Monday, February 22, 2010

Back to back final tables! Bragworthy?

Following my last post made only a few hours ago I just accomplished this.



Still no win but I'm pretty impressed with myself at the moment.

Got deep in a 180 player MTT today….

Here is the result



Here is the reason for the result.


Aaaaarrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

One time can I have the better hand hold up please! Had to happen heads up didn't it.

:(

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Came back from 170 chips to win a SnG.


Doomed now right?


Let’s see the next hand

Ugly but I’ll take it. Still no reason to get excited.


Lets see the hand after that.

What can I say aside from, thanks?


Next hand, still all in a row.

OMFG are you kidding me?


I then proceeded to fold the next 6 hands until this happened.

Once again, the best hands wins. (cough *bullshit* cough)


Then I burst the bubble.

Whoops, sorry bro.


Let get to heads up by winning with a monster.

Pure skill this game.


And lastly

Well, at least I finally won with the best hand.

If I ever complain about poker be rigged against me I'll be coming back to this post.

Good game for me.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

PokerStars $40 Micro Million. $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament

In line with the PokerStars 40 billion hands celebration they are hosting the above tournament tomorrow. There is already over 9,000 entrants and still 13 hours to register. I can only assume that this game will be played very similar to the PokerStars ¼ Million tournament which is on every Sunday, well Monday morning for me, and an absolute crazy game to get through even just to cash.

I’m on the fence at the moment as to whether I’ll play some micro satellites and try to get in and take my 1 in 30,000 chance at skyrocketing my bankroll. Still think my chances are as good as being on a milestone cash table to be honest.

Speaking of the milestone cash tables I have now played 7,376 hands at 5NL and I am up $86.28. Not too bad and it’s helping me rebuild the bankroll.

Also played another set of Double or Nothings yesterday and guess what? 9 out of 16 wins again. At least it’s a profit.

Will report back tomorrow after I’ve decided what to do. In the mean time I’m going back to 5NL to try and be part of a micro jackpot.

For more information on the $40 micro million select the link below.

$40 micro million

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Won 10 buy-ins in under 3000 hands yesterday.

Let’s not get too excited now folks, it was only at 5NL. Nevertheless I feel this is still damn impressive.

I had noticed the PokerStars 40 billion hands celebration coming up and thought to myself “why not get involved”. After all if I 16table while PokerStars has 30,000 tables going then my odds are about as good as my aces holding up on the bubble of a tournament against some donkey's J4o. So with odds of around 1875:1 I thought I’ll grind for a few hours and see what happens. Well every other donkey in the world must have thought the same and they were playing their hands like it was the stone cold nuts every time. People were calling my full house to the river with top pair low kicker and even ace high.

It was actually a rush I’ve not experienced in a while and really miss it. The official numbers were 2993 hands and $53.24 profit in 192 minutes.

Here’s the graph, just because it looks so sexy.




Aside from this run, suffice it to say I was not one of the players that was able to partake in the milestone hands. It has however made me think about continuing to play this way whilst the marathon is on. I may even open up to 24 tables or more just to increase my edge.

I didn’t try anything fancy and forgot how amazing it is that so many people can spew of their money with such garbage hands. I even had a couple of situations where people would shove all in pre flop with any 2 cards, only to get called by my aces or kings.

Writing this PokerStars is approaching its 39,666,785,101st hand so there is still a little way to go. If I maintain that success I’ll give myself a rest from Double or Nothings and play cash until the milestone is over. If I destroy it the whole time, I may even jump ship?

Let’s wait and see.

Friday, February 12, 2010

9 out of 16 every freaking time!

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been 16 tabling double or nothing SnGs and over 80% of all my sessions have resulted in 9 wins and 7 losses meaning that I am showing the minimum profit per session.

Is this normal? Is this what is to be expected when playing so many tables?

So far my best has been 13 which I’ve done a few times and my worst has been 6.

I’m finding playing so many is helping my play a little tighter and not getting into those speculative situations. It’s also helping me avoid tilting off after standard bad beats occurring.

I remember when I used to 4 table the $16 9 player SnGs and over 60% of my results were 2 losses with 1 2nd & 1 3rd also meaning the minimum profit ever.

I’m a little lost on where I am going wrong. I don’t think dropping back on the number of tables would help much as the same thing tends to happen whether I 4table or 16table.

Where am I going wrong? I’m shoving at the correct number of big blinds left ranges yet constantly achieving the minimum.

What can I do? Or like I said, is this to be expected when mass tabling?

Comments and suggestions welcomed.

Friday, February 5, 2010

I won MI-Turtle’s MTT today!

To start, I wish to make something clear for anyone that is new to my blog. I have been and still am a micro grinder for longer than I’d like to admit. I worked my way up, took it out and have started again. Whilst today’s win give me no financial restitution it is one of the most important wins ever for what may come in the near future.

These games are being hosted by a MTT grinder that is and has been destroying all forms of MTTs. His name is Nick Rainey aka MI_turtle. His blog is below.

www.rainmanpoker.net

The post where he announced these games is below.

MI_turtles hosted tournaments

I outlasted 807 players to take this win down and my god what a victory it was.

This wasn’t about money, because the game wasn’t for money, it was about the effort. I tried as hard as I could and was determined to run well no matter what. I think I’ve accomplished that.

How it all went down?

Early game.

Much like yesterday when I played my first one there were people sitting out everywhere. On my first table of 9 there were 6 people not playing. This made for super aggressive play for me and the other 2 active players. I was fortunate enough to eliminate them both and build my stack early from 1500 to 5000 by the time it was the 2nd round of blinds (15/30).

Once I’d eliminated the 2 active players it was like a dream, me and 8 players all sitting out. Why can’t this happen in a large buyin game for me? Nevertheless, I just clicked raise every hand and proceeded to grow my stack from 5000 upto around 25000.

As one player would drop off I’d see a knew one come on with a stack anywhere from 1000 – 5000, but with me sitting there with over 25,000 and blinds at 50/100 I just played super aggressive and eliminated anyone that got close to me.

Middle game.

With around 300 people remaining I was changed to a different table where the game began. By this time I had around 40,000 and was 10th in chips. This surprised me a little because I thought having been so lucky to win every pot for so long I’d have a monstrous lead on the remaining field, but there were people ahead of me. When I changed to my new table there were only 2 people sitting out, I did however have the chip lead on the table and proceeded to bully the right people.

Throughout the game I was able to keep myself in the top 9 of all chip stacks. This was important to me because my middle and late game is my biggest downfall with MTTs. For some reason I historically get scared and play super tight, complain that I can’t get a hand, and wait until I get to a certain number of big blinds then just shove only to be eliminated. This always happens whenever I make it to the last 10% of a field remaining. I’m trying to understand how to overcome that. I just feel that I should play tight because after playing well for 3-4 hours I’d be devastated with a loss. I’d rather go out within the first 30 minutes knowing I haven’t invested as much time. I have a decent ITM rate but I’ve made barely any final tables in my life.

I think what may have helped was that I played almost every pot. I limped in with any 2 cards to see a flop. A strategy I never implement in a normal game and I only did so due to my chip lead. Perhaps this works well in freerolls but how would it work in a real money game? For those of you that that understand these numbers by the time I got to the final table I was playing 58/10. I’ve never had stats like that in my life.

Late game.

A picture says a thousand words.



5th in chips going in and had 50 big blinds. I start playing a little tighter again but still tried to see as many flops as I could. After all it had worked the whole way so why stop now?

I managed to grow my stack upto 400,000 and then with 7 people left this hand occurred.



Once this happened I wasn’t going to lose!

I played basically psycho aggressively bullying every hand with anything.

The hand that wrapped everything up is below.



And with that hand.



The whole experience has been quite surreal to be honest. Is that what winning a MTT takes? Pure unadulterated aggression and absolutely NO fear of going broke at any stage? If it is, then I seriously bow down and take my hat off to successful MTT grinders because they must have some of the worst and constant bad beats known to man and yet they just get up and do it over and over again.

So what’s next?

Well I played it yesterday with no success and had the perfect outcome today. So shall I quit? NO WAY. I will be unable to play tomorrow as it is my son’s 4th birthday but will be back to play Sunday and every other day. My hope is to play every one there is in order to prove myself that I am serious and hoping to get some coaching from this. So Nick, if you are reading this keep me on the radar because after years of breaking even I am desperate to get to the next level. If it takes 100, 500 or 1000+ tournaments per month in order to achieve success I don’t care, I am by far the hungriest and most aspiring unknown player there is in online poker and ready to prove it, I just need some guidance.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for bearing with a long post, but today really was monumental for me.

On a side note I am hoping to receive some very exciting news from one of my most favourite and respected poker players that I also expect will show me the error of my ways, something I’ve been nagging for a very long time. I'm feared that I will be told I've been playing like an absolute donk, but if they need to tell me that in order to break me down and re build me back up then fire away becasue your the one pimping and I've been getting pimped.

So financially, nothings happening but in terms of growth and development, I really believe the next few months may see be boom and with that, skies the limit!

Good night all
Custo

Crushed the conspiracy case of the cash out curse.

This is a post dedicated to all the online poker conspiracy theorists out there. IE: ME!

The other day I needed to cash out a small amount and was hesitant due the “cash out curse”

Attempting to convince myself that no such curse exists I came up with a plan.

Step 1: Cash out
Step 2: Play immediately after cashing out and either
a) Show a net profit
b) Go bust.

It took 36 tournaments but I did it, I showed a profit after a dismal start. I think the difference between my net results and EV speaks for itself.



So to all you conspiracy theorists I now laugh in your face for I beat this mysterious curse and made a massive $1.90 profit, not bad for spending over $180 on buy-ins.

Subsequently since playing after 2/2/10 when these stats were taken here are my stats from 3/2/10 onwards.



Cash out curse exists? I think not!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Result for Main Event of WBCOOP.

Guess what ladies & gents. NO CASH. Dismal 0/6 results in the freerollbloggingdonkaments!

Pokerstars was nice enough to give me a hand I had to commit with to build my stack, then break my heart when the cards are turned, then make me scream with excitement on the flop, then shit all over me.

See below



Yeah I know. I’m a 30% favourite before the flop then a 90% favourite then I’m out.

My overall experience during the WBCOOP was fun though. I spent time with other players I hadn’t met before who were all cool as. You should notice a few new blogs cross-linked on mine, all wiked people.

Even though I didn’t win a ticket, I’ll still buy-in to a few low SCOOP events just waiting for the structure to be realised.

That’s all for now folks.

Peace