Where There's A Will....

I finally figured out a way to get in to heads-up no limit. It's not the way I would have preferred, but at least I can get a feel for the game and learn some of the concepts.

I'm going to play heads up sit n' gos and see if I can build up a roll that way and move up in stakes and hopefully transfer over to playing cash games. I have around $750 in the account right now - I started out playing the $6+0.25 turbos, and after I play a hundred or so of those I'll go through some of my stats and winrates and see if it makes sense to move up.

I've been doing ok at it thus far - here's my first 23 tourneys played:


I lost 4 of them on basic coinflips too where I got in ahead and just couldn't hold up, so my rate could have been much higher. I'm sure these things will even out in the end.

Haven't really played anything towards the tourney stake this past week or so - been so busy with life stuff. I don't even really know when I'll be able to get back to them - have a ton of things on the go next month as well. One or two here and there is all I can manage at this point. I'm up $700 on the stake though with around 20 to go, so hopefully I can hit a final table or two down the stretch and put it over the top.

Hitting A Groove

I haven't played much this past week, been busy enjoying the summer and have had to work as well. I did manage to get in two tournaments on Sunday night however. I played a $22 omaha hi-lo and a $33 holdem on pokerstars. As we got near the bubble, I had a pretty low stack in both, but high enough to where I wasn't worried about not cashing.

Once we got in to the money, I actually made a bit of a run in the holdem tourney. I doubled on the button when I shoved my short stack with Q6o and was called with AJ. Thankfully my cards were live and I flopped a Q to double up. I doubled again shortly thereafter when I picked up aces against the same player's AQ. Unfortunately I went out not long after that when I raised JQo from the button. The BB flat called me, and the flop came KQJ rainbow. We got it all in and he showed KT, so I was ahead, but he had outs. He rivered a K and that was it for me, I went out 28th out of 550 or thereabouts. It was too bad, if I'd doubled there I would have had a very comfortable stack and could have made a run to at least try and make the final table.

In the omaha8 my luck wasn't any better. Made it in to the money fairly easily, but was shortstacked soon after (I love that there are no antes in omaha tourneys). I raised 1/2 my stack preflop with A234 suited and got it in on a 78J flop against a guy with 9Qxx only, but unfortunately he paired his Q on the turn and no low card would come off to save me a split and that was it.

I felt good though, getting deep in 500+ player fields. I really feel like I'm hitting my stride in tournament play. I have ~20 more to play on the stake and have all but guaranteed a profit for my backer unless I do something stupid, or somehow fail to cash in any of my last 20...lol

Once I'm done that (hopefully in a couple weeks), I'm going to look at playing heads up no limit fairly seriously. We'll see how things go. For now, I'm just going to continue playing $25 pot limit omaha and try and grind together some money that way that will help me make the transition to heads up.

Doin Work On The Stake

Haven't had a chance to play much the last couple of days, working 12 hour days pretty much eliminates all the energy I have to concentrate on poker.

I did however get in a pot limit omaha tourney last night. Ended up taking 3rd place for just under $400, bought in for $15, so I was pretty happy about that.

I'm almost half way through my stake tournaments at this point and couldn't be happier with how it's gone thus far (well, I could be with a WIN or two in there, but I'm being realistic). I've played 21 tourneys on the stake and am showing a profit of just under $750, for an average of $35 profit for each tourney played.

At this point I've basically guaranteed a profit for the guy who backed me, with still 29 tourneys to go. The stake was for $1100, I've cashed just under $1200 on it now, so whatever happens he can't lose. That's something that I'm very proud of. I know it's a big leap of faith for someone to send a guy they don't even know that kind of dough, and to be able to repay that and live up to my end of the bargain is huge for me.

So, from here on out, there's 29 more tourneys that we're pretty much splitting the profits 50/50 - now it's time to make some money! I figure that should take me another month or so to get through that amount of games.

I'm hoping at the end of it that I will have a decent sized bankroll to take on a new challenge - learning heads up no limit. A friend from the forums who is VERY successful at the game wants to get in to coaching, and has basically asked me to be his guinea pig. I have a bit of experience with coaching from the S7S program, but this will be more game specific.

If all goes well, I'm looking at the middle of August or beginning of September to be playing heads up, starting out with no less than 30 buyins either at the $50 or $100 level, depending how the rest of this stake goes.

If nothing else, I'm excited to get a lot more tourney play in, and that's gotta be a good thing.

Being Realistic

I'm going to revise my goals for the month to be a bit more realistic. Going for gold ironman would require me to put in 25 days of 500 hands minimum, and that's just too much of a commitment to make, given that it's July and there's plenty of golf that I should be getting in this summer.

Moving forward, I'm just going to play when I have the time available and am in the right frame of mind. I'm not going to sweat trying to make "x" status or a certain amount of rakeback.

The last couple days I've been playing no limit omaha hi-lo on Absolute Poker just with a couple bucks I had left over there after moving to Fulltilt with the majority of my funds. It seems like that could be a VERY profitable game, so I may shift some of my focus there and see how far I can take it.

Currently I have just around 1k online - lets see where I'm at in a month or two.

Ups and Downs

If I posted a graph of yesterday's session, that's pretty much what it would look like....lol

I'm playing some very good poker right now, the best I've played in a very long time. Started off the day by losing a buyin the very first hand - always good to dig that hole right off the bat. Missed a huge draw against a guy that wouldn't let go of aces, standard stuff. Went on to lose two more within the next 200 hands or so, mostly in the same manner, by getting in with massive wrap straight or flush draws and bricking. In one actually the guy who won the hand actually said in chat "wow you had like a million outs there"..All I could bring myself to reply was "standard". I quit down $60, just over two buyins.

I split the day into two sessions, and actually got it all back and made a small profit on the day. It was funny, I got a stack in on a 3-way pot on a flop of 9Qx with 8TJJ. The guy who pushed all in (he had 3bet preflop) ended up having KKxx. The other guy in the pot had QQxx, but I hit my straight draw and dodged the board pairing to triple up. The part where it got funny was after the hand was over, the guy with KK called me an "idiot" in the chat....

It's SO tempting to want to explain to morons like this how HE's the one calling ME an idiot after getting his money in a 3-way pot with less than 6% equity (The set of queens had around 50%, I had ~45%, the KKxx had ~5%). To do so, however, might actually force the guy to play better, learn about equity, playing in 3-bet pots, playing 3-way pots, etc and really, what's the point of that. All I ended up saying was "yeah, you got unlucky there...."

Ended the day +$15, which after getting off to the start that I did, was a very good result.

Forward Progress

Well, day two is down...finally started to make some headway today. My ideal is to average about 500 hands a day, which should earn me enough for gold ironman by the end of the month, and net me somewhere between $175-$250 in rakeback, depending on how things work out.

Today I played just under that, ended up getting in 475 hands, and making just over a buyin. I was down one early too, so it was good to be able to grind it back. I played pretty much dead on the stats that I'm trying to acheive, so that's a big plus. I really feel like once the hands start going my way and I start hitting the flops, I'm going to have a monster month.

I'm playing good positional poker. It's weird since it feels like I'm raising almost every hand compared to the way I used to play, but I really think this is the best method for me to play and show the most profit.

Should be able to get my hands in no problem tomorrow - the weekend will be busy though, so maybe tomorrow I'll put in more hands to keep the average up.

First Day of July - A wash...

That feels like my first day of July, a total wash out (to borrow a hockey reffing term...)

Played 771 hands today, there were some ups and some downs. I won just over a buyin early, and then lost four buyins back, then made three buyins, to finish DEAD even, to the exact dollar. I'll get about ten bucks in rakeback though, so the day isn't a total loss.

I posted in the goals thread on fcp though that I'm not setting a monetary goal for the month - instead I just want to focus on solid play. My goal for the month is more stat based than it is result based. I truly believe that if I can execute the game I want to play, the results will follow it.

Today I played around 25/20/3, which is pretty much right were I want to be. A hand or two holding up or a draw getting there and I could have had a decent day. I'm not worried about it - long month ahead, but looking forward to it.