Dec 16, 2005 – 09:12AM
Well, first the quick recap. I cashed in 1 of 9 tournaments last night, and in that 1 I only made it to the second level of money so $$$-wise, it wasn't a particularly great night. I played fairly well, and lady luck was on my side early in quite a few of my tournaments as I got my chips in the middle with the significant worst of it 4 times last night and managed to suck out. Considering stack sizes etc I don't think any of my pushes/calls with the worst of it were wrong, but I was definitely hitting some key suckouts.
Which makes the results all that much worse. I really only made 2 BIG mistakes last night, but they were pretty bad. First, I broke one of the cardinal rules of poker. Never bluff a calling station. I was doing decent in the Super Thursday with about 1650 chips and 50/100 blinds when I decided to try and take a pot from a MP1 limper with KTo on the button. I popped it to 350 and he called. The flop was suitably raggy against a player I read as being pretty bad, so I made the standard continuation bet of ~400 more chips and he called fairly quickly.
At this point I should have been done with the hand, but the calling station lent me just enough rope to hang myself and when he checked a blank turn I pushed, he insta-called and flipped over AA and I was done. My read on the player being pretty weak was right, and I think I was okay to act on that read, but when a weak player calls your PF raise, then calls your c-bet you should probably be done with the hand. I could have gotten away with ~800 chips and had a chance to rebuild, instead I pushed into a player who was unlikely to lay down whatever he had while I had 0 outs. Not good.
In the one tournament I cashed in (the 100+9 on Stars) I was 7th in chips with 26 left when the following hand came up. See if you notice some similarities between how I overplayed this and how I overplayed my KT earlier. I had 88 UTG at a 7 man table with 400/800 blinds with 75 ante (I may be off on the ante, I think that's right though). I made it 2000 with around 22k in my stack. It's folded to the BB (who has me covered) who flat calls. Flop comes T75. He checked to me and I bet ~3500, and he flat called. His flat call could mean a lot of things there, and potentially I'm still ahead fairly often as A7/A5 and the less likely holdings of 89 and 86 call me here as well as any T and possibly 99/66. The turn is a Q completing a rainbow board. He checks to me and I put in 4500. He min-raises me to 9k. I have no idea what kind of impulse went through me here when I pushed and he turned over 77 for flopped middle set.
This was the second situation of the night where I had committed almost half my stack to a pot and then wasn't able to separate myself from it when I obviously should have. In both cases I could have easily folded and tried to make a comeback in a better spot. I don't think I'm being results oriented here because I believe in both situations it was fairly clear to me from the action I was behind and had no business putting any more chips in the pot.
We all make mistakes, and over the course of 9 tournaments those were my only glaring ones last night. I've really gotten to a point in my game though where I don't make THOSE mistakes too terribly often, but last night for whatever reason I did. I played solid poker in 7 of the 9 tournaments for the most part, but those 2 stick out as huge mistakes that potentially cost me lots of real money.
I won't beat myself up about it too much though, I've got a big weekend on tap and tonight is just the start. I'll be hitting the 75k on Dise, 100+9 on UB, and 150+12 on Stars for starters tonight and definitely doing the Friday Special an hour later. I'll probably add the 45k on top of those, and depending on how I'm doing the Empire Happy Hour. As usual, I'll add the 40k and/or 'Pearl' on Dise on top of those if I bust out of a few things. With any luck I'll be going strong in my early tournaments and won't add anything else on.
Since I may or may not post tomorrow morning before this, I'm also going to play in the 'Grand V' on PokerRoom (a $1000+0 500k guaranteed tournament) and the 1 Million guaranteed on Party on Saturday, so hopefully I'll be able to maintain my 'A' game for a long period of time tomorrow.
-Rizen
Dec 15, 2005 – 11:12AM
I meant to put this in my original post, but I'll include it here. For those of you that play low limit cash games (limit or NL) either in addition or instead of MTTs I highly recommend whoring bonuses as a way to build your BR. I used Bonus Whores when I played 1/2-3/6 ring games pretty regularly and clearing bonuses was a way to increase my hourly rate pretty drastically at times. At 15/30 I'm better off with rakeback and/or finding fishier games than bonus clearing, but for you low limit grinders out there it can be a great way to increase your BR and keep the swings steadier.
I don't have any good rakeback resources, but if you're playing a lot of ring games and not getting rakeback you're basically missing out on free money, so I would look into that as well. Two Plus Two has some pretty good resources on rakeback I believe if you search around and if you post on their forums I'm sure someone could direct you to some good resources.
-Rizen
Dec 15, 2005 – 10:12AM
One of the things I'm trying to do this year that I haven't done in previous years is satellite into some of the bigger live events. My philosophy for the most part has always been that if I play poker well enough to win $10k+ I'd rather have the cash than a seat in any tournament. I've changed that a little and since I've done well enough with cash this year I'd like to make live poker tournaments something I do a little more of.
Anyways, before this post degenerates into something I don't intend it to be, I wanted to mention an excellent resource I found on finding good tournaments. I was wondering aloud today if there would be a way to find out about satellites running for larger events across all sites without having to go to each individual site and check their schedules.
Well, ask and ye shall receive. I found an excellent tournament directory on Bonus Whores. You can find the tournament directory itself here. The great thing about this is not only can you use it to find great satellites, you can also do a search across any sites you choose for given buy in levels, and it may open your eyes to tournaments you never knew existed before.
I know a lot of players out there like to stick to one site, and there are some benefits to doing that. Sometimes I think it'd be fun to stick with Stars for a bit and see if I could win their weekly TLB thing, but quite honestly I think maximizing my return on my tournament 'investments' should be my #1 priority. If I stand to make more money by playing a tournament on another site, I should do so. It's nice to get the recognition you can get with showing up on site leaderboards, but quite honestly it's a nicer feeling to have a nice fat bankroll and/or bank account.
I didn't play in any games last night, so nothing came up that inspired me to write anything interesting today other than the tournament directory. As of right now my plan tonight is to play in the Super Thursday on Party, the Stuper (150+12) on Stars, the 75k on Paradise, and the 18k 100+9 on UB for starters. I will probably add in the Empire Happy Hour and Stars 45k guaranteed around 9, and perhaps the 40k on Party if I bust out of a few early. Should I find myself with room later I'll also add in the 'Pearl' on Paradise around 10 (all times central). Should I have a bad night and bust out of quite a few early I just might use that tournament directory and see if I can't find a few good tournaments I don't regularly play in and see how they go. I didn't see any satellites worth playing tonight with the exception of the EWSOP sat at 5pm on Party, but that would cut into my family time so I'm passing on that this week.
Hopefully I'll have some good results to post tomorrow, and maybe I'll see something in my play tonight that will strike a chord for a decent post tomorrow.
-Rizen
Dec 14, 2005 – 08:12AM
Well, it was a pretty good night for me last night. I played 5 tournaments and cashed in 4. I'll start off with the bad news. I got off on the wrong foot when my son decided he wanted to be cranky and I missed registration for the Super Tuesday on Party. I have no idea why they do this ONLY on Tuesdays, but for some reason they close registration 5 minutes before the start of the tournament. They don't do this any other night for their super tournaments that I've noticed. I gave up a long time ago trying to understand Party Poker though.
On to the good news though. I finished 1st in the UB 23k 100+9 last night. There was a slight overlay as only 220 people ended up registering. I managed to make it to the final table 3rd in chips and I think I played a pretty flawless final table in taking it down. It felt really good to get another win under my belt and hopefully it will keep my confidence high as I get ready to play both the 'Grand V' on Poker Room and 'Million guaranteed' on Party this weekend.
The best thing about the UB tournament was I really only got lucky for all my chips one time the whole tournament. I obviously won a few coinflips along the way, and I had a few other suckouts, but I only got extremely lucky with my tournament at risk once. You don't win a tournament without getting lucky a few times, but I did a pretty good job I thought of minimizing the luck I needed to succeed in this particular tournament.
I thought I might be able to get 2 of the first 3 legs of the triple crown last night as I was 4th in chips with 26 left to go in the 45k on Stars. I went pretty card dead and my table suddenly became super active and I ended up busting in 14th when my short stacked 6s ran into Aces.
I also finish 28th in the Stars 150+12 to finally get over the hump of cashing in that tournament, and finished 67th in the 75 on Paradise to cash there as well. The only tournament I didn't cash in was the Empire Happy Hour, and even there I ended up finishing 14th when only the final table paid.
All in all I cashed nearly 7k yesterday, of which close to 6k was profit. Provided I come close to breaking even the rest of the month, I will have my 4th straight month with over $10,000 in profit. I'd have to check the #s, but I think with a couple of other big cashes it might even be able to be my 4th straight month over 25k in profit, but between Christmas and other obligations I won't get to play as much as I might like.
Kneeco informed me a few days ago that I've been assigned to flight 2 for the PCA event in the Bahamas. In some ways I was hoping to play the first day so I could get the jitters out and then have a day to relax before I went back to the grind (provided I even make it past the first day). This isn't so bad though, I'll get to settle into the resort and spend a day with my family right off the bat, which will be nice.
Tonight is another scheduled night off for me. I get to finish up the last of my dreaded Christmas shopping, which thankfully I'm done with everything but shopping for my son. I'll be catching up on some sleep too since I was up late with all the strong finishes. Not complaining one bit, but going to need my rest before the big weekend tournaments come up!
-Rizen
Dec 13, 2005 – 09:12AM
grantmasterflash put a comment on yesterdays post about levels of thinking that actually brings up a good point. For those of you that didn't read it he said:
"All the blog readers are now going to bet into you with their trip jacks. "
The truth is, that would be the best plan if you were playing me, or any player who thinks at a high level. Everyone loves to slow play, but against a truly thinking poker player you disguise your big hands more by playing them like they were vulnerable. Sure, I'll fold sometimes, but I'll raise with most of my legitimate hands, and you'll extract much more than you would had you slowplayed them.
I said when I first created this blog that I really didn't intend for it to give 'poker lessons' or anything like that, I just hoped that some of my random thoughts might help people, or at the very least be an interesting read. But here is one free lesson you can take or leave as much as you want that I touched on in my post yesterday.
When playing against other players, try to assess their skill level and thought process. Once you do that, the optimal way to play against any other player is to think EXACTLY one level above them. The reason world class players sometimes have problems with newer players is because world class players can think to the 16th level and beyond, but their opponents are only thinking 1, 2, maybe 3 levels tops in a lot of these tournaments where so many people satellite in anymore.
Let's break this down a little bit. If your opponent thinks on level 1 (he only thinks about this cards), then your optimal play will always come from playing level 2 (where you only think about your cards AND his cards). Thinking beyond level 2 to level 3 (where you think about what he thinks your cards are) is pointless, because he isn't thinking about your cards, so any decision you make based on that thought level is pointless, and quite often clouds your judgement.
Unfortunately sometimes 'playing down' to your competition is necessary. You cannot run elaborate bluffs or plays on level 1 players. If someone is a level 1 calling station, you bet your good hands for value and fold your bad hands, period. Bluffing is pointless because they won't think about your cards. If it's a level 1 tight player, then you bet/call your good hands, toss your bad hands, and bluff when the board is unlikely to have hit his good hands. If you know your opponent only thinks about his cards, and that he is tight, when he plays he likely has big cards or a pair. Any flop that doesn't help big cards is worth taking a stab at because the tight player will likely fold. Since he's not thinking about your cards, he'll never think that the flop wouldn't have helped YOU either.
We see world class players making all kinds of plays that seem strange on TV, and we try and emulate that sometimes. What people don't realize is these plays work because all of the players there think beyond levels most of us can comprehend so they make some plays that look absurd to the casual observer but work quite often when players think at such a deep level.
When you sit at the tables, just remember that you don't have to play world class poker, you just need to play poker that is 1 level higher than your competition in any given hand. The better you become at evaluating your opposition the easier it will be to choose the appropriate play style against them, and that, as my friend Soupie loves to say, is playing poker, not just cards.
-Rizen
