Getting Close
Past week or so I've been getting close to a big score like its my job and just keep getting boned in the late game. Today was a fairly rough one. I had put in a fairly long session last night as well getting 28th in the FTP 65k and 3rd in a 60 player winner take all $12k sat. I ended up getting off the computer at 3am last night and decided to watch an episode of Lost real quick as I was 5 episodes from the end of Season 3. Well 7:25am rolled around and I was done with Season 3. Nice life.
Anyway today started off pretty decent as I made a run in the Warmup, eventually busting when my TT couldnt out race AKo for a top 75 stack with 400 to go. Busted out of everything else pretty quick, then got a stack in the Million again before running 77 into a shorty's AA and then running QQ into AA to exit near the bubble. Also came real close to the bubble in the $500 as I took 187th in it when my QQ couldn't spike on AA. Also got a stack in the $55r (which my friend mman_status took down for 30k) but went out in 48th out of 804 people when my TT couldn't out race AQ. The final cocktease of the night was in the FTP $750k. I just took 110th in it after playing pretty god damn good for 5 hours. I made a little bit of a spewy shove with 11 BBs at the end with A8o over an MP raise, but aside from that I think I played extremely well. I am sure the big one is coming soon, I am playing too well for it to not. I will likely do some commentary on the 750k because I thought it was a good tourney from like the 2nd break on. One leak I do find in my game is that I will make 3bets postflop sometimes with air after a c/r and not have the gumption to follow it up with a 2nd barrel. I ran into that problem a few times today, I have to be more willing to go broke if I am going to make the move in the first place. I don't want to go overboard with it, but I need to mix it in as well. Other then that I think I have been playing fairly amazing lately. FTOPS is coming up, and I'll be good bankroll wise for at least the front end of it so I am hoping to hit something soon. Some random stats from the past two weeks.
ITM: 15.22%
ROI: -34.64%
$/hr: -$128.63
hrs/week: 48hr 20min
Position KO'd:
Early: 5.43 (bottom 10%)
Early Middle: 10.87% (20% Avg)
Middle: 39.13% (40% Avg)
Late Middle: 28.26% (20% Avg)
Late: 16.30% (10% Avg)
So what does all this mean? Well I think it means I am getting deep a lot and just losing critical hands, which is the very crux of tournament variance. I mean you change a few deep hands for me and I could be up $200,000 right now over the same period of time. I am trying to stay positive during this but 2008 has been the single roughest patch I have experienced in poker. But I gotta keep plugging, being ahead of the pace in Late and LM finishes by 11.56% over the past week is most definitely a good sign, but also may be trying to tell me I am not taking enough chances to increase my stack, only time will tell.
In other news, I will be looking at some duplexes around the city this week and looking to get into one asap as my lease is up in my current shit hole of an apartment. It will be nice to get a change of scenery, and having a permanent base (for more then 1 year) will be a nice change for me, since I have moved about 7-8 times in the past 4 years. I am also going to start my commentary series this week with Nickzor's Sunday Warmup run. I will probably do some Tuesday as I am going to try to take the night off then from playing to gear up for playing Weds.
Tenative Schedule for this week:
Monday - ON from 7pm - 9pm MTTs
Tuesday - OFF
Wednesday - ON from 7pm - 9pm MTTs
Thursday - OFF
Friday - OFF
Saturday - OFF
Sunday - ON from 12:45am to 8pm MTTs
I am going to try to do this every Sunday and stick to it. Its really easy to fall out of balance as a poker pro, so if you see me playing on the days off, yell at me on the rail. Talk to you soon.
~Justin