The Gaming Club WSOP Challenge - HUSH Style

[lastcoyote]

Last week I entered a challenge offered by The Gaming Club where the are awarding a WSOP Main Event seat + airfare + hotel + $500 in return for playing 120K hands (or paying $15K in rake with a min. of 100K hands) before the end of day Pacific Time on June 30.

I'm posting here because most of the hands I will be playing will be at 6-max tables and because 6-max play is my nemesis. I will be posting hands here to try to improve my game. I will need your help!

The reasons I have entered this challenge:

1) I really need to figure out if I am good enough at this poker thang to do it for a living. The Gaming Club has some nice games but the selection is not anywhere near what it is at the bigger sites so I will have to learn to play at some "tougher" tables at various times. Also, I can use GT+ (which is kinda cumbersome) but not PlayerView. I'm hoping this will teach me to develop my own reads and taking better notes rather than being lazy and relying on PV stats for my "reads".

2) The WSOP broadcast on ESPN is what got me into poker and I never, ever thought I would be able to enter it. So when this opportunity presented itself I figured this may be a once in a lifetime shot.

3) My goal to make about $10K in profits in a month and a half which will be more than I have made from poker since I started playing. This will help me pull some profits out while still building my BR pretty quickly.

4) I've never played live before. I really want to try it. I live in Knoxville, TN and the closest B&M is probably in Indiana about 5 hours away. I never can seem to find a decent excuse to go there. Hopefully Vegas during the WSOP might have some juicy games (differing reports on that though).

5) My wife is cool with it (maybe this shoulda been reason #1).

The conditions of the challenge require that I play higher than 3/6 in limit or 2/4 in PL or NL. I have not tried any NL ring play so this might be a good opportunity to experiment with that game. I just picked up "Getting Started in Hold'Em" by Ed Miller. There is a section about playing with a short stack that sounds intriguing and I'm going to give that a try at some point.

Progress report to date:

I'm averaging more than $.15/hand in rake so the 100K hands quota is my goal. I've played 13,865 hands in 7 days (45 hours total). I'm a little behind pace but my first day was only 225 hands. I've had no problem getting in 3000 hands on a few days and I only need to average 2200/day the rest of the way.

I'm running flat. I'm down $5.07 at this point. I was up $1600 after 7K hands but went through a 200BB downswing over 4K hands to put me down $650. I had a nice session last night to bring me back to even.

Thanks to krishanleong for the How to tell if you are running bad. (Or good) thread. It really helped me through this downswing. I was only getting half my premium hands during the downturn. I also went on a bit of tilt which cost me at least $200. I had to quit after I capped on every street (until the river) in a 5/10 game with QQ heads up against a guy who had 55 turn into a set on the flop. He was a solid player that was in the BB when I was on the button for about a two hours. He was very aggressive about defending with anything and I could never seem win a hand against him heads up. My QQ was overpaired to the board the whole way and I was sure I was good until the river and then I was dead before he even showed. I knew it was time to shut her down for the night after that one.

Anyway, thanks to The Gaming Club people for offering this challenge. Wish me luck!

[wheelz]

That's a really cool idea.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

How many tables can you play there at once?

More importantly, many hands per hour can you get in?

[RunDownHouse]

You probably have looked into this, but you should only be 4 hours from Tunica, and I think there are games in Louisville (what's that for you, 2-3 hours?) for you to pick up live experience. I'd definitely recommend getting some time live by making trips to those or heading to Vegas a week early or something.

[lastcoyote]

[ QUOTE ]
How many tables can you play there at once?

More importantly, many hands per hour can you get in?

[/ QUOTE ]

You can play 5 tables at a time. They are thinking of increasing this but not in time for the challenge. I have been averaging 308 hands/hr. Sometimes I am only playing 4 tables because I am playing on my laptop in bed. Also, there are times when they only have 3 or 4 limit tables going above 3/6. A lot of players from Europe here and I think that NL is kinda the preferred game. I'm just a little afraid to get into that. Usually after 1 PM ET I have no problem getting 5 tables going between 3/6 and 5/10. I have jumped up as high as 10/20 but I'm a little under BR'd for that.

The action moves VERY fast so that is nice and most of the tables are 6-max.

[lastcoyote]

[ QUOTE ]
You probably have looked into this, but you should only be 4 hours from Tunica, and I think there are games in Louisville (what's that for you, 2-3 hours?) for you to pick up live experience. I'd definitely recommend getting some time live by making trips to those or heading to Vegas a week early or something.


[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, Tunica is more like 7 hours and Louisville is closer to 5. I have to drive slower now that I'm married [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]. I agree though. I need to get some B&M time in. Maybe I can go a little early or my starting day at the WSOP won't be until day 3 and I can use the first 2 days to play live.

I don't even know one chip trick! [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]