Good Session

Played some 50NL Zoom and I think it's the best session I've played since I've been back. I made very few mistakes in my opinion and I also got dealt black kings so got a free buy-in from Stars. Weeeee!

Also played the Hot $16.50 but it didn't go very well. I must be honest and admit that my push/fold knowledge is very poor. I feel that the last few tournaments I've let my stack get way too short before committing to an all-in spot.

In the past one of my key tournament money earners was shoving very wide in the small blind or on the button but it just seems to me that it's very rarely folding to me in those spots these days. I wonder if this is just small sample variance or whether the tournament short stackers are improving.

I tried loading up SNGWiz to try and practise some late game situations but for some reason it no longer recognises me as a registered user which is kind of frustrating. I've not used it for over a year so I've probably only got myself to blame.

I'll try emailing the developers and see if they can send me a new license and perhaps I'll read "Kill Everyone" again and study the push/fold tables printed in it.

Tournaments are fun and it would be nice to be able to register a couple of good scores now and then.

Right, I will post again soon. GL!

Full Tilt MTOPS Main Event

Got myself four entries. I have a bunch of FTP points so I purchased tickets from the store and will see how I get on.

I think technically for a proven tournament winner with good knowledge of push/fold ranges it would be best to enter for the maximum number of entries with eight. This would give such a player a good chance to go deep. But for me - probably a break even tournament player - I thought that four entries would be sufficient. I think that making good late game decisions would become difficult if I had eight tables up.

The tournament itself is massively under registered currently (with about 15 minutes left) so there is a large overlay. Get yourself involved, it looks like free money!

Anyway I will put updates here, it's $90k to the winner.

Update 1: Didn't realise there was a 30 minute seating window, so I'm just sat around waiting right now. I've also opened a beer. Not the most sensible tournament decision but I'm just viewing this as a bit of fun. If things get serious I'll switch to the coiffee later on. The tournament still has an overlay, although it is diminishing.

I've never noticed that FTP offer multi-buy-in tournaments before. I wonder how it affects the ICM; I imagine that for a proven winner it's best to buy in as many times as possible. But does this mean that the fish/reg ratio deteriorates? I'd imagine that only knowledgeable players would buy-in more than once.

Great. The HUD isn't working on FTP for some reason so time to nit up. Should probably have checked before I registered...

Update 2: Fishy field, but card dead. Really not running too well, got three lives left but the fourth I was knocked out dominating my opponent with AQ vs Q8o right to the river. Meh. The three remaining lives are very close to being valueless given the stack sizes relative to average so I don't think my tourney foray will last a great deal longer!

Final update:

Last life, very short, over 10k villains to beat. It's not happenin'! Signing off as I will need to sleep as soon as I'm KO'd.

Good night!

Latest News

Hi!

So I've finally reached 10k hands in my new sample. I'll be honest - I haven't played well enough to beat the games and I'm suprised that I'm around break even so far.

I sense that I'm making fewer mistakes as time goes on so perhaps after a few more thousand hands I can get back to winning ways, but since I'm playing at a higher limit and I have no "previous" at these stakes it could just be that a winning 25NL zoom strategy does not equate to a winning 50NL zoom strategy.

I think I'm going to mix in some non-zoom cash game tables and really concentrate on beating the fish.

Why 50NL?

After all those years playing like a nit in 10NL and 25NL games that's a good question, but the truth is that now I'm earning more money I can afford to play higher stakes. I'd like to go to 100NL soon but I wanted to give myself a run at 50NL first as a warm up. If I can do OK (read breakeven) at this limit over say a hundred thousand hands then I'll just go straight up. The rakes better at 100.

HUSNG?

A couple of years ago I dabbled in the HUSNG games before I caught the Rush bug and I've quite fancied giving them a go lately. I'm sure there are enough weak players about that they are still profitable but the barrier to entry is that they are a totally different ballgame to full ring so I'd need to start my learning again from scratch.

But there are some great HUSNG resources out there, and the Sharkscope leaderboards prove that there is still tons of money to be made in that format.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this was no brief flash in the pan and that my enthusiasm has returned for the game no matter whether I win or lose. I think I needed a year to sort my life out and now that all is good I can attempt to bring my game to the next level. GL