For some reason I actually have not done great overall in the peeps, especially lately. I think the level of play has improved greatly overall, with about half the field knowing what they're doing. That leaves you about 2-3 short of the token when it becomes a pushfest. I don't care for that and it's not saving me a bunch of dollars by playing them. So I will continue to mostly just buy in directly at the $24 level and save my token time for the level 2 ones for the $69 tokens.
Oh, and a big congrats to Chad on his taking down the $26k guarantee on FullTilt. The dude has been on an absolute tear lately in the $24 guarantees lately. I can only hope that I can emulate his results now that I've got my game back on track.
Tag Archive for 'MTT'
Remember how I said that I was still alive in both the Daily Doubles after my 2nd place finish the other night? Well I was able to hit the cash around avg stack in DDA and so had consecutive cashes for the first time in quite awhile. Of course once in the money I went card dead and the high price of the blinds forced me to make a few moves and I went out in 66th. Still finished ahead of about 1000 other donkeys. DDB I finished 300-something as I never really got into a good position there but a top-half finish still made me pretty happy.
I finally subscribed to the PokerDB at the Bluff website. Yes there are free websites like OfficialPokerRankings that provide good information. Bluff just is laid out slightly better and the info seems a little bit more complete. After studying my stats, I have a very solid ROI in the $24 and $10 tournaments at FTP. Both in fact are well over 100% and are where I also have the most entries. I've lost money in the $69 tournies, although I really want to start playing more of those as the sample size is still small compared to the others and I feel that the level of play isn't all THAT more difficult. I'm solidly in the black at the $500 level as well, although there's only 3 entries there and my 38th in the FTOPs VI Main Event explains that
For some reason I actually have not done great overall in the peeps, especially lately. I think the level of play has improved greatly overall, with about half the field knowing what they're doing. That leaves you about 2-3 short of the token when it becomes a pushfest. I don't care for that and it's not saving me a bunch of dollars by playing them. So I will continue to mostly just buy in directly at the $24 level and save my token time for the level 2 ones for the $69 tokens.
Oh, and a big congrats to Chad on his taking down the $26k guarantee on FullTilt. The dude has been on an absolute tear lately in the $24 guarantees lately. I can only hope that I can emulate his results now that I've got my game back on track.
For some reason I actually have not done great overall in the peeps, especially lately. I think the level of play has improved greatly overall, with about half the field knowing what they're doing. That leaves you about 2-3 short of the token when it becomes a pushfest. I don't care for that and it's not saving me a bunch of dollars by playing them. So I will continue to mostly just buy in directly at the $24 level and save my token time for the level 2 ones for the $69 tokens.
Oh, and a big congrats to Chad on his taking down the $26k guarantee on FullTilt. The dude has been on an absolute tear lately in the $24 guarantees lately. I can only hope that I can emulate his results now that I've got my game back on track.
So on Saturday I decided to take a shot at the $500 deepstack tourney at the Venetian since by this point I had made some of my money back but not really enough to hit the WSOP event that I was originally slated to play in. I was doing pretty well, having hit the nut flush against somebody with the 2nd nuts and not getting too crazy. So right at the end of level 4 I decided to give all my chips to the worst player at our table. He played almost every pot, bluffed constantly, etc.... I had top pair, middle kicker on a board that was double suited. He had limped in EP as he did basically every hand and then had called my raise out of the BB. So I fire out a pot sized bet, not really minding if he calls as I knew I could milk some chips out of him. Of course the flush came on the turn and for the life of me I don't know why I did this, but I overbet the pot by a large amount. My mind had frozen as I KNEW he would have called me on the flop with even a 3 high flush draw. Of course he came back over the top for only like $1k more and I had to call just in case he was attempting another stupid bluff. He had Q4 s000ted and crippled me. Right after the break I pushed trying to triple up with 57s, hit a pair on the flop, only to lose to A5 that was also in the hand. So not a good tournament for me really.
That night it was back to MGM for some of the lovely 1/2NL competition on hand. I had proceeded to run over my table almost exactly like the day before, getting my stack up to about the $800 mark. At this point, the other bloggers were ganging up on the tourists with big stacks at a table opposite mine. I thought about sitting down but with the stack sizes over there and me having to take my entire stack over with a move, I decided against it. I should have just gotten up from my game and put my name on the list again. I know that some folks out there weren't thrilled that I was staying at my table trying to make money. But after the start of my trip I didn't really want to sit with 4x the buyin against a bunch of people I knew to be good players especially when I didn't have much more than they did. Next time I will not err on the side of caution and just try to have fun!
Sunday was just a nice lazy day lounging by the pool with the better half. That night though I decided to show her my newfound craps skill and play a little blackjack too. Who'd have guessed that there would be a monster roll about 15mins after I show up to the table and I walk away up more than $300 thanks to learning the art of 'pressing' from Bayne. Thanks dude!
So in summary, the trip ended up being fun in the end and I got some great gamb00ling karma after Wednesday night, winning at every damn thing I did (other than $20 in slots). For the winter WPBT event, I plan on doing less poker, more drinking, and more hanging out with everybody.
Well I'm back home sitting in front of my Mac writing this after a long and draining weekend. Most of you that were in Vegas already know about my trials and tribulations while on this trip. For those that don't, I was held up at gunpoint my first night in town. Already having dumped about $700 in the 2-5NL game at Bellagio, this fine fellow proceeded to liberate me of the rest of the funds on my person, which happened to include my WSOP buyin money. So after filling out a police report I was in Vegas for less than 10 hours, minus all of my liquid cash for the trip, and feeling mighty fucking sorry for myself for being so damn stupid as to walk at night with that much cash on me.
I called my girlfriend who was very upset at my predicament but said, 'At least you're ok.' And dammit she was right! So the next morning I got a $800 advance from my bank and put 4 $100 bills into my pocket. I had decided to at least try and have a bit of fun on this trip. So I met up with Jon and Alan over at Caesars for their noon tourney on Thursday. For $200 I don't think you will get better value or play in Vegas. Levels are 40 minutes and you start with 4500 chips. I also have to say that I love the poker room there. It's actually a separate room unlike the other rooms around and so you don't get all the hubub and noise from the rest of the casino. I lasted for awhile and busted somewhere on the north side of 50th I think. Both of the brothers Penner finished much higher, with Jon taking down a nice payday for 7th place! After busting I proceeded to head over and play some 1-2NL, which I had already won about $100 in before the tourney.
This cash game was pretty typical of what you'll see in Vegas. One or two old geezers who for the most part play pretty tight and like to grumble about aggressive young 'internet' players, a couple of younger guys getting wasted, and some that you can tell are just there to play some cards. I had a fine run at the table that night, mostly betting at pots which were uncontested and being aggressive when I did have the cards. Near the end of the session, one of the old geezers that had been whining about me overplaying my cards and betting with nothing raised to $10 from the button after 3 limpers. I thought this was kind of weird for him as he had been betting big when he had good cards. I look down at AJ in the SB. My immediate instinct was to pop the old fart back but decided to see a flop. Two of the limpers tag along and we have 4 players looking at a flop of A 3 5 rainbow. GIN! A check-raise was in order I thought so I check and so do the two preflop limpers. The old guy bets out $25 and I take a few seconds before raising it to $75, which was about half his remaining stack. The limpers bow out and he immediately starts grumbling about 'internet players' and people 'raising with nothing' before he pushes the rest of his chips in. I beat him to the pot as I knew I held the best hand. He held A7, didn't get any help, and stomped off saying 'Go back to the fucking internet' to my back. Ah yes, that was fun!
Friday I decided to just go across the street to play some more cash at MGM. Hopped into a game sometime around 11 and proceeded to run it over for the next 4 hours until I needed to meet up with Stephanie when she got into town. I hit flops with my bad cards, got action on my good cards, hit the very few draws I was on, etc.... It was just a stunning fucking run when all was right in the world. Here's the results:
I am just comming down off of my adrenaline rush. So I will make this short and sweet for now. Thanks to the generosity of Al, along with a deal made at the final table, yours truly will be playing in the WSOP during this summers WPBT gathering. It's the first one that I'll actually be attending so I will be disappointed by not playing the tournament on Saturday. However, this of course is tempered by the fact that I'll be playing in my first WSOP event.
I'll be playing in event #15, the $1500 NL event. I am also giving 1% of my action to all of my fellow bloggers that made the final table in the sat. That way at least I'll get SOMEBODY to railbird me
I'll be playing in event #15, the $1500 NL event. I am also giving 1% of my action to all of my fellow bloggers that made the final table in the sat. That way at least I'll get SOMEBODY to railbird me
