Monday, June 21, 2010

Epic Bump!


Holy bumpage. It's been almost 2 1/2 years since my last post but I figure I'd update my progress once again. In the 2 years since, I've built a roll on stars and bodog to where I could play 100NL, cashed out all but a couple hundred on the dog, had a huge downswing in cash games on stars, and finally switched to tournaments come this summer (yeahh no school/part-time workaments!). Kinda cool to look back on my posts from a couple years back and see where I've gotten from playing 5c/10c cash games lol. It has been a wild but fun ride and I have had my patience and skills tested time and time again, and they have improved by leaps and bounds. A part time hobby that can make you money, nothing beats that man.

Since I switched to tournaments things have been going fairly decently. As stated I kept a couple hundred on my beloved bodog (my first poker site), and so I had to start with some lower tournament buyins. Lately I have been crushing the 1k Gt'd donkaments which are generally either a $12 super stack, $11, or $5 rebuy tournament. These tournies usually get between 80-120ish players. It seems that these medium fields suit me much better than the monster fields on stars. As proof of this, I have had 5 final tables in the aforementioned tournaments, consisting of a 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 6th place finish (in addition to 13th and 15th), vaulting my roll nearly into 4 figures. I am a huge bankroll nit and so while skill-wise I could be playing 30's-100's (omfg sick brag!), especially on bodog, I choose to grind my roll up with these tournaments. Tournaments have a ton of variance and it is not uncommon for even great players to go through 15+ tournaments without cashing. My results are pretty sick considering that I have played about 18 of these tournies and made the final tables in 5 of them, with ~7 cashes.

Stars has been a different story, albeit nothing too terrible. The average field of the tournaments that I have played on there comes to about 3k, and I get pretty fkin deep a lot of the time but haven't broken through (yet!). For instance a couple days ago I grinded my stack real hard to 77k and raise in late position with 22. Some donk minreraises me and the pot is huge so I call. I flop a set, on a 276cc board, and I check-shove to his 15k bet. He thinks a few seconds and calls with AJcc. Unfortunately the 4c comes on the turn and the board doesn't pair on the river. gg. So I have basically broken even on stars while crushing on bodog.

Overall I really enjoy tournies a ton more than cash. Still debatable whether cash is more profitable or not, but I just felt like complete crap after losing day after day with the standard combo of run bad and play bad in cash games. Losing 1.2k in a day does not feel good, believe me! With tournaments, its like oh well, if I played bad or got a bad beat, I have only lost 1 buyin. It is harder to tilt and lose a ton of money because what am I going to do, buy into a ton of tournaments and tilt shove every hand? For instance yesterday I made a bad call and was a little ticked off at my play, but instead of tilting I just went to the gym because I knew grinding more tournies would probably be a bad idea (and take too long). Saves a ton of money imo. With cash its like "Ok I'm reloading I'm going to get this donk-motherfker's money! I practice sick bankroll management so on stars even with a roll that I could easily play 100NL with, I am playing like 5-20 buyins/rebuys with the occasional 30-40 mixed in. I have heard that 200 buyins for tournaments should be a minimum, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Today I placed 6th in a field of about 80 players in a superstack 1k Gt'd tourney on bodog. I first doubled up to 10k when some donk raise-called preflop with T7s, hit two pair, and I stacked off. Fortunately the board paired on the river, giving me a better two pair (T7494). Then I doubled to ~20k when I cold called with AQ, flopped a straight and stacked a guy with AA.

I doubled up huge again to 48k when I cold called in position with AQ, led an AJ9 flop when checked to, tank-shoved when I turned top two pair on a Q turn against a huge turn checkraise, and the guy called my shove with AJ for an inferior two pair. The very next hand bothered me a bit because I raised in early position with AKo and a guy 3bet me pretty big (999 --> 3275). I 4bet shoved and he called with TT and I couldn't catch an A or K. After the hand I kept thinking maybe I should have called the 3bet instead of shoving. While shoving is certainly fine, I think that since the fields are weak I should have just called because I have an edge postflop (and pre as well), and I could have kept my monster stack which is always valuable. It was a 14k hit but I was still chipleader (albeit now narrowly).

After that the blinds took their toll and I had to grind it out to the FT. I think I lost a couple small pots then had to shove a couple hands. I got to the FT 8/9 with a measly 14k, and a couple people busted. I then almost doubled (from 11.5k) after calling a minraise (tons of money in the pot) with 65o and shoving an A64 board (with about 8.5k behind) and then shoving another hand preflop. After than I shoved with A9o in the big blind against a small blind open, and he called with 77. I hit my A and held, and had 34k. The next hand I lost a flip when the same guy from the last hand shoved with 66 and I iso-shoved with AQs and couldn't connect. A few hands later I got 77 and shoved with 23k left and 1k/2k blinds, and the chipleader who was playing like a maniac happened to pick up KK and held. gg.

One of my teammates in undergrad has been going on a sick run. After cashing for about 20k in tournies this year he decided to buyin to the Super Tuesday $1k (yeah that's right, a $1,000 buyin), and shipped 2nd place for 45k. I remember maybe about a year ago him asking me for a $20 stake a couple times to play in some donkaments and now he has been crushing tourneys for huge scores. Pretty awesome. I personally would never play so high without at least 100 buyins (and that's taking a shot), if the field looked decent. It is pretty sick, but I am happy for him nonetheless. Risks payoff sometimes. Although every time I had tried taking a shot in cash games I ended up getting owned. Maybe donkaments are different. :)

Well that's it for now, I'm trying to check out CamStudio so I could put up a video one of these days. I know I've been promising to do it for about 3 years now, but it will happen sometime! Good luck on the felt.