the board the danger I was in, twice I ran a Ace-high flush right into the jaws of a full house; when I did win it was for tiny amounts because I fluffed the betting; I allowed myself to get frustrated and into the mentality of 'winning my money back' with the consequence that I played on far past the point I was enjoying myself and just dribbled away further money.
So, pretty much an unqualified disaster, losing me $4.74 and putting me way down for July but more importantly erasing all of my previous profits and putting me in loss. It's only $0.64 down at the moment, but it's still a little disheartening.
Saturday I decided to try something different, and entered a couple of the Rookie Freerolls. It was my first time playing tournaments and it's very much a different game to the cash tables. I played three tourneys, each with just over a thousand entrants, placing 143rd, 743rd and 265th respectively. The relatively poor performance in the 2nd tourney came from being on a very aggressive table at the beginning. To survive it I really tightened up, but I didn't hit any 1st tier hands and so when I was moved to a new table full of big stackers I got flattened.
Although I placed lower in the 3rd tournament, I thought I played it very well. A couple of problems I've mentioned before is that I don't take notice of people's stack sizes when betting against them and that I'm far too reserved with betting when I'm ahead. With a tournament it's ALL about stack sizes and I felt it played well terrorising the small stacks and going all-in against big stacks when I had the nuts. I think I could've gone much further, but it was getting late and so I started playing like I didn't care if I got eliminated, which was true, and lucrative until I went all-in against someone with AA...
I'm hoping I'll be able to bring some of that back to the cash game tables, although I've got to be conscious that they're a very different game!
This month's total: -$4.34
I basically did everything it's possible to do wrong on Friday; I played with lots of distractions around (the window was open because it was warm and so the television was on ridiculously loud to drown out the noise of the city); I called big raises when I should have read from the board the danger I was in, twice I ran a Ace-high flush right into the jaws of a full house; when I did win it was for tiny amounts because I fluffed the betting; I allowed myself to get frustrated and into the mentality of 'winning my money back' with the consequence that I played on far past the point I was enjoying myself and just dribbled away further money.
So, pretty much an unqualified disaster, losing me $4.74 and putting me way down for July but more importantly erasing all of my previous profits and putting me in loss. It's only $0.64 down at the moment, but it's still a little disheartening.
Saturday I decided to try something different, and entered a couple of the Rookie Freerolls. It was my first time playing tournaments and it's very much a different game to the cash tables. I played three tourneys, each with just over a thousand entrants, placing 143rd, 743rd and 265th respectively. The relatively poor performance in the 2nd tourney came from being on a very aggressive table at the beginning. To survive it I really tightened up, but I didn't hit any 1st tier hands and so when I was moved to a new table full of big stackers I got flattened.
Although I placed lower in the 3rd tournament, I thought I played it very well. A couple of problems I've mentioned before is that I don't take notice of people's stack sizes when betting against them and that I'm far too reserved with betting when I'm ahead. With a tournament it's ALL about stack sizes and I felt it played well terrorising the small stacks and going all-in against big stacks when I had the nuts. I think I could've gone much further, but it was getting late and so I started playing like I didn't care if I got eliminated, which was true, and lucrative until I went all-in against someone with AA...
I'm hoping I'll be able to bring some of that back to the cash game tables, although I've got to be conscious that they're a very different game!
This month's total: -$4.34
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