Happy Easter to all Grinders
It's been awhile since my last post and not too much has been happening. My girlfriend's brother came in town twice this week so we went golfing at 2 nice courses in the San Diego area so that definitely cut into my poker time, but it was well worth it.
On Friday, I decided to play cash as well as one tourney on AP because the JP was up to 440K. To make a long story short, I get to heads up in the $20+2 $1K guaranteed and so I signed out of the cash game tables to give my full concentration on the tourney. To those looking for some tourneys with great value, many of the guarantee tourneys on AP/UB in the mornings do not fill up and are overlayed with some decent dough. This particular tourney was overlayed $140 and it was a $1K guaranteed....Free Money. Anyways not 7 minutes into the HU match, the JP hits at the table I was at so I would've gotten a like 3-5K tableshare. I know it would've never hit had I been there but still kinda annoying. The guy I was playing HU had a 5-1 chip advantage at the start, but he played so nitty that the match lasted an 1hr 20 minutes. He always limped his button so I got to play every hand from my BB without having to put in more money. To those who get to HU and have a big chip lead, please keep the pressure on an opponent. I was sure I was going to come back on him because he let me see way to may flops. We eventually got my A4dd in v JJ preflop and I rivered a flush for the lead and then just minraised my button with every hand and eventually took him down. So I netted $380 instead of hitting the JP tableshare. I stand behind my decision to give all my attention to HU just stinks when you've put in 10 hrs at the cash game tables the 2 previous days for the JP to hit when you're 7 minutes out of the game.
Happy Easter to all and Good luck at the tables.
Back to Grinding
Just got back from a 5 day skiing trip in Brighton, Utah. This is the longest break I have taken from poker in recent time and I must say it felt very good to be away from the game. I must admit I did play 2 Sng's one morning when all my friends were dragging in the morning and I had an hour to kill but other than that I played zilch.
It's always a blast to get together with my friends from Louisiana. I'm from a suburb of New Orleans, called Kenner, and my Louisiana friends are my oldest friends. We are all game fanatics ranging from backgammon, spades, golf (the card game), and any other board game or trivia game. So even though there was no poker playing, I did get my fair share of gaming in to keep the mind sharp. We have a backgammon tournament every time we get together and of the last 6 gatherings, my friend Daniel has taken it down 5 times. I put a end to his reign and took the championship so the board goes home with me until the next trip.
The skiing was pretty good. Unfortunately there wasn't too much fresh snow while we were there, so it was a little bit of dust on crust but we were able to find so nice tree runs that weren't totally run over. A quick side rant, there are few things as annoying as beginner snowboarders backsliding down the mountain totally removing huge amounts of powder from the run. I understand why Alta doesn't allow boarders. Much respect to boarders that don't waster powder; I'm no boarder hater.
Anyway off to play some tennis now that I'm back in San Diego. Just going to take it easy tonight and get back on the poker wagon tomorrow.
Another Solid Day
Well no tourney victories for me yesterday. Got to 2 final tables in my morning session, and got a 5th in the $5 1R +1A 1K guaranteed and 4th in the $15 DS 2K. I felt like I played pretty well to get deep on the 2K. The field in that event is so much better than in the 1K its not even funny. In the low buyin (<$10) tournaments, you can literally wait until you get big hands and the players will donk their stacks off into you. After I took 4th in the 2k, I finished off my morning session by winning a satty to the $60+6 $20K guaranteed. I typically don't buy directly in to tournaments higher than $40 so it was cool to get to play a slightly higher buyin event.
My evening session consisted of 4 tournies: $66 20K, $11 5K Sniper, $27.50 10K, and $6.60 4K Sniper. I made deep runs in both the 4K sniper and the 10K but unfortunately got sucked out on right before the final table of both. In the 10K, I shoved QQ with 11BBs over a UTG 2.3x raise and the guy called with KJ off and binked a K on the flop to bust me. Kinda shitty but that's how it goes. My bustout in the 4k Sniper is pretty funny because it illustrates how terrible some of the players that make it late it the field are. I had seen this opponent limp call a shove on 3 different occasions his holdings on those hands were A9o, 33, and 77. Now I must say when he was limp calling shoves, these were not 10BB shoves they were 23BB + shoves so calling off those hands in that spot is semi-terrible. Not to mention the guy limped just about every hand so he was definitely playing garbage. I finally get a hand ATo with 11BBs and I shove over McLimpalot and he snap calls with 34ss and rivers a flush. Frustrating because I know had I made the final table I would have been able to move up the payouts quickly, but it was not to be yesterday. Either way I had a good day even though it should have been a thousand dollar day. I can feel the next good day coming so no worries. Until then...
Shipped the 4k Sniper on AP
Hello,
So as promised I'm going to start blogging on here regularly. Well yesterday I started my day at 6:30 am PST and started grinding some MTT's and SNG's. I mix up my tourney selection between $22 Turbo SNG's to help accumulate rakeback and a small ROI and also small stakes MTT's so I actually get paid when I ship a tourney. I typically grind between 8-10 hours a day and sunday is surely no different. In fact, I may log closer to 14-16 hours on sundays.....Day of rest my butt.
Anyways, my early morning session went alright. I final tabled the 1K guaranteed (1R 1A) but busted out 8th when my 11BB shove with AJo got called by A4o and to my surprise (lol) the 4 binks on the flop. Easy come easy go. So I continued to grind SNG's and a few more MTT's.
I was very proud of my resiliency yesterday. Sometimes after I take a few coolers or mess up some spots, my level of play may drop but the opposite seemed to happen yesterday. Perhaps a sign of better discipline, something all poker players should strive to achieve. Anyway, the situation that nearly titled me was that I was the chip leader in 2 SNG's on the bubble with 4 left. I was UTG with A5cc and had been pushing folks around so I minraised, BB called flop Q67 he check shoved and his Q5 was good. I made the mistake of giving him a cheap enough price to see flop. Actually not really it was close he had maybe 7BBs so not so much if you ask me but what can you do. Very next hand he minraises button I wake up with AKo from SB and shove over him. He has me covered slightly in chips and he made the call with 99 and it held. Then my AJo lost to A9o and went from 2 ITM finishes to having nothing. Quite frustrating to say the least. Normally this would be the situation where I would steam up and donk off the rest of my tournies, but instead i refocused and won the next 2 SNG's I played. I guess this was foreshadowing how my night was to end.
So I played the 5K Sniper, the 10k, and the 4k Sniper last night. Busted fairly early from the 5K and 10K, nothing too memorable, so the 4K was all I was left playing. The Snipers start you with 1500 chips, at least the $10 and under buyins do, so its a fairly shallow chip stack for much of the tournament, very unlike the deepstack tournaments offered. I got to around 11BBs at 150/300 and was forced to shoved KJdd from UTG+1, I get called by AKo and the board runs AQT7K so I rivered the straight and chipped up to a more comfortable level. Fortunately most of the field is super soft so I know if I can make it past the middle stages I can own most players in the late game (Bond18 your videos have been very helpful with this). Eventually I become top 9 in chips and things were steadily positive when this hand occurred. I had been very active since we were down to 13 players and I was top 5 in chips stealing blinds and antes with impunity. I make it 7100 at 1750/3500 blinds with A7hh one big stack cold calls from MP2 and CO calls as well. Flop comes T62hhs I make it 17700 into 31000 big stack raises to 48800 and I ship my remaining 220,000 in the pot and he called with top set of T's ouch....... except for the beautiful Jh on river to bail me out and give me a 3 to 1 chip advantage over the next closest player. At this point I knew if I played solid I would win. Sure enough people at the final table gave me no respect and I was waking up with AK and AQ when people played back so it was easy to stack them. I had a 8 to 1 chip advantage by the time heads up started so I just knew no chance I was losing. 1st hand of HU I am dealt 88 from SB, villain raises I ship he calls his 12bb stack with Q5 flop comes Q6457 so I rivered the straight to win. Feels very good to ship a tourney and the bankroll boost doesn't hurt either.
That's all for now just grinding some more this morning hoping to keep the results coming. I know if I keep putting in the work on and off the felt, the results will come.
Gonna start blogging regularly with results
I've been a regular playing on AP for awhile and I think it would be healthy to start documenting me thoughts and feelings as I deal with grinding MTT's and SNG's there.