Funny screen names

OK. It's 3:30 in the morning and I just finished cashing in all 3 of my SNGs: 2 wins and a 2nd place.

I pop on over to Cardplayer.com to see the results from the big weekend tourneys and two screen names are amusing me this late:

"Monster Dong" and "MyBallzUrFace"

LOL sorry just had to share.

Pleasant surprise

I was at my in laws yesterday perusing the boards and blogs. I popped on over to see if Annette had posted anything new and it turns out last month she wrote an entry linking a lot of blogs that have links to hers.

Lo and behold in the US section I saw "Dray". :) It was a really nice surprise. I'm a big Annette fan and I get excited anytime I find out she's deep in a tournament. When she won the WSOP Europe, I was watching live video feeds of the tourney all weekend long cheering her on. So it was very satisfying and exciting to find out she took down her first bracelet at the age of 19. It was really sweet to see her shed a few tears of joy behind her trademark glasses. All serious players out there can only dream of the moment they win a bracelet.

Check out her blog, she updates it about once a month. And watch out for her, in just a couple of more years she's going to tear the US tournament circuit UP.

SNGs so far....

I'm 2 weeks into this SNG experiment. Lately I've been playing 3 tables at a time in an attempt to get some volume in. So far I've played 38 games and cashed in 19, or half of them. I've got 3 firsts, 11 seconds, and 5 thirds. I'm only up about 13 bucks or so, but if you think about it in terms of buyins that's about 6 or 7 so really not all THAT bad.

The thing I hate about playing multiple tables though is that I feel like I'm being way to nitty (tight). I'm basically just playing good hands only, and not getting fancy at all. I mean if you think about it, how can that really be a bad thing right? At a low level like $2.25 there are so many bad players that are going to make mistakes that you don't really have to get crafty. Still, there's that nagging part of me that feels like I'm missing out on opportunities because I just can't focus that much on each table as I'm playing. It really feels crappy when you don't get any playable hands, you're super short stacked on the bubble and at the mercy of the cards.

I've made a couple of 2+2 friends to exchange hands with and one of them said that you really do have to play multiple tables though if you want to make any sort of money. So I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it.

I've been good about sticking to my plan too I must say. I've only played one other game, a $1.30 turbo shootout satellite where you have to win your table to advance to the next round. I came really close in that for 2nd place. Got my money in good heads up too and it just didn't work out. Besides that, it's just been point tourneys but I'm almost out of those. :/

I still have somewhat of a tournament itch, but what I plan to do is just play the month out like I decided, take a look at what I make and THEN decide if I want to risk any portion of it for a longshot tournament.

One hand history just because of how freaking crazy it is (i'm a luckbox btw):

Full Tilt Poker Game #10616492470: $2 + $0.25 Sit & Go (80075916), Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:50:48 ET - 2009/02/13
Seat 1: Dray (2,410)
Seat 2: RJT612 (1,640)
Seat 3: GrammyDebi (1,909)
Seat 4: Cardinal 31 (3,436)
Seat 6: Gozza616 (2,370)
Seat 7: tony1983 (1,735)
tony1983 posts the small blind of 50
Dray posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dray [Th Td]
RJT612 raises to 350
GrammyDebi calls 350
Cardinal 31 folds
Gozza616 folds
tony1983 folds
Dray raises to 2,410, and is all in
RJT612 calls 1,290, and is all in
GrammyDebi calls 1,559, and is all in
Dray shows [Th Td]
RJT612 shows [Kd Ks]
GrammyDebi shows [Kh Kc]
Uncalled bet of 501 returned to Dray
*** FLOP *** [9d Ts 9s]
Dray is feeling confused
*** TURN *** [9d Ts 9s] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [9d Ts 9s Jc] [4c]
Dray shows a full house, Tens full of Nines
GrammyDebi shows two pair, Kings and Nines
Dray wins the side pot (538) with a full house, Tens full of Nines
RJT612 shows two pair, Kings and Nines
Dray wins the main pot (4,970) with a full house, Tens full of Nines
RJT612 stands up
GrammyDebi stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5,508 Main pot 4,970. Side pot 538. | Rake 0
Board: [9d Ts 9s Jc 4c]
Seat 1: Dray (big blind) showed [Th Td] and won (5,508) with a full house, Tens full of Nines
Seat 2: RJT612 showed [Kd Ks] and lost with two pair, Kings and Nines
Seat 3: GrammyDebi showed [Kh Kc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Nines
Seat 4: Cardinal 31 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Gozza616 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: tony1983 (small blind) folded before the Flop

Oh and btw, no signifcant developments on the job front. I had one interview for a real estate entry level job week before last and I don't think they're calling me back for a 2nd interview. I saw they reposted the position on Craig's list so I'm taking that as a no. :(

I have been pulling quite a few hours at the station working in production though and that's been a LOT of fun. I got to produce a club spot for Club Worship in Showboat Casino in Atlantic city last night. It was my first time to put something like that together and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Looking at REAL poker nutjob's January results

I just finished bubbling (just outside the money for the non poker people) in my $2.25 sit n go tonight. I'm going to play another but in between games I was looking at this thread: January results

I was really curious to see what good player's results look like for a month and what the fluctuations are. If you look at that thread these guys post graphs, how many games they played, their return on investment (ROI), etc. I'm not even going to come close to the sheer volume they put in because I'm not going to play 6-10 tables at a time. I've never been all that comfortable or confident even with my HUD display software.

While most of these guys are playing much higher stakes and therefore have impressive profits, I was happy to find this guy:

28% roi 2.25 156games=99 <--- the stakes I'm playing
11% roi 5.50 1222games =740
mtts=403
total profit=1232
meh grind the 5.50s didnt play nearly as much as i had expected too tryin to make at least 2kgames a month

I don't think I can get 156 games in without playing more than one table at a time. The last 2 months I've only gotten in 10-15 games. I think I can shoot for around 50-60 games in a month of not being employed. These things take like at least an hour to play if you're making the money. I figure if I can get in at least 2 or 3 games a day I can get a decent volume for me in.

It's promising to see numbers I could live with in $2.25's and $5.50s. I'm REALLY impressed at a $740 profit in $5.50s.

New strategy for Feb

I'll make this quick because I've been on the 'puter for an hour while me and Kristina are watching Tyra (don't laugh). I was online last night and was reading up on bankroll management. I popped over to the beginners questions on 2+2 and found links under the heading "What is bankroll management". The person posted a thread about cash games on Full Tilt and that the rake is so high, you shouldn't even play the $10 games if you want to make money. It's really impossible to beat.

However, he DID say that if you have 40 buyins for SNGs to play those. So as of today, I'm cutting out cash games completely online and playing nothing but $2.25 SNGs. As far as tournaments go they offer the best value for your dollar because 33% of the field is going to get paid. In big multitable tourneys, usually only 10% is getting paid and there's so much variance.

Right now I've got about 55 buyins with a balance of $130ish. My SNG records for the last couple of months haven't been too great, but I think that may have a lot do with a lack of concentration. I'm going to really try and focus when I'm playing this month, get a good # of games in, and we'll have to see what happens.