Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Reload!

I reloaded for the first time in several months yesterday. Things are not going well. As of two posts ago, I was playing with a bankroll of approximately $350, with a little more than half of that in $T. In the span of less than a month, I've gone through all of it.

Part of it is discipline (Exhibit A). On top of that, I've been taking more shots than necessary at higher buyins at an attempt to accelerate my bankroll growth. Nothing crazy, meaning nothing beyond a $20 buyin. Not the best bankroll management, but then again, what is bankroll management when your bankroll is only $60?

I just need to take a cue from Jamyhawk: stay patient...

Saturday, February 20, 2010

HA!

I took a vacation day Friday to go to Portland for the Blazers/Celtics game. When those plans fell through, I kept the vacation day and decided to make it a poker day.

Went to Tulalip Casino, about 30 mins away. Their website advertised a $75 HA tournament at 1pm.

Does it count as a tournament victory if you get your money refunded back because you're the only person who registered?

VICTORY FAIL.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Intervention

Dear mclarich,

Please stop playing Rush Poker and SuperTurbos when you’re on tilt.

Warmest regards,
Your Bankroll

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Sick Poker Here

I came down with a slight cold over the weekend. Nothing more than a mild sore throat and some headaches. Enough that I decided to stay home on Monday to rest up and recuperate.

And by “rest up and recuperate”, I mean “spend the day playing poker”.

With the whole day free, I was able to invest as much time as needed for MTTs. I haven’t played a lot of tournaments these days – mostly SNGs – since I can’t start them until almost 8pm on most nights, not to mention that my bankroll can’t really supports a whole lot of MTTs right now. But I found an early starting one that was right up my alley – a $10 superstack tournament.

I held my ground for a while, building my stack to somewhere around 16k a couple hours in, thanks to two hands in particular: catching my flush OOP and getting paid from a set that couldn’t fold & TP2K against AA that turned into quads by the river. However, I got too aggressive and lost a good portion of my chips on a resteal. Here’s where I welcome some comments.

Folds to CO who pops to 720 at 240/120/25. I didn’t have much of a read on him but didn’t think he was too strong – this was the 2nd straight time he’d open-raised from the CO. I try to resteal with J8c for 2300. He calls.

Flop is K43 rainbow. I c-bet for 3300 into a approximately 5k pot. He raises, I fold. He tells me AK; based on later play, I believe him.

I’m trying to improve my aggressiveness and steal more pots – was my mistake here in my read (or making a play without a stronger read) or was it in my execution of the resteal? If he truly did have AK, then obviously he wasn’t folding. However, I put him a range of AK-AT, and pairs JJ>. I fully expected a repop with AA or KK, maybe even AK, so I feel like my c-bet was good considering. Thoughts?

......

The day wasn’t entirely fruitless. I crashed and burned in an O8 MTT when I got moved to a table that decided to play 4-card bingo. Ended up going out when a bigstack felt a call was warranted with JT88 vs 2 all-ins. His straight got there on the river. Woot.

However, I decide to play a superturbo for entry into FTOPS #1 on a whim. Top 3 paid a $216 seat, and I outlasted 55 other pushmonkeys to win one of them. I’m in no shape to play an FTOPS event right now, so I immediately unregistered. The $216 in $T is almost double my bankroll right now, so that’s a nice little pick-me-up. I’ll continue to grind out some SNGs to see if I can turn that into real money without paying 5% commission.

......

I suppose I should join the bandwagon and comment on Rush Poker. It’s cool, but I suck at cash games right now anyways, and even at the lowest buyin, my bankroll only represents about 12-13 buyins. It’s not for me right now – maybe later.

‘til next time.