Crazy day today. My wife and I are expecting our 3rd child and the due date was today. 9:15pm now and still no sign. Had a false alarm this morning but it looks like little Custo is happy relaxing and not ready for the world yet. Lets see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully, especially for my wife's sake, we will be ready for our little girl.
Today I had the best poker experience I can remember. Thanks to some good words from CC members, particularly Icemonkey, I re-found my mojo in the $6 SnG’s. I’ve been struggling with the transition from a $3 game to a $6 game. Purely psychological which I’d expected and now confirmed.
I played 2 sets of games today. First set was 4 x $6.50 SnG’s. Lost them all! After a short break I reflected on those games and realised that I played scared. I was overall happy with my game and decisions I made, but I wasn’t being aggressive enough, playing far too passive. I let my fear of losing overtake my desire to win. After a break I asked myself the question ‘am I prepared to try again and lose $27?’ Because that is the cost of my buy-in 4 times. I answered yes and decided to play the game with the same mindset as I approach the smaller games.
The hands and positions I play were exactly the same but I showed no fear which gave different results. This doesn’t normally happen often but in the 2nd set of games I played I cashed in all 4 of them!
2 wins, 1 2nd & 1 3rd.
During my play I made some massive lay downs pre-flop with turned out to be the best move. See below.
With the pot being raised from early position and then re-raised from middle position I felt problems coming. It was a hard fold, normally I'd come over the top without hesitation, close my eyes, cross my fingers and pray to flop the nut flush or something similar. I'm so happy with that laydown. Even if I had have won, it's a big move to be able to flop AQ suited pre-flop, well for me it is anyway.
Yes, I tried to take down some blinds :). Once the pot was called and then re-raised, normally I'd call thinking I'm priced in for it but I decided to fold here which once again turned out to be the correct play. With all that money in the pot and the blinds where they were I would have called but thought, I can still play a shortstack and try to make it into the top 3, which I did.
Now to make some difficult calls.
I figured the BB was putting me on a steal attempt and to be honest I came very close to folding here. To be honest I actually put him on a steal attempt and once he decided to come over the top of me I thought here is where I take my stand. With 88 in this part of the game, I would have normally folded. This time I stood my ground and with the better hand.
To be honest, I consider my pre-flop call here a little loose. Once again normally I would fold there but thought JT suited, not the worst hand, I'm getting a good price and anything can flop. After the flop with a draw I was always going to call the shortstacks $110, but would fold to any raise after that. Luckily i made the nuts on the turn and was able to get paid off for it. The funny thing is, if the short stack had have gone allin pre-flop and not just doubled the bet, I would have folded without hesitation.
Putting this played on a steal attempt I instantly decided to make him commit. I'm either going to take his raise plus the blinds or get involved with AJ suited. GLad he flipped up AT and didn't suckout on me.
Some of you may think this is crazy, but I would normally call that. Any pair with a M of under 3, I'm shoving it in. This time I thought, under the gun has shoved and the blinds are still to act, once again it turned out to my advantage.
I almost folded pre-flop again. Look at the hand. BB is more than pot committed, button has raised so BB must call. I thought if I can sit this one out and hope the button take out the BB then I'm in the money. Then I thought if BB gets lucky then I'm all-in the very next hand and if I get unlucky I'm out on the bubble. I went in with AQ with very little chips and it held. Even if I had have folded pre-flop you can see that I still would have made the money. Coincidentally, I ended up winning this tournament. Not bad with a stack of $340 and the blinds were $400/$800.
The next hand. Now that I'm in the money, I'm going for the win in this game. A high, yup lets go for it. Thank god a A flopped making it easier to take the whole game down.
Overall, I'm very happy with the laydowns I made and the positions I stood my ground. I hope I'm over the fear I had when I first started these games. After this, I'm pretty damn sure I am.
Thanks to all for your comments and feedback prior to this post. It was the guidance and suggestions of friends and colleagues that allowed these results, so congratulations to you aswell.
Not a good ITM rate but a positive ROI. Am waiting on some feedback about the $6 games until I try them again so these results were all in the $3 SnG's.
Some more fun hands to watch are below.
Lucky for me the player with top pair & top kicker checked the flop allowing me to draw to my set on the turn for free. Any bets on the flop and that wouldn't have happened. I was a little scared about an overset after his raise on the turn, but a set of 4's must be the last hand they could have put me on.
The video doesn't show it, but after the 2 all-ins before me I waited forever contemplating that call. Glad I made it. Subsequently this was one of the games I won and it was probably due to that hand.
Poor guy. Flopped a straight and couldn't beat me.
Must have been a profitable day, yet again. Only played 3 sessions, 4x$3 buyin. Had a lot of very seat-clenching hands so for entertainment purposes, let's all enjoy them again.
I think I'll call this one - I love donkeys!
To be expected I was really worried when I had 2 callers to my all-in preflop. Fortunately, 1 decided to go all in on the turn with no pair and no draw allowing my A high to hold. Stupidest move I've seen as I thought they would both check it down to the river to knock me out. Can't complain tripling up with A high.
Lets call this one - getting maximum value.
My only thought looking back was my flat call after the flop. When the flop hit it was an obvious choice of call or raise. I contemplated raising the flop in case he was drawing but felt I had the best of it pre-flop and post flop. Glad I played it the way I did.
This one being called - NO ACE NO ACE NO ACE!.
I only thought I'd put this one in as so many times with pocket Kings an Ace seems to magically appear. As it was for my tournament life and would have resulted with a bubble I had leaped from the chair screaming NO ACE NO ACE NO ACE.
This being called - Custo gets unlucky.
Can't win them all can we.
Unfortunaelty the website I use to create these videos is expeirecing some bugs and the videos aren't working correctly. I'm going to post them anyway cause they were awesome hands. Aplogies for them not being proper videos.
04/09/08. I'm no mathematician, but I must have made money today. As per everyones advice I tried playing the $6 game on stars again, but this time I played it without playing anything else. Guess the outcome? First place. Instantly a $20 profit.
There was a hand I'll never forget that took place in this SnG. I have no idea why this guy did what he did but I wont complain. See below.
I understand going all in on a bluff if you first to act, that's fine but who the hell calls a completely missed flop for their tournament life. Oh well, helped my stack.
Later in the same tournament I had one hand that I felt I really played well. It was one of those hands very every decision on every serious of betting was the correct decision and allowed me to get the maximum value for that hand. See below.
Once I flopped the flush I knew that flat calling him all the way was the best way to get as many chips as I could. Raising him on the flop I felt may have scared him off. I generally don't bet so passively in heads up, but this hand was perfect for it. Subsequently it gave me a massive chip lead and set me up for the tournament win.
After my SnG success I decided to play the 3pm $3.30 MTT. This game normally attracts around 1500 people. I had no cashes in this game the past 2 days, mainly to being card dead and over-playing some bad hands early on to try and get a big kick start early. Today I lasted 2hrs & 53mins giving me a result of 120th out of 1602 players. Being a $3.30 MTT I didn't receive the biggest payout but I did get a 89.39% ROI, and a positive ROI, to me, is what it's all about.
I went out in style in the MTT, just unlucky to run into the hand I did.
AK vs AA! Can't do anything about that.
Aside from the $6 SnG win and the place in the MTT I played 2 SnG's at Noble with no success. Felt like playing some multi tables so fired up 4 $3 games back at stars and surprise surprise, 2 losses 1 3rd and 1 win.
Positive day all round. Glad I played the 1 $6 will stick with that until I've figured out how to multi table them. If I get the urge to multi table, there's always enough $3 games to go around.
I've discovered a problem in my game, I now need to find a solution. I started a thread on CC to get feedback, can be view here. I played 8 $6.50 SnG's today with bad results, 1 3rd and 7 losses. I then went back to the $3.40 SnG's and had 3 wins, 2 2nd's and 1 3rd. I can't figure out why I cant get the same results at the next level. I'll be looking very closely at this over the next couple of days as I'm more than bankrolled for the $6.50 games. I also played a little on Noble and Pacific. Pacific had no luck but Noble had 2 games 1 1st & 1 2nd.
I'm probably going to concentrated on the $3 games @ stars for a few more days until I can figure out what I'm doing wrong at the $6 level. If you have any suggestions I'm more than keen to hear them.
Played way too much today due to chasing and a bit of boredom. Should have fixed this for tomorrow as I have a idea I'm looking forward to trying out. No excuses today, I played too much, and drank, BIG BIG BIG mistake. Not the happiest camper at the moment, but a good night sleep and no alcohol tomorrow I'm sure will equal success.
