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My Top 3 |
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WE INTERRUPT THE TO BRING YOU AN ALL IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!!
After the marvelous .10/.25 PLO8 session, I played a WSOP Step 1 SNG. It was a little bit of a reach to play at $7.50 (more than 10% of my 61 dollar bankroll), but I needed to treat myself; micro-grinding can really make you start to go insane. Anywho, I played extremely straightforward, boring, sng poker, and finished in the top two to advance to Step 2. It was the end of the night, so it was a nice note to finish the night on.
The next night, I played (stupidly, due to a tasty beverage or three) out of my bankroll (PLO8, but .25/.50!!!!! fug!) Obviously, I took a massive hit to the roll and dropped about $25 dollars. Down to $33, I played a $3 rebuy ($9 allowance for the tourney), and played superb poker for the first 2 hrs. Really A++. Apparently, I forgot that you have to play smart poker for the entire tourney if you want to win it, and proceeded to make unfounded bluffs and plays, and went from 18k to out in a matter of minutes after the second break. ARGH! Down to $23. To cool off, I decided to use my Step 2 ticket. Played boring, straightforward poker, finished in the top two to earn my Step 3 ticket, maybe playing 6 hands the entire hour of the SNG. Piece of cake.
Now we come to last night. I multi-tabled some .02/.05 PLO8, ready to play solid poker after being a clown at cash games recently. Unfortunately for me, the poker gods didn’t like my blatant showing of disrespect in the previous week and shot me down in every way possible. Monster combo draws? Don’t hit. Flopped sets? Get outdrawn by gutshots. Left and right. I couldn’t be too upset with myself because this night, I playing great poker; negative variance was just catching up with me. But… when you’re down to your last $8.50, you do sort of feel demoralized.
I took a break, splashed my face with some cold water, had a beer, and watched some TV. I wasn’t done for the night, but I needed to clear my head and get my shizz together. After a half hour break, I decided to tackle the Step 3 SNG that was calling my name. To my surprise, the poker gods didn’t hate me at all; I tripled up within the first few hands with AA vs two sets of broadway cards (KJ and JT, I think) and cruised to my Step 4 ticket. Something to take note of, that I hadn’t really paid attention to at the time; a Step 4 ticket has a $215 value!!!! Without even realizing it, I had blown up my bankroll amazingly! Well, sort of. But yeah… once I noticed that, I got fired up enough to throw down with the pokerstars steps again.
This realization went to my head a little, and I proceded to try and “outplay” people at my Step 4, which I had already determined was NOT the way to play these. The way to play these was, as always… boring, straightforward poker. So, after my shenanigans of Phil Hellmuth syndrome, I had crapped my way down to 400 chips. I was so pissed! In the Step 4, I had to get at least 6th place to stay in the steps system. (1st and 2nd advance to Step 5, 3rd and 4th replay a Step 4, 5th and 6th get a Step 3 ticket, and 7-9 are crapouts). Sitting in 9th place with 400 chips and 8th place sitting ahead of me with 1300, the outlook was dismal. Fortunately, my table was full of idiots, and I was doubled twice when I had AK; one time my opponent called my 350 raise at 25/50 with 22, and the other time a different opponent had AQ. By the grace of the poker gods and returning to smart play, I didn’t advance, but I received a chance to replay Step 4.
I immediately thanked whoever it is that I’m supposed to thank in this scenario, buckled down, and grinded 3 more hours of sngs, in this progression: Step 4, crushed it. Step 5, was crushing until the very end when a bad beat dropped me into 3rd place for a repeat. Step 5, take two… crushed it. And then, I realized it. I had qualified for a Step 6 ticket! I was one SNG away from a full buy-in to the World Series of Poker main event! I was qualified to play in a $2100 buy-in SNG!!! All from a measly $7.50!!! (well, in all honesty, it’s probably closer 30 dollars, with a few attempts in the past at the Step 1s). I was so fired up that I couldn’t sleep, but I also realized that I probably couldn’t play my best poker after this run, so I saved my Step 6′er for the next day, confident that I would play some great friggin poker.
Step 6:
1st place = $12,500 (main event buy-in)
2nd, 3rd place = $1,500
4th, 5th place = $1,000
6th place = $500
There’s no real crazy story to the beginning of this story, but I played solid and made it to four-handed play. I didn’t even really realize it for a while until the few key hands came up…
SICK COOLERS! FUG!!!!
NB: Dunsurv has been raising at least 60% of the hands at this table, usually min-raises in position just to steal the blinds. which leads to these two hands, within 4 minutes of each other…
PokerStars Game #17335625765: Tournament #87859112, $2000+$100 Hold’em No Limit - Level VII (150/300) - 2008/05/10 - 15:46:56 (ET)
Table ‘87859112 1′ 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: ILE4EV (5650 in chips)
Seat 5: Dunsurv (9865 in chips)
Seat 6: tjbentham (6990 in chips)
Seat 8: marinersjj (4495 in chips)
ILE4EV: posts the ante 25
Dunsurv: posts the ante 25
tjbentham: posts the ante 25
marinersjj: posts the ante 25
tjbentham: posts small blind 150
marinersjj: posts big blind 300
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to marinersjj
ILE4EV: folds
Dunsurv: raises 300 to 600
tjbentham: folds
marinersjj: calls 300
*** FLOP *** [3h 2c]
marinersjj: checks
Dunsurv: bets 900
marinersjj: raises 2970 to 3870 and is all-in
Dunsurv: calls 2970
*** TURN *** [3h Qh 2c]
*** RIVER *** [3h Qh 2c
*** SHOW DOWN ***
marinersjj: shows [Jc Qc] (a full house, Jacks full of Queens)
Dunsurv: shows (two pair, Kings and Jacks)
marinersjj collected 9190 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9190 | Rake 0
Board [3h Qh 2c Js Jh]
Seat 1: ILE4EV folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: Dunsurv (button) showed [Kd Kc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Jacks
Seat 6: tjbentham (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: marinersjj (big blind) showed [Jc Qc] and won (9190) with a full house, Jacks full of Queens
PokerStars Game #17335709807: Tournament #87859112, $2000+$100 Hold’em No Limit - Level VII (150/300) - 2008/05/10 - 15:50:54 (ET)
Table ‘87859112 1′ 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: ILE4EV (4550 in chips)
Seat 5: Dunsurv (7845 in chips)
Seat 6: tjbentham (5640 in chips)
Seat 8: marinersjj (8965 in chips)
ILE4EV: posts the ante 25
Dunsurv: posts the ante 25
tjbentham: posts the ante 25
marinersjj: posts the ante 25
tjbentham: posts small blind 150
marinersjj: posts big blind 300
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to marinersjj
ILE4EV: folds
Dunsurv: raises 300 to 600
tjbentham: folds
marinersjj: raises 8340 to 8940 and is all-in
Dunsurv: calls 7220 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1120) returned to marinersjj
*** FLOP *** [5s 4d 6h]
*** TURN *** [5s 4d 6h] [5c]
*** RIVER *** [5s 4d 6h 5c] [3c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
marinersjj: shows (two pair, Kings and Fives)
Dunsurv: shows (two pair, Aces and Fives)
Dunsurv collected 15890 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 15890 | Rake 0
Board [5s 4d 6h 5c 3c]
Seat 1: ILE4EV folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: Dunsurv (button) showed [Ah As] and won (15890) with two pair, Aces and Fives
Seat 6: tjbentham (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: marinersjj (big blind) showed [Kd Kh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Fives
Now, I understand that calling these “cooler hands” seems like an easy cop-out (especially since I got my entire stack in both times with the worst hand), but lets go back and examine them.
In the first hand, Dunsurv min-raises in position. What does this tell us about the strength of his hand? It tells us ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because he does this everytime he is on the button and it’s folded to him. EVERY TIME. My QJcc fares well against his range, but he is the chip leader and has a wide calling range so I decide to just see a flop. Calling this min-raise and then potentially folding on the flop doesn’t hurt my stack that much, so I think this is the best route to take.
I flop top-pair/decent kicker against a known maniac who will continuation-bet every time I’m checked to. My hand is a monster against his range, we go all-in and he happens to have a nasty hand. I get lucky, become chip-leader, and the game continues.
The second hand is an obvious cooler even at a full table, so it’s not even a question short-handed, and definitely not even worth discussing against a maniac. That’s just terrible card timing for me.
So, the 4th place finish is definitely disappointing, but… my “micro” bankroll is north of $1000 now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WAHHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think my repertoire, for the time being, is going to be any $3 rebuy and $5 rebuy I can find, any HORSE or PLO8 tourney $20 and under, the $4 180-man SNGs, maybe a $20 180-man SNG occasionally, and I’m going to try and bust the steps again, starting at either Step 1 or Step 2, based on how I’m feeling (leaning towards the Step 1s to reinforce my patience and discipline). I’m also going to mix in some limit holdem… I think I can be a fairly proficient limit holdem player if i get some practice and work on my patience. (yes, I emphasized patience yet again… IT’S KEY!!!!!!)
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