Interesting night; Taking it old school!
So tonight I got back to my roots, grinding a ton of MTTs and putting in a nice long session. I read a blog that Paul Wasika made the other day just about how some of us, who have things come naturally to us without working very hard at them, can easily become lazy and unmotivated and I think that I have become that way for the most part. I won a decent amount at the WSOP this year and got back as an unmotivated online player. I have basically not been grinding out smaller tournaments to reduce the variance of playing the bigger buyins and just been slowly leaking money and not winning enough back in general to keep the ship afloat. So I am going to attempt to make a concerted effort to get back to grinding some smaller 200-300 man field MTT's with buyins as low as $25 or so to combat the huge variance in the bigger buyins. I really feel like I am playing super well lately and should break through with a big score. Tonight was a good sign none the less.
Started the night by playing 8 $280 SNGs for the FTP $1k and didnt win a seat, but got 2 3rds which got me $265 each which means I started the night down $1710
Then I bought into:
$1k Monday -$1060, placed 314th
50/50 on each site, -$110
Stars $100k ($162), got 63rd for $351.54, $189.54 profit
Stars $22r, in for 4 r+a which totals at $102, got 17th for $409.20, $307.2 profit
Stars $55 6max, 10th for $207, $152 profit
Both Big Doubles, $75 each, 2nd in B for $2484.90, $2334.90 profit
$109 6max, bubbled
$109 FO on Stars
$33 FO on Stars
Total for the night: -$147.36
So I cashed 4/11 tonight and still lost money but there is a mildly important lesson hidden here. I basically ran like dog crap in the $280 sngs and dug myself a big hole for the night, but by grinding out some smaller tournies I basically neutralized the losses for the night. Now will this always happen? No way! But will I always be into a $1k for $2770? I sure hope not! The lesson here is that while it might not be the sexiest thing to do to play a 184man $55 6max if you place well in it you can offset losses in some of the bigger events you play. This holds true for all buyin levels. If you are a regular in $25s then mix in some smaller $5-$10 tournaments to offset buyins for the $25s. They might not offer as much for 1st as your normal tournaments stops but they will help you survive the war on variance that are MTTs. Day off tomorrow and back to grind on Wednesday night.
~Justin