Jan 02, 2006 – 10:01AM
Okay, I haven't updated my blog in about a week, where before I was updating it daily. Truth is, my work closed down the offices from the 23rd to the 2nd so I was enjoying my vacation with my family and not concentrating on poker near as much as usual. Anytime I did have to make a blog update I had other things I could be doing that seemed more important.
Anyways, finally the reason I even created this blog is almost upon us. I leave Kansas City International airport very early Wed morning for Nassau, and from there it's to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas for the PCA WPT event. Because of my vacation schedule, you can probably expect blog updates about every other day until I get settled down there. I may or may not make an update tomorrow before we leave. I will definitely make one after we get settled in Wed night though. I don't play until Friday, so I will probably forego an update Thursday and make my next update Friday after I'm done playing (which will hopefully be late).
As far as poker goes, I opened up the new year yesterday in style with about 10 of the 'big' Sunday tournaments. I cashed twice for a total of over $1700 which sadly enough, barely put me above even for the day. I did start the new year in the black though, which is something I could never complain about. I felt I played some solid poker, and I had a real good chance to cash in both the 'Big Deal' on PokerRoom and the 100k on Bodog but ran into big hands in both while I held second best and didn't get lucky.
At some point I will post a review of my 2005 year, because I think it was pretty interesting, and I think it would also be very encouraging for a lot of you out there who are playing in the middle range buy ins hoping to move up. I won't spoil it all, but I mainly played cash games and middle buy in ($20-$50) tournaments up until around August when my bankroll finally got healthy enough to play in the larger $150-$200 buy in nightly tournaments. My results also show how RL events (I had my first child Jan 31 of this year) can impact your play, even if you feel they don't, as February was my only losing month of the year, and I don't think the fact that I was dealing with a newborn every day during that period was merely coincidence.
I'll probably make one or two more updates today as I've got a couple of things I want to talk about. If I don't get to them today I'll definitely get to them tomorrow. There was a particular hand from last night's UB 150k I wanted to discuss as well as a quick FAQ type post on some of the questions I keep getting asked about the PCA event.
-Rizen
Dec 26, 2005 – 11:12AM
First off let me say I'm not being paid anything to say this :) I have a friend who runs Ace Kicker Tees, an online store that sells poker themed t-shirts. I've known John, the guy who runs the site, for a while, but I didn't want to link over to his site until I had actually worn a t-shirt and knew I could recommend it.
I picked up some t-shirts last week, and after wearing a few I can comfortably recommend them. Not only are they good designs, but comfortable as well. I'm going to take a few to the Bahamas with me, so if you happen to be going you just might see me wearing one. At any rate, the t-shirts and nice so I thought I'd give a quick plug to my friend over at Ace Kicker Tees. If you're looking for some high quality poker themed t-shirts, I have yet to find anything else I'd recommend.
-Rizen
Dec 26, 2005 – 11:12AM
Someone asked me the other day on Pocket Fives why I play in the 40k on Party sometimes. Their poker coach recommended against them playing this particular tournament and they wanted to know why I would play in it if their coach recommended against it.
Well, there are a few things to take into consideration when deciding what tournaments you want to play in. As a player, you need to decide what your priorities are when you decide what tournaments you might want to enter. There are many different ways to classify tournaments, but most of them fall into two categories. One is the huge guaranteed tournaments that often attract 1000+ people in them every night/week while the other is the smaller field (100-400) tournaments that generally attract less people but still offer good value.
The fact is, there are only two tournaments held nightly that you can turn < $30 into over $10k if you win. That's the 45k on Stars and the 40k on Party. Because of this, these tournaments offer a low risk/high reward model that makes them a great value. These particular tournaments often offer the easiest way for someone with a modest bankroll to take a shot at a huge score.
So why would anyone recommend against these tournaments?? Well, there are a lot of reasons. I think the main one boils down to confidence though. With 2500 people in the 40k every night, even the best player in the world isn't going to win it very often. Playing this tournament day after day without evern hitting a decent score can be demoralizing on newer players who would have a better shot and hitting a more modest payday in a tournament with a smaller field.
With 2500 people, if you were exactly average you would win this tournament about once every 8 years if you played it every day (since every person has a 1/2500 chance of winning if of equal skill). Now, with the horrible play in this tournament most people who are taking the time to read this probably stand a better chance than that, but even if you were 8 times better than the average player (which is highly unlikely, even the best players often feel they only have a 4-5x advantage over the field) you'd still only win it once a year, and final table it less than once a month!
The times you make over $10k off your $22 more than makes up for it, but it isn't the best tournament to play as a confidence builder, that's for sure. This is why I tend to mix my tournaments a lot. Each night I play 2-3 high variance low risk/high reward tournaments (usually the 45k on Stars and 75k on Dise with the 40k thrown in when I have desktop space on a given night) and also try and mix in 2-3 low variance tournaments with 100-300 player fields that while they don't give me the same return on my money, I will final table and win more often due to the smaller fields (these usually include the Happy Hour on Empire and the nightly 100+9 on UB).
I find this personally makes the best mix for me in that I will often be able to reach at least one final table a week in the smaller events which reduces my variance between times when I hit a nice big score in the bigger events. It also keeps my confidence level high because I'm not going weeks and possibly months between final tables in the bigger events.
So, I'm not recommending or saying any particular tournaments should be on everyone's schedule, or that everyone should mix up their games like me. I'm simply saying that you should be aware of the positives and negatives of different structures and put yourself in the best position to stay in both the right state of mind, and the right state of your bank account.
-Rizen
Dec 26, 2005 – 11:12AM
First off, I really hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (or a Happy Holiday if you have different religious beliefs). Mine was great being my first Christmas with a child, it definitely puts a different slant on things. He's spoiled half to death by everyone though so my living room is filled with all kinds of noisy toys.
I wish my poker game was going half as good. I was able to sneak away a little time and play between updates. I played Thurs night in 5 tournaments without cashing (but still playing well IMO) which brought me up to 20 straight tournaments without a cash. I can't complain being significantly up for the month overall, but for a person who cashes about 20% of the time, 20 tournaments can be a big stretch and be a bit demoralizing.
I didn't get down though, and Saturday night I got to play in a few of the later tournaments that had some overlay being Christmas Eve. I played in 5 of them, and did manage to cash at the FT of the Empire Happy Hour (took 5th for $800), but with only 70 players it didn't feel like a very big accomplishment. I did get to play another 5 tournaments last night, and it was quite brutal. I played GREAT poker, but some people made some horrific calls and got lucky.
Last night was the first time in a while I was steaming. I'm not going to share bad beat stories because that's against my nature. I should be happy when people like to get their money in against me as a 4 to 1 dog, and I'll gladly let them do so over and over again understanding that sometimes they will get lucky. Last night everyone got lucky and after getting near the money in 3 separate tournaments I bubbled them all.
At any rate, I've now cashed once in the last 30 tournaments. For those of you out there that maybe don't have the long term track record to fall back on like I do, it's not at all uncommon to go through dry stretches, no matter how good you are. Luckily I know I'm a winning player long term, so the down stretches don't bother me too much, although I did want to punt something last night.
Always remember, you can play perfect poker and still lose, and you can play horrible poker and still win. It's the nature of the game, and unfortunately while it can be maddening at times, as long as you know you're making the correct decisions, you'll be a winner long term.
-Rizen
Dec 22, 2005 – 13:12PM
Well, after the 0 for 8 Tuesday I posted a nice 0 for 7 last night. I played pretty well though, just ran into some unfortunate situations in the middle/late stages of a lot of the tournaments I was in and either the cards fell badly for me or I didn't get the suckout I needed to make a deep run.
This means that this week is likely to be my first losing week in at least 2-3 months I believe since I'm unlikely to get to play much between now and Christmas. It's fine though, I played some decent poker and will hopefully come back from my break ready to play and be sharp and focused going into PCA.
I don't have a whole lot to add today, and I may not get to update my blog much between now and Christmas. Hopefully everyone reading will have a Merry Christmas (or a Happy Holiday if you're not of the Christian faith) and I'll see you all at the tables next week!
-Rizen
