I Lied.

OK I'm bored just busted a few tourneys and decided to post again. (FAIL). But this one will be positive. (YAY). OK well rather than rest on my laurels and hope that my nitty strategy brings my downswing around I've been working on my tournament game. I have reopened the tournament player's bible (Kill Everyone by Nelson, Streib and Lee) and have started reading again. It's so easy to forget things that I've read once I go back into cash games. Well, this time I'm serious about tournaments so I'm determined to improve. So I have a lot of work to do. It will take me a long time for my strategy to absorb everything that book has to teach but if I concentrate on this one game (90 man KO) then I think that taking relevant lessons and applying them to this structure will pay dividends in the long run. So, whether I'm on a downswing or I truly suck my game should be better tomorrow; and then the day after. ETceterA...

Up (down) date

Hey all, hope you're running well. OK I don't think that I should continue to post run bad stuff so I intend to stop blogging for a while. Basically at the moment I'm just trying to grind a few hundred of these $3.30 90 man KO tournaments and see how I get on. I have less than 350 buy-ins now but that should be plenty to mess around with. It is my honest opinion - and I'm usually pretty objective when it comes to poker - that I'm running very very poorly at the moment. I continue to work hard with SNGWiz and review my hands so hopefully I will eventually cash a few times and then I'll begin posting again. If that doesn't work out I'll get some coaching or maybe quit altogether. I do tilt in these tournaments but I sit towards the better end of tilt management which is one of my strengths and I don't think I've made hardly any bad plays caused by it during this barren stretch. I really do believe I've played well enough to certainly break even. Anyway, this will be my last blog post for a few days and maybe weeks (unless I give up on tourneys and go back to cash I guess). So until I blog again, good luck all. Right, I have some grinding to do. GL!!

Mip; Splosh. Mip; Splosh.

More buy-ins lost. Poker tracker still believes I'm winning chips at 6 BB/100 but I'm beginning to wonder if it might be some sort of mistake. I'm still getting absolutely smashed by the rest of the field. Am I really this bad? Guess so. Well I have just under 400 buy-ins left for the three dollar tournaments. Anyone want a prop bet that I'll be busto by Christmas? OK I know MTTs are sick variance and that's what I signed up for, so I'll post when I next cash. Which could be next year. GL!

More 90 man tournaments

Cashed in a couple more now and things seem to be getting back to some sort of parity. I've still lost a good bit of money in them but I'm chipping away. It seems obvious but these tourneys are a game of two halves. In the beginning, there was value. Most villains are really bad and will not fold; once we are near the final table though game conditions completely switch poles and we can now pick up loads and loads of pots by moving all-in - the extra ante money especially makes this ludicrously profitable as opponents suddenly don't call enough. I'll post another profit by position picture after I've played a few more but suffice to say the numbers are converging nicely. So which is the better proposition, micro tournaments or Rush? I think I could be earning more at Rush to be honest since I'm playing more hands. But I'm also too proud for my own good and want to prove to myself that I can beat these now. I don't think I'm sacrificing too much money and would be incredibly proud if I could turn my tournament record around. GL

Two Cashes at Last!

I'm still way down in these (90 man KO tournaments) but volume is the key word. It has helped me a lot to just think of them as a cash game and although I've only played a couple of thousand hands or so my numbers are converging on what I believe are some realistic win rates. I think that a good MTT player could win more than 0.05 BB/Hand (given that the field is ridiculously weak in these). I've no idea how that usually translates into ROI as I've never seen a comparison made, but the important thing is that if we are playing a strategy that is returning a chip EV profit of more than 5 BB/100 then there should be gross profit to be made. For those interested - the picture shows profit by position where the top number is the button, the next the cut off etc and the two lowest numbers are the big blind and small blind from top to bottom. As far as my game in these goes, I think that I'm strongest with a short stack and when I'm relatively deep but I struggle between about 13 and 25 big blinds deep. The reason is that late position raisers are playing a very wide range but they will rarely fold when I shove. I guess that just means that I need to shove a merged range with good aces, broadways and pocket pairs. Early game strategy can also be tricky; there's so much ridiculous post flop play going on that it just pays to play fit or fold IMO. If we hit top pair we're getting paid and an overpair is just a gold mine. So playing a tight range with big aces and pairs should make shit loads of money. A plus is that these tourneys are pretty easy to play so I may start to 8 table or more. Playing 4 at a time at the moment is very manageable. Well, I'll continue to enter these tournaments where I can and my goal is to play 30000 hands or more after which I'll post a detailed analysis of my strategy and leaks. GL

Learning a Valuable Lesson

My last post was inspired by a decision I made while distracted with something else. I glanced at the screen and noticed the action was on me at the final table in the small blind, and I'm well below average chips but not necessarily desperate yet. However looking quickly at the blinds and the pot size I decided that it was one of those any two card shoves versus the tight big blind player and quickly pressed all-in. It was only after a second glance that I noticed that a giant whale - someone who had limped over half of the hands in an 80 hand stretch without a single preflop raise - was also in the pot UTG. When he SNAP called with A2s to completely dominate my random garbage and knock me out I was obviously seriously dismayed. So this teaches a valuable lesson:
When playing on the money bubble or at the final table we must be totally focussed on the action and what each player is doing. If we become distracted then mistakes will be made and at this stage in the tournament that's where the EV mistakes are the biggest (by ICM). So from now on I'll make sure that I have 110% concentration on the job in hand and especially when there is less than 20 players left. To aid in this I'll take ludicrously over the top notes on every player, the hands they're showing down; their pre flop and post flop tendencies - everything. If I cannot be totally absorbed in the action then I'd be better off doing something else. At the end of the day the only thing that's going to get me out of this bad stretch is to play well and put in volume. There's no point undertaking the latter unless I'm taking care of the former. GL!

Going to Have to be Mentally Tough

... in order to overcome my demons in these games. I know MTTs can have brutal variance so I should treat the current run as standard. But I have begun to make some questionable decisions at times due to slight tilt. I must be strong and just treat the hands like a cash game. Just make the best chip decision available at the time; I can improve my ICM at a later date. It's crazy but I've become angry and determined to become at least a break even player in these now. I am well over-rolled for them so I intend to continue playing until I cash enough such that I am at least break even or I will go bust instead! Surely a 20-30 game OTM streak cannot become a 300 game one?!! (statistically possible but if it happens I'm quitting for good)

EDIT:
Now that I've calmed down after making the last spewey move, back to realism. I've only played around 2500 hands so far and though I haven't run great, comparing this run to the bad runs I have had in cash (30-50k hand losing stretches) it's a ridiculously small sample. So I will just continue to play and not worry about the actual cash return until I've played 30k hands or more. :) I hate variance lol