What's That? Oh, The Top of Your Range...

So, the title is pretty self explanatory. Today was pretty atrocious, I ran into the top of peoples ranges everywhere. Set over set, AQ vs AK, trips into a boat. Ugh. I even picked off a few bluffs and the villains got there. I ran some filters in HEM last night to check things out. It's not too bad, a few coolers for stacks, but when you only play 4 tables for a couple hours a day it really accentuates things. I'm going to review my month tomorrow and see where I'm going wrong and see if I can fix it, or if I really am making good decisions/ranges and just being unlucky by running into the nuts every time.

Here's the month so far:

This hand villain was playing 8/3/0 over 59 hands. Obviously his range is pretty obvious here, so I decided to set-mine since he probably wasn't folding his big pair if I hit.

I think I could have found the fold button on this hand. Villain was 26/18/12 3b. I think my 4bet is fine since he can be 3betting/squeezing light here, but I think it's a fold to his 5b shove.



There's a few more hands but I'll go through those tomorrow. Hopefully I can turn things around.

Rough Session

So I played a short session today (a bit over 1hr) and it was pretty rough. I lost 3BIs in some trivial spots. I don't think there was a way to get away from them but maybe. I had QQ vs AA AIPF. Villain was in the BB when I Raised UTG+1 to 3x. The BTN and SB called and BB squeezed to 14.5BB. He was 15/12/5 over 53 hands so def seemed capable of making this play. I 4bet to 35BB and he jams. Rest is history.

Second hand I just reviewed and I think I can fold the turn. I beat like nothing he takes this line with.






The only 2 significant hands I won were when my QQ held vs AK and when I had AJ vs K9 when he spazzed out with a pair and FD.

Anyways that's enough bitching for now. Hopefully the next few days go well. Here's the graph so far of my paltry hands I've put in:

May Review

So after my SCOOP cash I withdrew the $50 that i put in to play and left myself with $55. I'm going to try to build up from that. I played 2NL and worked my way up to about $70. I made a good run in the Big $4.40 and boosted that up to $90, all in the last week of May. So my plan is to keep grinding 2NL for a while longer and move up the stakes. I'm only playing a few small buy-in tournies here and there. I cashed in the Big $4.40 again last night and was up to $95. So that's where it sits. I'm currently playing the Bigger $5.50 and will be playing the Sunday Storm. So we'll see how things go, but so far it's off to a good start.

PokerStars Tournament #806011346, No Limit Hold'em

Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40 USD

6899 players

Total Prize Pool: $27596.00 USD 

Tournament started 2013/05/25 18:30:00 AT [2013/05/25 17:30:00 ET]

Dear madman1701,

You finished the tournament in 128th place. A USD 21.80 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

PokerStars Tournament #807011346, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40 USD
7428 players
Total Prize Pool: $29712.00 USD 
Tournament started 2013/06/01 18:30:00 AT [2013/06/01 17:30:00 ET]


Dear madman1701,

You finished the tournament in 308th place. A USD 12.18 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

SCOOP + Life

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy with life and just haven't had much time to play.

I played in the 2 $27 NLHE SCOOP events on Sunday. I busted out of the first one about 2k from the money and the second one I finished in the money.

PokerStars Tournament #2013050221, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $24.55/$2.45 USD 

25172 players
Total Prize Pool: $617972.60 USD  

Tournament started 2013/05/19 15:30:00 AT [2013/05/19 14:30:00 ET] 

Dear madman1701,

You finished the tournament in 1273rd place. A USD 105.05 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

I was only at 2 tables. The first one I chipped up consistently but the second table was different. There was a big winning reg on my direct left. And he/she was pwning me. Constantly raising me post flop and relentlessly 3-betting me pre-flop. Most of the time I was in the HJ or CO trying to steal blinds so I never had much to 4-bet with. I suppose I could have 4-bet bluffed but I pussied out. Bottom line. I'm very disappointed with how I played vs this opponent. Something I really need to work on. Still a good finish for me but it could have been so much more.

Life. Well the weather has been great here and the kids are really enjoying being outside and going to the park. My Fiance and I bought some rollerblades and use those to travel around since our apartment is right next to the paved walking trail that will take you anywhere you need to go. I also had my first epic wipe-out on them the other day when I smoked a pot-hole on the dirt/gravel road back into the apartment. 

My job, well, we lost another big contract. Needless to say it's not looking to bright for a good season. So I have decided to check-raise life and contacted the company that currently has all the work. They have a few jobs starting up in the next few weeks/months and I hope I can get on with them. Shouldn't be a problem. Now hopefully life doesn't 3-bet/jam on me and I get coolered, because that would suck lol.

Donkament Punishments

Well it's been a while again. My MM series ended with a cash in the Main Event. The only cash I had in the series. I made a fairly good run finishing 1875/68,081 for $95.31. It all came to an end when I shipped my 14bbs back into the Button opener, who had about 30bbs. I had A9 he tanked for a bit but finally called with AJ. I had a few more good finishes: 41/919 for $28, 184/11813, 176/7817, not really good $$ but decent runs none-the-less. Botched everything I played today and burned about $60, came close to the money a few times but fell short so that sucked.

On the work-front, nothing is on the books yet until July. I almost got sent to the states, which would have been good/bad. Good for the money and high possibility of being close to a casino, bad cuz of the online situation. Since I plan on playing a major live event this fall I would rather practice with my live play anyways so not super terrible.

Now for some hands:

This one was from the main event. I didn't want to blow V off the hand on the flop or turn by raising but I felt that if I checked again on the river he would check behind based on the smallish bets he was making.




This one was from today vs a 75/4 whale, otherwise I wouldn't have played it so strong.




This hand I got lucky. I figured I was ahead of most of his range here so I popped it up. The raise was pot-committing so I had to call. Still not too sure if this was the right move. He was 24/12 with a 67 cbet over 75 hands so it can't be terrible.

Not Going Well

So I have failed to cash in any of the MM events I have played so far, which blows. In almost every event I play I manage to build up a great stack and I mean 200-300bb's early on then either go completely card dead or hit a huge cooler vs another big stack. It is really frustrating because the field is just so damn soft. It is soooo easy to chip up it's not even funny and I have consistently proven that. Now I have done my fair share of sucking out and maybe it's just Karma lol. For example today I have 56dd and open in LP to 300 (blinds 50/100) and the BTN makes it 700. I flat and flop comes 56K rainbow. I c/r blah blah gii on the flop and hold vs his AK. Anyways the common occurrence is just hitting a cooler like set over set for tourney life or a weirdly played pot by a fish who rivers me for half stack, shit like that. I thought I had it under control today but the same thing happened over a few hands. I'll post some in the re-player tomorrow cuz it's kinda late. Playing the Main Event for sure and hope to smash that. I know I can do it because I have been consistent so far.

I also joined tiltbook.com which seems okish. Once more people join I think it can go far. Check it out sometime. GL at the tables!

Sunday Poker

I played the Sunday Storm and the Bigger $11 yesterday. I busted out of the storm as per usual, but I was running like god in the Bigger $11. I was also super focused and making lots of good reads. It also helped that I had AA 4 times and they held each time. Then this hand happened. I stayed around 150bb's the whole tourney which is impressive in itself. I think I played the hand well. Everything went the way I wanted it to, I read his hand correctly it just didn't work out.





So that hand sucked and I couldn't get anything going. The table broke and the first 2 hands were disastrous at the new table. Pretty standard obv, but it still sucked. Was hoping for a really deep run. Here's the hand analysis post from 2+2




Then the very next hand:




If I can have a run like that in one of the Micro-Millions that would be awesome, minus the bad beats of course :P

MicroMillions

So micro millions is starting up again on the 14th. I plan on playing a good number of them, right around $100 in buy-ins. I'm hoping that I can run good in a couple, that would be nice. Not cashing for so long has been taking a mental toll on me. I know I'm not the greatest player around but I also know I'm good enough to beat these soft fields. So here is the tentative lineup:

14th- $75k GTD Zoom - $5.50
         $25k GTD - $3.30
16th- $75k GTD Super KO - $11.00
         $15k GTD - $2.20
17th- $300k GTD Sunday Storm - $11.00
18th- $50k GTD - $5.50
19th- $30k GTD - $5.50
20th- $50k GTD - $8.80
21st- $30k GTD - $5.50
23rd- $50k GTD - $8.80
24th- $300k GTD Sunday Storm - $11.00
         $1M GTD Main Event - $22.00

So we'll see how they go, I hope well. Also me and my father are going to start playing live at the local legion. I just learned they run a tourney on friday's the attract about 40-60 players. I assume most will be of the older sort so I should have a good edge against this field. The structure is okish:

Buyin- $20
1R or 1A - $20
Stack- 4,000, RB or AO worth 4,000
Blinds 30mins for 1st hr then 15mins for the remainder. Blinds start at 25/50

We will be going starting next Friday. Anyways, see you on the tables!

WPT Montreal 2013

So I have a big goal for the end of this year. I plan on playing in the WPT Montreal Main Event. The info is as follows:

Nov.29-Dec.5, 2013.
Playground Poker Club
$3500+$350, Re-Entry
60 min blinds
30,000 Starting Stack
Blinds start at 50/100

I've been to Playground Poker before and it really is a great poker room. I'm really excited to play this event for a few reasons. One being, of course, that it's my first major live tournament. The other reason being that my dad also wants to come and play it as well. So some good company for the trip up there. Should be lots of fun.

I have a ton of work to do to prep for this event. Once I leave for the field season I will be focusing exclusively on my poker game. I would like to be able to pay for the buy-in from poker winnings from the summer rather than my own money. Now, I had a similar goal to this last year, which was to make $10k by the time the season was over. Instead I played World of Tanks and didn't stick to my plan. That is going to change this year. I am super motivated to be good enough to just win my way into the tourney. So that's that for now and we will see how it goes. I am trying to Sat into the 7th Anniversary Sunday Mill tomorrow. I hope I can at least Sat in that would be nice but they are expecting about 20k ppl in this sat with 1k seats GTD. I'll try to keep this blog updated this time and not just let it die off like I did last year.

February Review

So how did it go? Well I didn't stick to my BR management like I said I was going to. I played more tourneys than I should have and hit a bad streak of not cashing. There was some run bad but I was also calling down light in some spots which caused me to have to gamble in marginal situations. I had a few coolers but that's to be expected.


Cash:

Tourneys:

So time to reset again. It sucks playing with a small roll but I con't afford a bigger roll until later on. When I do get my roll I am definitely getting some coaching. So sick of losing all the time. I know I'm capable of being a consistent winning player, I just need help spotting my big leaks.

Weekend Results

So the weekend was fairly break even. I was running ok at the cash tables but then hit a downswing where everyone had me beat. Ran my AQ into AK for a buy-in, had a straight with J9 and the only hand that could beat me was AJ, and yup they had it; QQ vs KK straight vs flush it just kept coming. I ended my session down 10$.

I played a few tourneys today; the Sunday Storm, Bigger $11 and the Bigger $8.80. I on;y cashed in the Bigger $11 for $15.94.

I played 4 SNG's and cashed in 2 of them for $22.93 and $12.91. So I basically just made my money back which, I suppose, is better than a kick in the ass lol.

I made it to Chrome Star today. Nothing much to brag about, only 100VPP's but hey.

Tourneys:

Cash Graph:

Some Headway

I made some headway today, which is nice. It's a bit tedious grinding up such low stakes, but hey it has to be done. I did a lot of studying the last day or so and have started incorporating it into my game which has gone well so far. There was a huge whale at my table who had an 86% VPIP, LOL. He always had a hand or chased to the river and got there. I lost about a buy-in to him, and after reviewing the hands in my HM I determined it was not necessary for that to happen. I was just getting stubborn.

I plan on playing a couple tourneys tomorrow. I do enjoy them so I will keep it in moderation.

The graph so far:

So, here I am.

Well it's been a while. I totally botched my goals from last year. I've still been playing a bit but not too much. Cashed in a few tourneys here and there, nothing crazy though. The job I was on last summer got shut down for 3 weeks which cost me about $5k which sucked. I took most of my roll out and bought a Madagascar Giant Day Gecko, which is awesome and I don't regret buying him. So yah other than working not much has happened  My kids turned 3 in December which was nice. I've been getting the poker itch again and I want to stick to it this time. Unfortunately I don't have a ton of money to play. I deposited 150$ a couple days ago and got in around 730 hands playing .02/.05cent. I was up a couple buy-ins but lost it and am back to even. A couple bad spots like running AQ into AK on a A high flop, running my set into a flopped flush and didn't improve. Nothing I'm too worried about yet. Think I'm playing somewhat ok.

I have been reading posts in the uFR forums and am astounded in how things have changed. I'm seeing people recommending bigger 3bets when they are already 3betting to 3x and flop and turn bets "much bigger" when they are betting around 60%. To me that seems to be pushing ppl off of hands and not extracting value. I'm going to continue reading some of these posts and see what I come up with.

I finally got a desk and chair for my laptop. I got a cork board with open raising ranges and Equity stats for different situations vs different types of players. It's not done yet but I will have it done next week.

So yah, my plan for now:
- Play $5nl until I can move up.
- Play SNGs to try and boost roll a bit.
- Study, study, study.
- Don't lose my BR.

The graph so far: