A Heater

I have just finished an awsome set of 8 $3.50 9man SNGs, probably my best to date in a single session :)

I had a session with  my coach earlier and we looked at a couple of trouble spots, I think it really helped.

Ty Peter.

Graph going up!!!

Finally the down swing seems to be changing up.

Won my home game

I go result last night, after having AA cracked by Mr Flush Chaser ;) I had to rebuy as played a little loose and easy to try build my stack up and never managed to do much.

After I rebought I managed to hit a couple of nice spots inc a double up when my A5 flopped QAA against the other guys Q which he fell in love with All In.

HU was 1 hand and boom.

Sngs, coaching and variance

I have not posted for a while, but have been busy playing and working on my game.

I am getting some coaching for Sngs over the next month or 2 and playing a lot of them. All on pokerstars and in the $1.50 to $7 range.

So far the variance has been tough working at -15 Buy Ins at the moment which is a pain, seems as if most 50/50 or 60/40 situations are going against me but it will all change soon enough.

Tilt is a major concern, but I have really been thinking about it recently and found that beats are affecting my play less and less, long may that continue :)

What an idiot

Played a MTT ($5k) last night and was going well $12k with 300 left when I get J4o in the big blind. Small Blind completes and gives me an option to see a flop for free.

Flop comes A4Q and the SB checks, I do too (the guy had been tricky before and could easily have completed with Ax or Qx.

Turn is a harmless 9 and again we both check

River is a J.. woo hoo I have 2 pair, well disguised I am well ahead of Ax or Qx.... now to get paid.

So the SB makes it 700, a min bet and I think about 2 seconds before thinking I shove and get A7 to pay me off...

Obviously I am only getting called by better and a fold from worse, he shows KTo for the straight and I ship him all my stack. 303 out of 2250 when 252 got paid, I could have gone deep.

I shout at the laptop, then myself and then go kicking myself down stairs to watch TV.

Still kicking myself this morning, what a stupid move.

Winning

I made what could have turned out to be a poor decision yesterday. I thought about how I was losing and winning at the $1.50 level and felt that a lot of my play was good, but I was being either called in spots where 'thinking' players would have to fold to a shove or just being played back at with lesser holdings which were getting lucky.

Looking at yesterdays results I am happy with how things went after I made the move from $1.50 to $3.50 games. The $1.50s were leaving me beaten in 6th place by poor players calling shoves in position with poor holdings, QQ beaten by K3s etc, but also the type of agressive end game I employ was being scuppered by lose calling on the bubble, for example I shove in the CO seat with A6o and get called by KJs or similar leaving my in acoin flip situation - better players would see this as a coin flip and fold, instead I was losing some of the coin flips and meaning that the wins n losses were racking up together but the strategy was not able to work.

The fifty50 $3.50 tourneys I busted out of were standard spots fairly early on QQ v KK, AKo v JJ etc where winning a flip there would have set me up well for the end game.

The strategy I employ is a lot more suited to thinking players, it is certainly not fool proof and involves being SUPER tight in the early stages. The pokerprolabs ranks indicate a players ability through a card and star ranking system, this can be used as a guide to players ability, someone designated an Ace or King will be fairly good whereas someone who is a 2, 3 or even up to Jack designation will be poor, making marginal choices and thinking top pair average kicker is good on a coordinated board against heavy action...

the $1.50 level of fifty50 games is littered with poor players, 1 game I played last night had the following (in finish order): 5, 10, K (me), NA, A, 6, 8, 10, 5, J. So in effect there were 2 good players, myself a king and the Ace designated player.

Contrast that to a $3.50 game where we get the following: 10, A, K, K, K, 10, 6, 10, 9, 7. This is an excellent result in reality as the bubble becomes playable, the poorer players have been taken out early leaving time to try build a stack to increase the end payout.

We will see how it goes, but $10 profit yesterday says things are looking up.

Monkeys

I have to keep reminding myself that the $1 level on pokerstars is full of monkeys & fish.

I played a few different games yesterday but a Fifty50 I played ended when I showed in 7th spot v 6th place guy with A3o.

Now anyone who hasn't played these nor understands the Nash Theory will probably think donkey, but in this position I shoved knowing that a reasonable player would only be able to call this shove with a good pair or AQ+, meaning that the increase in stack of 30% meant it was a risk well worth taking.

Well the monkey made the mistake of calling with QJo (I am a 56% favorite) but he hit the flop to leave me out.

I am finding it difficult to get out of the $1 level games...I am seriously thinking about going straight to the $3.50s.

Last night I won a $2.20 Sunday Storm Satellite which I converted to T$ I will now run these through the Fifty50s to push to BR back up.