Badugi anyone?

Hello again... I have been still running my $5.20 DON's the past few days and mixing in some heads-up to go with it. Not running near as high of a ROI% as I was, but it's still double digits. I tried a Badugi tournament last night. Pretty fun game..and it didn't hurt that I came in 3rd out of 98 runners for $24.00 on a $2.20 buy-in. Thats's it for now. C-ya at the tables

Dave

starting BR: $132
ending BR: $173

Deep MTT run

When I first started playing poker all I did was play the big MTT freerolls. Once I finally deposited and started playing for real I quit the MTT’s. They take up an awful long time and usually your payout is not worth the time invested. About the only MTT’s I have played lately are a few FPP buy-in’s. Well last night I had ANOTHER bad run with the $5.20 DON’s and was down $20.00. I got some back playing HU SNG but wasn’t in the right frame of mind to focus for heads-up play. I went ahead and signed up for the little dinky $.25 buy-in MTT that was about to start instead. I figured I would get an hour or so of play for $.25 and just have some fun and then call it a losing night. There ended up being over 3,600 people registered when it began and it was paying 702 places. I think you could just sit out and make the payouts in this tournament if you wanted to! People go out faster than a freeroll! I know it’s only $.25 but come on…the first 20 minutes and a 1,000 are already gone! My strategy for these low buy-in MTT’s has been to limp in late position with suited connectors or hands like KJ or KQ and hope for a very nice flop…or if I have a pair to push it pretty hard. The higher the pair the harder I push.. In these things if I have 10-10 or better I am really jamming the pot preflop..400-500 in the early rounds.. I am going to be moving all in after the flop with these hands anyway since at these buy-ins idiots will call with almost anything so I give them no credit early on. If I am beat by a monster oh well. I definitely small ball it until I have a really nice hand. I don’t get to pushy with top pair early on. I don’t get too concerned with building a stack in these until we are in the money. If I can maintain around 2000-3000 chips the first hour then I am happy. After the first break is usually about the time you hit the money.. it’s also about the time I go into push or fold strategy. Now the blinds are big enough that they can really increase your stack even in noone calls you. I just wait for a nice starting hand and push. I will normally get called by a big stack that has been playing almost every pot the whole tourney and just got lucky a few times. Bam..double up number one…in one hand I am above average chip stack again. The weak players that like to limp every hand or raise with garbage just don’t know when to back off and they lose their stacks pretty quickly. So back to last night…….. 1st hour..about average stack and only played 3 or 4 pots…hit the money just after 1st break..Yay.. I’m rich..LOL… 2nd hour… still about average stack but I upped the number of pots played to 10 and we are down to 400 left. 3rd hour I get some nice hands and double up a few times and then I can finally start to steal some pots. I made it all the way to 2nd chip spot for a few minutes and we are down to 150 left. 4th hour (yes these things are long!) I go card dead (and I mean dead!!!) I probably only played 5 or 6 pots that hour and watched my stack slowly dwindle from top 10 stack down to just average and we are down to around 25 left. 5th hour I figured we would burn through to the final table pretty quickly…nope!! It took the whole hour to get down to the final table. I got one double up to get my stack back up and then picked my spots to steal. 6th hour I went into final table 6th in chips out of the 9. Now the payouts really jumped and the people started dropping like flies. After 6 hours of play and now they choose to play like donkeys when the $141.00 is in reach?? I don’t understand it. One guy raised preflop and was called. He pushed all in after the flop with K-2 when he had bottom pair and two other face cards were on the board? Well in 30 minutes we were down to just 3.. and we were all about even stacks. With the big payout in reach it was my turn to make the donk move!!! I push all-in w/ A-9 and the small blind snap calls with A-K and I am done… Sheesh what an idiot I am.. well the $48.00 helped ease the pain of being an idiot, but it still sucks going that far and messing up. Still all-in-all a good run for me.

C-ya at the tables
Dave

Starting BR $100
Ending BR $132

so so weekend

Well I guess my good run is over. The past 3 days have really been a struggle. Variance has been biting me in the ass a lot lately. I thought I had one bad beat, but once I reviewed the hand I realized it wasn’t. 7 people left in a $5.20 DON and 3 short stacks (I have 1000 in BB, early pos has 600 and mid pos has 900 and blinds are at 200-400!) early pushes and mid pos calls and I choose to go all-in instead of calling with A-K. The early position had garbage and middle position had 3-3. A-K-5 comes the flop and I am thinking I am now good with my top 2 pair, but of course the 3 comes on the river. I was left with 100 chips and was all in next hand in small blind and was out in 6th! I was steamed since he hit a 2 outer on the river, but then I realized he was favorite pre-flop anyway!! That calmed me down some..but it did still suck..LOL.. Then it made me wonder if I only called pre-flop if he would have folded his 3’s and saved his last couple hundred???? The rest of my losses have been in coin flips or the occasional high pair vs higher pair. I have been playing pretty well and have run deep in most of my SNG’s. I am still bouncing back and forth between $5.20 DONs and multi-table $1.10 DONs while mixing in a few multi-table SNG’s and some heads-up SNG’s. I don’t like playing the same type of tourney over and over again since it gets stale and I think it hurts my play overall since each kind has a different strategy and plays different. The good news is the bankroll is still climbing..just very little the past few days. I played quite a few hours the past 3 days and only saw a minimal increase in my bankroll. Considering I don’t think I was running very well during that span I do think it’s great that it still went up though. One other thing is that I totaled up all my buy-ins on MTT & SNG and in the past couple months I have bought into almost $800 worth of tourneys. Wow..not a bad bang for your buck for some fun entertainment. Beats spending $20 to see a 2 hour movie! At a 10% ROI if I want to get to a $1000 BR I would have to buy into $10,000 worth of tourneys! Wow.. that’s sick..LOL.
Dave

Starting BR $93.00
Ending BR $100.00

I am a donkey!

I meant to put this in the last post as it happened last night at one of the $1.10 DON turbos. Apparently I am a donkey! It was about the 3rd hand and I picked up K-K in middle position. 1st guy limps, 3rd guy limps, pot is $70 and this early in the tourney I don’t want to get cute. I raise to $200 because it just drives me crazy how many people will call with crappy A-x if you only raise it to $120 this early in these DON’s. Everyone folds as expected except guy in seat 3 calls. I think he has a crappy A-x or 2 face cards since he didn’t raise seat 1 earlier (probably sooted! LOL). The flop comes 2-5-8 rainbow and he puts in a whopping $60 raise into a $450 pot. I give him a “small” re-raise back to $500 and he promptly folds. I am content to end it right there and be happy with my 310 added chips and increase my stack 20%. What comes next kind of surprised me…in the chatbox..”DONKEY” from the guy in seat 3.. ??? WTF? Where in the world did that come from? I rarely ever type anything into the chatbox and normally mind my own business, but this irritated me for some reason (it was getting late and I was about done for the night so maybe I was just tired). I typed back “you’re an idiot for calling a big raise out of position with a crappy Ace”. I looked him up on top shark and his SNG stats were 45 games, -$8.00 profit for a whopping -16% ROI.. So I could see that he sucked and that he hadn’t played very long at Pokerstars at least. He comes back with an awesome response “you’re a donkey”..LOL… he’s so creative. I guess he was just trying to get under my skin and actually it worked because he did take my focus off the games some. I figured this was just going to go around and around, but I wanted to get my $.02 in so could get back to focusing on the games themselves. I typed his stats into the chatbox and said that he sucked but I hoped he kept signing up and that all the positive ROI players would be happy when he was around. Well that kind of shut him up..all he came back with was “we’ll see who’s here at the end of this table”. Oh brother like placing in one table makes a difference. I didn’t bother responding, but in the end he did make it there..I guess he got lucky..LOL.. one final note….I am a donkey!

Dave

my 1st tilt test!

Well I had my first tilt/bankroll test last night since I re-deposited. For DON’s I used a 15-20 buy-in BR requirement to move from the $1.10 turbos to the $5.20 turbos and I am at $90 so last night I planned on playing the $5.20’s only. I know all the forums’s and books say 30-50 buy-ins for proper bankroll management but they are wrong..LOL At this level you are playing against weak opponents and there is a huge gap between the $1.10 and $5.20 if you look at 30-50 buy-ins. My theory is if you start taking shots at the $5.20 at around 15-20 buy-ins and lose it is very easy to drop back to $1.10 and still have the 30-50 buy-ins for the $1.10’s. As I move up in levels though I do plan on increasing my buy-in requirements along the established amounts. At the $10 and up the opposition will be better and the variance greater so I do plan on having at least 30 buy-ins before taking that leap. Well my previous good run in the $5.20’s ended last night. I ended up playing 5 and lost 3. I played well, but just was a tad unlucky with my timing of pushes. I went out in the 1st one in 6th.. I was getting pretty short and my A-Q all in ran into A-K.. no problem. I won my next two and thought I was back on track. Then my all-in K-K runs into A-Q when a Ace hits on the turn (preflop all-in) and I was out in 7th. In my final $5.20 I never got a hand and slowly dwindled. I made some shoves as the blinds increased and luckily picked up the blinds to stays alive. I am unsure what I did next was bad or not. 7 people are left and blinds are at 150-300 plus the ante. I am small blind and have 1000 chips and I am short stack at table. Big blind has 1,100 chips and is 2nd shortest stack. Rest of table is around 2,000 or higher. I get A-A and it’s folded around to me (crapola.no action!). I was pretty sure if I shoved or even min raised the BB was folding and I would only pick-up the blinds and antes. That would have given me a stack of 1,475 and I would have still been 2nd shortest stack by quite a bit. I thought if I slowplayed I might double up to 2175 chips so I just completed the blind hoping he would re-raise me thinking I was weak. He just checked and we get a 2-4-6 rainbow flop. I min raise 300 and he goes all-in and I insta-call. He has 5-6 for a pair and straight draw. A 6 on the river puts me out in 7th. LOL..well that’s what I get for being cute with my hand.. I need to post this on 2+2 and see if I really was an idiot or not for slow playing it in that position. Here is where I faced my test. I was pissed that I was outdrawn in both tourney losses in a row (not bad beat, but I was slightly favored in both) and was ready to GET MY MONEY BACK…LOL.. I could sign up for another $5.20 and if I won I would be back to almost even but if I lost I would be almost down to my minimum buy-in for $5.20’s. OR I could sign up for a $10.40 and if I won I would be ahead… hmm… what to do… Well I signed up for 4 $1.10’s instead! I thought this would give me a chance to chill a bit and have enough tables working to keep my mind occupied in the present and forget about the previous 2 tourneys. Well I placed in all 4 and then signed up for 4 more and placed in all of those too. I ended slightly up for the night and I was proud of myself for moving down when I was steaming a little instead of staying at the $5.20 level or worse moving up! It’s something I need to remember the next time I start to steam a little.

See ya at the tables Dave

my poker goals

o.k. now that we are in the present..what about the future.. gotta have some goals right?? Well of course I do..I want to win enough money in the next 2 years that I can retire!! LOL... o.k. back to reality.. Here is what I would like to accomplish shortterm :
1) have fun!!
2) keep a positive ROI% ( I have thought "IF" I removed my tilt explosions that I ran a positive ROI%)
3) playing 15-20 hours/week to get my BR up to $250-300 by end of year

now my long term goals:
1) have fun!
2) have my BR around $4,000 by this summer (approx 6 months)
3) do my 1st cash out ($1,000) by this summer.

See ya at the tables...Dave

Round #2 a new beginning

O.k.. I was ready for try again. This was about 2 weeks ago. Same plan as before.. Micro SNG's and Heads-up SNG. I planned on staying away from ring games. It seemed I would always get ahead quite a bit and end up losing it to a bad beat later in the session. I prefer the SNG as I know what my loss/profit will be for each one. While I took my month off Pokerstars came out with their Double or Nothing SNG's (DON'S from now on). I read a few articles on these and watch a couple and they looked pretty easy so that's where I began. TAG TAG TAG.. if you are going to play these you better have a set of balls on you.. Shove fests late in the game and aggression wins. Well I love these things. I have seen all kinds of posts of how boring they are and low ROI%, but I disagree.. I multitable 4 of the $1.10 turbos and that keeps you plenty busy. for the 1st week I ran 36% ROI and then I started mixing in a $5.20 turbos every now and then the 2nd week. It didn't hurt that I ran 9/9 on the $5.20 during the 2nd week while I kept up the $1.10's. The great thing about these (at least for me) is that I don't tilt when I lose a few. So now we are to the present day.

Starting BR $25
Current BR $90

Post #2 continuation of Post #1

Well finally my double up attempt didn't work and I tilted my BR down to $8.00. At that point instead of taking a break and trying Micro's again I decided I had nothing to lose. I started playing Heads-Up SNG's. First a $5.. I won..then a $10..I won...then a $20..I won.. WEEEEEE.. In about 45 minutes I was right back up to almost $50 again. Hmmmm.. Let's try this .50/1.00 NL ring table.. buy in for full roll and managed to play about 10 hands when I lost KK vs. A-J when the ace fell on the turn... Poof!! I'm a tilting donk idiot.. LOL... Well that summed up my first real money play.. I ended up with almost 200 FPP points so I did get a lot of play for my $25, but wow...I had some severe problems with tilt and impatience.

So I took a month off...not even a freeroll...
Then deposited another $25 and said "let's see if I can do this right this time"

Dave

my 1st blog... wow... earth shattering

Hello there!! This is my 1st attempt at doing a blog. Most of my entries will be about poker since that is what I love doing for a hobby. A little background on my extensive poker career: been horsing around for a few years now. I started playing play chips and freerolls to learn the game some. On occasion I would place in a freeroll and then promply lose the small amount of money I had. Finally about 6 months ago I deposited a whopping $25 on Pokerstars and started trying to build a bankroll. I doubled it up in about 2 weeks playing micro SNG's and NL ring games. I thought I was on the way to a million... THIS IS EASY! LOL... then Mr. Tilt had to show his ugly face.. one or 2 bad beats and I was steaming!!! "These damn donkeys don't know how to play!" I thought...well I will just move up to a higher buy-in and win it all back in 1 shot... LOL... yep...awesome bankroll management and doing it while on tilt at that!! Well luckily it worked out for me usually but I remained stuck at the $50 BR level for another 2 weeks ( with huge downswigns followed by faster upswings). Well that's all for this post. I will do another to keep them from being too long.
Dave