Another deep run tonight.

Last night I played 2 tournies, a $3.30 deep stack and a $5.50 bounty 6 max. I went deep in both, moreso in the 6 max. 19/368 players and claimed 7 $1 bounties altogether. It was a pretty crazy rollercoaster towards the end where I was putting some pretty bad beats on people. I really thought I'd end up final tabling just because of that, but alas feel short. $12 profit altogether. I had chips in the $3.30 for a while but didn't end up cashing.

My sleep schedule was all out of wack today because I was up all night, slept for 4 hours and then got up to go to my wife's doctor's appointment. We also went grocery shopping too, and rather than take a nap I wanted to stay up so I could watch the season premiere of Fringe - one of my FAVORITE shows on TV. The only thing I don't like about Fringe is that there's never any resolution! :) They just keep things hanging all the time. So we both crashed out after the show and I woke up at 2am and jumped into the same $3.30 deep stack tourney. Instead of the $5.50 I opted for another $3.30, a turbo deep stack bounty sng, for my 2nd table.

I got 2nd in that one and for the first time used the new "make a deal" feature that full tilt FINALLY implemented after years of there being no way to do that. It's really easy because they do all the math for you, the default I guess is chopping it up based on ICM (Independent Chip Modeling). I know I'm going to botch this explanation but that calculates your equity for the prize pool based on your chip count. I really don't understand this math side of poker very well, but to make things simpler - the deal basically got my an extra $9. The difference between 2nd and first place was $20 essentially and since we had nearly even chips, we halfed that $20. If he had me 3-1 in chips then I probably would only have gotten and extra 2 or 3 bucks. In which case making a deal probably wouldn't have really mattered. But overall it was a $50 profit and as Jules and Vincent would say in Pulp Fiction: "We Happy."

I cashed 28/377 in the $3.30 deep stack as well. It was sick at the end I ran into Aces TWICE with my big playable hands on the bubble. LOL so for a 3 hour game I made less than $2.

But hey, I'm pretty amazed that I've had 4 pretty deep tournament runs this month with the small sample size I've put in. Even though tournies don't pay much until the end, I still think they're more exciting than cash games. It just seems I get so bored in cash games for whatever reason. Tournaments always have the element of excitement and anticipation which I've always liked, even if you can make more money from cash games.

So anyways I'll probably be up for a few more hours, I go back to work tonight. :( I will leave with a movie recommendation, and that is Vicky Cristina Barcelona starring Scarlett Johanssen Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, who most people will recognize as the villain from No Country For Old Men. Cruz won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in it this past year. It's a Woody Allen movie, romantic comedy but not your typical Matthew Mcconaughey or Jennifer Aniston style blockbuster formula.

It's a story of 2 friends, Vicky and Cristina, who go to Barcelona for the summer and have 2 completely opposite views on love. Vicky's engaged to be married - values committment and stability. Cristina is passionate and free spirited - she knows what she doesn't want (typical accepted relationship standards), but she also doesn't know WHAT she wants. They meet a painter (Bardem) who's known for his publicized fiery split with his ex wife (Cruz) and he invites the girls to fly with him to a small Spanish town to go look at sculptures. It really just takes off from there - but I just think that the script is great and there are lot of great interactions between the characters and a LOT of really funny moments.

So yeah, I recommend it. LOL

June SNG report

I LOVE having enough bankroll to play these now instead of the $2.25's. I never did May calculations because I only played about 10 games. This month's isn't a huge sample by any means, but it's kept me afloat in addition to rakeback and an affiliate deposit so that I can take more shots at bigger tournament money.

45 SNGS x 5.50 = $247.50

8 1sts x 22.50 = $180

7 2nds x 13.50 = $94.50

6 3rds x 9 = $54.00

$247.50 invested
$328.50 returned
Profit = $81 OR 14.72 buyins
ROI = 32.7%


45 games, 21 cashes, 46% cash rate


World Series of Poker Main Event starts today! w00t!

The Sunday home games is finally getting back together this weekend after a 2 month hiatus. We're playing at Herbie's, it should be gooooooodddd. :)

A tale of two Queens

Just did 4 table round on $5.50s with a 7th, two 2nds and a win. That coupled with the nice little cash session I had Saturday night has me up to $460, almost another $100 month at this point. :)


Full Tilt Poker Game #12965361001: $5 +

$0.50 Sit & Go (96290089), Table 1 -

20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 12:07:43 ET

- 2009/06/22
Seat 1: Zimbolyoner (1,470)
Seat 2: Dray (1,555)
Seat 3: genepink (2,220)
Seat 4: screweylouie (1,455)
Seat 5: maindecoeur (2,540)
Seat 8: DerDerSiegt (2,660)
Seat 9: thaifyta2gzz (1,600)
maindecoeur posts the small blind of 20
DerDerSiegt posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dray [Qs Qc]
thaifyta2gzz folds
Zimbolyoner folds
genepink: joli
Dray raises to 100
genepink folds
screweylouie folds
maindecoeur folds
DerDerSiegt calls 60
*** FLOP *** [4d Ad Jc]
DerDerSiegt checks
Dray bets 120
DerDerSiegt raises to 320
Dray has 15 seconds left to act
Dray folds
Uncalled bet of 200 returned to

DerDerSiegt
DerDerSiegt mucks
DerDerSiegt wins the pot (460)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 460 | Rake 0
Board: [4d Ad Jc]
Seat 1: Zimbolyoner didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: Dray folded on the Flop
Seat 3: genepink didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: screweylouie (button) didn't

bet (folded)
Seat 5: maindecoeur (small blind)

folded before the Flop
Seat 8: DerDerSiegt (big blind)

collected (460), mucked
Seat 9: thaifyta2gzz didn't bet

(folded)




Full Tilt Poker Game #12965886750: $5 +

$0.50 Sit & Go (96290096), Table 1 -

100/200 - No Limit Hold'em - 12:49:55

ET - 2009/06/22
Seat 4: Elminster81 (6,560)
Seat 5: Dray (3,360)
Seat 9: ThePanoramic (3,580)
ThePanoramic posts the small blind of

100
Elminster81 posts the big blind of 200
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dray [Qd Qs]
Dray raises to 500
ThePanoramic calls 400
Elminster81 folds
*** FLOP *** [Kd 5h 2h]
ThePanoramic has 15 seconds left to act
ThePanoramic checks
Dray checks
*** TURN *** [Kd 5h 2h] [6s]
ThePanoramic bets 1,200
Dray calls 1,200
*** RIVER *** [Kd 5h 2h 6s] [9h]
ThePanoramic has 15 seconds left to act
ThePanoramic checks
Dray checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ThePanoramic shows [As Th] Ace King

high
Dray shows [Qd Qs] a pair of Queens
Dray wins the pot (3,600) with a pair

of Queens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,600 | Rake 0
Board: [Kd 5h 2h 6s 9h]
Seat 4: Elminster81 (big blind) folded

before the Flop
Seat 5: Dray (button) showed [Qd Qs]

and won (3,600) with a pair of Queens
Seat 9: ThePanoramic (small blind)

showed [As Th] and lost with Ace King

high

April SNG results

So April was a really good month overall thanks to my MTT successes. A 90 man win and 3rd in a 180 man. Then there was that 7th place close call followed by rant post a few days ago. And just tonight it looked like I'd get there again but busted 14th. :/

SNGs I was a slight loser this month:

83 sngs X 2.25 = $186.75

9 wins x 9 = $81

12 2nds X 5.40 = $64.80

8 3rds X 3.60 = $28.80

2 ?'s (ftp server outage) = $10.48

$185.08 total returned
Profit - ($1.67)

83 sngs, 31 cashes, 37% cash rate

I was up further in my overall balance but I took a shot the other night in a $26 Knockout 90 man and busted, although I did get a $4 discount with the one bounty I collected.

It's late I'm about to crash. I just want to say that Kristina and I went to see George Clinton on Wednesday night and we weren't really impressed at all. We partially blame ourselves because we're not willing to get up front with the crowd to really experience the show which would probably have made it better.

All the characters on stage were pretty damn funny I'll admit, but even watching from the back of Stubbs to see the entire stage there's so much going on it's hard to even know what to pay attention to.

My biggest problem with the show though was just the songs went so long and even though it's apparent that the musicians are really skilled in the band, 10 minute solos on every other song just gets old. The absolute best part of the show was when he brought the newest member singer Mary Griffin who absolutely KILLED it with a more bluesy song, which they followed up with Give Up the Funk. But the rest of the time we both found ourselves easily distracted with whatever else was happening in the venue.

But I always wanted to see Parliament so now I can say I have and I doubt I'll pay the $ to go again.

The hits keep on comin

I had me another nice run in an MTT, 3rd in a $2.25 180 man good for like $45. That boosts me up to like $275. It's funny how streaky poker is. I've actually been indecisive on what to do with this money boost, like what direction to go in. Sometimes I get bit by the tournament bug really bad and that's what I find myself looking for constantly. But I also know that the variance is so high, I don't REALLY want to bang away at them because the money's always few and far between.

Honestly lately I've been so indecisive lately that when I'm not feeling it I either don't play at all or just very little. I haven't started 4 tabling $5 sngs and I'm glad because the $2.25's I've been grinding the last 2 weeks haven't been going well at all. It seems like the last few sessions I've put in I cash in 1 out of the 4 I play and it's usually a 3rd or 2nd. Good thing I'm making up for it in other games!

I'm thinking about straight buying into the $33 WSOP satellite in two Sundays. It's a big guarantee for $2500 packages to the series, $1000 buyin for event #4 and $1500 travel expenses. My interest in tokens and satelliting in for less is really down because I'd probably spend the same amount trying to win the dang buyin. I dunno we'll see. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and take it as it comes.

Real world update I officially have a job with Blizzard Entertainment, the company that created World of Warcraft. I start training in a week. The pay is kind of low so I'm still keeping my eyes out for other opportunities. I actually have an interview with a real estate company tomorrow to be there admin assistant. The pay's a little closer to what I was making at SWA but they don't offer benefits. Whatever happens I'll be happy to be working again. Blizzard seems like a really cool company with a very young employee base. I already have two friends that work for them.

OK I'm getting distracted from the $3.30 90 man I'm in right now. Later!

Annoying

The start of this month I was running insanely good and the last few days it's starting to even out. The last 2 or 3 rounds I've put in I've cashed in maybe 1 out of 4, no wins either.

This just happened and I wanted to post it because it's really annoying to me. It really eggs me when I've spent 10 minutes shoving and abusing the bubble and the tightwad that's not playing anything does this to me in 2 hands:


Full Tilt Poker Game #11625563951: $2 +

$0.25 Sit & Go (87248110), Table 1 -

150/300 - No Limit Hold'em - 10:24:47

ET - 2009/04/11
Seat 3: 1Krom (4,380)
Seat 4: Dray (4,415)
Seat 7: romasik77 (1,910)
Seat 8: skeyediver (2,795)
Dray posts the small blind of 150
romasik77 posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dray [Ks Th]
skeyediver folds
1Krom folds
Dray raises to 4,415, and is all in
romasik77 has 15 seconds left to act
romasik77 calls 1,610, and is all in
Dray shows [Ks Th]
romasik77 shows [6c 5c]
Uncalled bet of 2,505 returned to Dray
*** FLOP *** [Qc 8c 2c]
*** TURN *** [Qc 8c 2c] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [Qc 8c 2c 9h] [5d]
Dray shows King Queen high
romasik77 shows a flush, Queen high
romasik77 wins the pot (3,820) with a

flush, Queen high
Dray is feeling angry
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,820 | Rake 0
Board: [Qc 8c 2c 9h 5d]
Seat 3: 1Krom (button) didn't bet

(folded)
Seat 4: Dray (small blind) showed [Ks

Th] and lost with King Queen high
Seat 7: romasik77 (big blind) showed

[6c 5c] and won (3,820) with a flush,

Queen high
Seat 8: skeyediver didn't bet (folded)

Full Tilt Poker Game #11625569699: $2 +

$0.25 Sit & Go (87248110), Table 1 -

150/300 - No Limit Hold'em - 10:25:20

ET - 2009/04/11
Seat 3: 1Krom (4,380)
Seat 4: Dray (2,505)
Seat 7: romasik77 (3,820)
Seat 8: skeyediver (2,795)
romasik77 posts the small blind of 150
skeyediver posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dray [Ac 4h]
1Krom folds
Dray raises to 2,505, and is all in
romasik77 raises to 3,820, and is all

in
skeyediver folds
romasik77 shows [Js Ah]
Dray shows [Ac 4h]
Uncalled bet of 1,315 returned to

romasik77
*** FLOP *** [Kc Jh 5h]
Dray: gg
*** TURN *** [Kc Jh 5h] [7h]
*** RIVER *** [Kc Jh 5h 7h] [2s]
romasik77 shows a pair of Jacks
Dray shows Ace King high
romasik77 wins the pot (5,310) with a

pair of Jacks
Dray stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5,310 | Rake 0
Board: [Kc Jh 5h 7h 2s]
Seat 3: 1Krom didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Dray (button) showed [Ac 4h]

and lost with Ace King high
Seat 7: romasik77 (small blind) showed

[Js Ah] and won (5,310) with a pair of

Jacks
Seat 8: skeyediver (big blind) folded

before the Flop

Sorry for the poor formatting this is just how it looked after I pasted it into Notepad. I got my first rakeback deposit yesterday for $3.70 which is cool.

On a real world note I've been working as a temp at a call center for the last week. The shift is from 7am-2:30pm and the people there are really laid back. They don't regiment your breaks they just want you to document them. The break room has internet and Wii. It sucks getting up going to be early and waking up at 5:45 but I really like getting out at 2:30. Not battling traffic is pretty sweet too.

I still need to keep looking for a permanent job though. I did my minimum searches all on Monday when I was off and nothing since. I called and did a phone interview for a dentist's office, still haven't heard back about that. One of Kristina's friends had a lead for me too in her friend's husband's office. Some guy is going to be putting in his 2 weeks this week I think. It's an inventory type job and it's supposed to be a pretty decent company with lots of perks.

What else...we're probably going to be getting a new car soon. We took Kristina's civic to get appraised for hail damage yesterday and they said it was really close to totaling out. So we might end up taking the money and getting a used car that has four doors. That's our primary concern because trying to get a baby in and out of that thing would be a pain in the ass. I always thought we'd be replacing my car but it's been 3 or 4 years since I've talked about it and it's never happened. It's at 191K miles right now (Mazda Protege) and even though it has no AC, among other things, I still think I can get a couple more years out of it.

Also, we were looking into possibly transferring into a 1 bed/1 study apartment this week that was going to be cheaper than the rent we're paying. But that got totally screwed because I don't have a job and so I wouldn't be able to pass their screen for that. Dammit. Kristina wasn't happy with the situation, but I thought about it and at least the timing of my layoff was good to where our lease isn't up until August. If it had come up sooner and we were looking to move we'd be facing the same situation.

That's enough for now. Here's a made for TV hand that I played this morning:

Full Tilt Poker Game #11625332924: $2 + $0.25 Sit & Go (87248199), Table 1 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold'em - 10:01:30 ET - 2009/04/11
Seat 1: volucer (3,520)
Seat 2: bellheim (2,350)
Seat 3: crazyboyroy (2,820)
Seat 4: Sphageus (935)
Seat 5: SwannySA (1,490)
Seat 6: Dray (1,650)
Seat 7: mt204 (735)
volucer posts the small blind of 60
bellheim posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Dray [Ac 4c]
crazyboyroy folds
Sphageus has 15 seconds left to act
Sphageus folds
SwannySA folds
Dray raises to 1,650, and is all in
mt204 folds
volucer folds
bellheim calls 1,530
Dray shows [Ac 4c]
bellheim shows [5d 5c]
*** FLOP *** [3s Ad 5s]
*** TURN *** [3s Ad 5s] [2c]
*** RIVER *** [3s Ad 5s 2c] [5h]
Dray shows a straight, Five high
bellheim shows four of a kind, Fives
bellheim wins the pot (3,360) with four of a kind, Fives
Dray stands up
The blinds are now 80/160
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,360 | Rake 0
Board: [3s Ad 5s 2c 5h]
Seat 1: volucer (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: bellheim (big blind) showed [5d 5c] and won (3,360) with four of a kind, Fives
Seat 3: crazyboyroy didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Sphageus didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: SwannySA didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Dray showed [Ac 4c] and lost with a straight, Five high
Seat 7: mt204 (button) didn't bet (folded)

March SNG recap

Crunched the numbers this afternoon in Notepad:

69 regular $2.25 9 man SNGs = $155.25 invested
14 wins X $9 = $126
7 seconds X $5.40 = $37.8
9 thirds X $3.60 = $32.40

$196.20 total returned
Profit = $40.95


15 turbo $2.25 9 man SNGs = $33.75 invested
2 wins X $9 = $18
3 seconds X $5.40 = $16.2
1 thirds X 3.60 = $3.60

$37.80 total returned
Profit = $4.05

13 turbo $2.25 6 man SNGs = $29.25 invested
1 win = $9
3 seconds X $5.40 = $16.2
4 thirds X $3.60 = $14.4

$39.60 total returned
Profit = $10.35


$218.25 total invested
$273.60 total returned

$55.35 total profit or 24.6 buyins
ROI = 25%

97 SNGs, 44 cashes, 45% cash rate.

I crapped out again on my goal to stick to SNG's all month. I instead decided to take repeated shots at bigger money with my profits. I played 6 double stacked 90 man knockouts and made two final tables, a 6th and 7th. $12, and $6 profit respectively. Close, but no cigar in my book.

Also played some token games, some multi table tourneys and I also put in quite a few turbo heads up SNGs compared to my normal rate. I mainly wanted to get a little more practice in the quick format in the hopes to improve my performance in the SNGs.

I can't say definitively it had anything to do with it but compared to last months results I had twice as many firsts as seconds. February was the other way around. It's funny when you look back at the stats too, the cash rate is still the same but the profit difference is almost doubled, including the ROI.

Overall I ended up like $15 from the balance I started at the beginning of March. I think it would be tempting to think "Man why didn't I just stick to SNG's and I'd have $40 more added to the balance?" But then I thought that if I played more SNG's there's no guarantee that the profits would still be the same. I could have played maybe 50 more and then ran a little worse and maybe the profits wouldn't have been as high. Who knows?

It reminds me of an interview with Alan Cunningham on Pokerroad radio. He was talking about how it's really hard to know how good of a player you really are in poker. Like any good scientific study it takes a lot of data to get a realistic picture of trends, you know?

I saw a 2+2 post in the SNG forum where a guy had 800 games in and was asking about his play and a lot of people told him that he couldn't draw any real conclusions based on EIGHT HUNDRED GAMES! At the rate I'm playing averaging 100 games a month it's going to take me 6 more months to get to that guys sample size and yet I still can't draw conclusions?

It has to do with variance and how good/bad you run. One guy said you could look at an 800 game sample of his and say he's one of the best there is. And you could take a different 800 games sample and call him a huge donk. That's why players who win big televised tournaments can have a phenomenal year or two and then do nothing for the next 3, 4 or 5.

All I can say is that I KNOW with certainty I ran DAMN good this month and that made a huge difference in the stats. Still, it would be nice to even have enough bankroll to play $5 tournaments to where I could be content with the monthly profits from just grinding SNGs.

The definition of break even

Up late again. Last night I spent my session trying to parlay a $5.25 heads up SNG "shot" into a token. Won the first one, played a 2nd and won that. Entered a $6.60 token sng and got 2nd for another $4. Entered an $8.70 turbo token 2 table sng and whiffed. Overall I still finished up a few bucks.

I was 6 tabling over the weekend during SNG Madness. It's a Full Tilt promotion where they reward the top finishers at each stake level for ever 2 hour block of time, all weekend long. I really just wanted to see how far up the leaderboard I could get and the answer was: not very. You really have to do like 10-20 turbo tables at a time to stand a chance. I mean, think about it how many SNG's can you really play in 2 hours time if you're lasting in the majority of them? They average an hour's play time. If they calculate points by cashes then you have to cash in an assload to get up to the top.

My first batch of SNGs I did well 2 firsts, 3 2nds and a 3rd out of 15. The next day I tried to do turbo 6 mans and it didn't go quite so well and I ended down.

As for TONIGHT, instead of trying for another token mission I went back to grinding regular SNGs. After 6 tabling during SNG madness, I'm now going to be 4 tabling from here on out. Which brings me to the title of this post and it's accompanying visual aid. I played 11 9 man sngs and an 18 man for shits and giggles. 2 firsts, 1 second and a third for the 9 mans and no cash in the 18 man leads to exactly break even for the night:



To the far right you'll see the ending balance column 2nd from the right. Just above the highlighted portion it starts with 130.13, and it ends with.....130.13! I just thought that was amusing.

Another thing that made me crack up last night was in that turbo token game. First hand a guy busts out with turned trip fours when he gets all the money in against a guy who flopped an open ended straight flush draw with 35 of clubs. River hits a straight and the guy just types

loll
lol
lol
lol
lol
lol

I just couldn't stop cracking up for some reason. Simple minds are amused by simple things I guess. All I could do was type lol in the chat myself.