Playing online for a living week 48

[davidross]

It seems the poker Gods read last week’s post and decided to punish me for my arrogance. After writing that my variance had shrunk due to my aggressive play, and bragging that I had gone weeks without a big loss, for the first time ever I had 2ses of $1,000 in the same week. Fortunately I had 3 $1,000 or more wins so the week still turned out okay. It ended with a bad taste in my mouth though due to the VIP freeroll for the top 100 players. More about that later.

The week started with my paying $150 + 15 to enter a WSOP qualifier for 3 guaranteed seats. It turned out to be a good value since there were only 169 entrants, so the prize pool was an overlay, but alas I played like an idiot and went out around 70th. I’m not making the correct adjustments for tournament play, I’m still playing it like a ring game and pushing tiny edges too far. I need to play more tournaments to get experience, but I hate to cut into my regular playing time too much. It’s a difficult challenge. As an example of my play, it was after the first break and I still had around m chip count, 1,000. The stakes are now high enough (this is limit) that playing 2 hands to the end and losing will cripple you. I had AJo in the cutoff and I open raise. The SB 3 bets me. Flop is Kxx and he bets out. I call and call the turn and call the river and he shows me AK. I still have trouble letting go of hands. This hand wasn’t going to win me the tournament, but it sure could lose it for me.

After that I played for a couple of hours and made back my entry fee plus a little extra to finish up $85 for the day. Monday was a rough day though, starting in the afternoon and continuing all night. I lost $974 and I can’t even blame bad players getting lucky. I was just cold decked again and again. I ran into aces several times while I held a big pair, and I lost with them several times. Never bad plays by my opposition, simply hitting their hands when they had correct odds to draw. What can you do? I bounced back Tuesday though and won $1,002 to get back in the black for the week. Wednesday was a frustrating day, never able to get on a run, and I finished with a small loss of $143. Then came Thursday, and it was brutal. If Monday had been tough, this was tougher. Flush under flush, set under set, full house under full house. Lost $1,003. I’ve started my diet this week and between the two big losses and missing my sugar fixes I was pretty grouchy by now. Then on Friday the roller coaster went back up and I had a monster day, winning $1,580. Saturday night we were invited over to our best friends place for a Sex in the City Finale party (We get it several weeks behind the Americans) and I went for dinner (NY steaks, and Cosmopolitans) but had to leave to play my freeroll at 9:00 PM. Well, I was back at the party before 10:00 in a real bad mood. I had to pick up my daughter at midnight and I didn’t sit down to actually play until 12:30 thinking I’d get a few hours in. I was still playing at 5:30 and I was up another $1,356 finishing the week up $1,903. Wow, it’s enough to spin your head.

One thing I was really proud of this week was the fact that I quit at my usual time on the 2 nights I was getting killed. I didn’t think I was playing my best and I called it quits. That is difficult for me, I always want to get even. But on my big nights, I played late. Real late on Friday and Saturday because the games were just too good to leave. On Saturday especially there was a maniac with $1,500 in front of him and I wasn’t going to leave until he did. Either was anyone else. The same 6 of us stayed at a table for 4 hours. I’ve never seen that before. I left 30 seconds after he did. During this time I eventually quit all my other tables just to concentrate on him since the whole table was on tilt, it was getting pretty tricky to play. But it paid off. I started with $250 and left with $1,300 from just that table. Our average pot was $110 at a 5/10 table. It was incredible. He was down to $600 when he quit.

Now for my freeroll story. I was so looking forward to this tournament. I guess you can tell from the posts of the last few weeks how badly I’d like to win a trip to Vegas. I think it would be the perfect finish to this year and give me a real focal point if I wanted to turn this into a book, I thought this might be my best chance since only 100 were invited, I was sure some wouldn’t show up like all freeroll’s, and I was sure some had no tournament experience. Although it wasn’t a WSOP qualifier, I was already dreaming of the brownie points I’d score if I took my wife to the Bellagio for 4 or 5 days. I was right about people not showing up. At my starting table 6 people were missing and they were blinded off. Unfortunately the 4 of us who were there were in seats 3, 5, 6 and 8 and I was in 3. If you think about it you will see I had about 0 chance of accumulating chips. Imagine playing 4 handed and every 1o hands you are UTG 5 times, 2nd to act once, button twice and SB and BB once each. Now the guy in the 8 seat gets the button 5 times 3rd to act twice, UTG once and blinds once each. Who has the advantage. As the rounds went by It became clearer to me just what a big advantage it was for him. After 6 orbits seat 8 had over 2,000 in chips, seat 6 had 1,700, seat 5 had 1,100 and I was at 700, behind all 6 non-players. And seat 8 was smart enough to start using his stack meaning I never got a cheap play. Except once when I got a free flop with T4. Flop was T94. I check raised him and he called. Turn was another T and he raised me and I 3 bet him. River was a blank and I bet and he raised me and we capped it. He had T9 and I was down to the felt. I went out in 99th place although 40 players didn’t show up. This was so unfair I wrote a letter. Clearly nothing could be done after the tournament had started, but they shouldn’t allow 6 empty seats in a tournament.

I’m not giving up though. Empire has added 2 WSOP seats only for the VIP players so I’ll take a shot at that for sure. And I can always bid on the 2,000 package they have that includes a satellite entry at the WSOP. I was in 5th place overall in points so If I was to bid all my points I’m pretty sure I’d win it.

I’m usually pretty straight forward in my play. A by-product of playing several tables I guess. But this week I’ve tried to mix it up a bit like this hand. I have Kd Jh in the BB and the SB open raises. I just call. Flop is Kc Jd 6d. He checks and I check too. Turn was 7d and he bet and I raised him. River was 4d, I bet and he called. He had K5, the 5 was a diamond. In hindsight I think betting the flop would have made me more because he was looking to check-raise I think. I could have 3 bet or smooth called and still popped the turn. I guess straight forward is still the way to go.

I wanted to write more about the maniac table, but I have to go out and I want to get this posted. I’ll try to elaborate next week. Have a good week everyone.

[nykenny]

i am first to reply!

Kenny

[OnlinePokerCoach]

Hello David,

Poker really is a roller coaster ride isn't it? I find that the challenge is to not let your mood be affected by the results of your last session. I suppose it is ok to feel like you are walking on air the day after a $1000+ win, but it seems wrong to feel bad after a $1000+ loss. After all, we all know that it is "one big game" and life is too short to feel bad 1/3 of the time because of poker losses.

On a separate note, what is your ratio of winning sessions to losing sessions? Is it around the typical 2:1 ratio? I define a session as my play for the entire day, but feel free to use a different definition if your records are set up differently.

Best regards,
OnlinePokerCoach.com

[davidross]

I'm surprised you're not rubbing it in about the huge variance!!

[umdpoker]

hey david. i was in the freeroll too. i think i went out 19th, which is a billion times worse than 99th. especially considering that i basically went out with AA at a point where i was actually doing ok with chips. i got rivered by a straight when i hit an a on the river. nothing better than hitting trips while somebody else hits a straight. anyways, this left me with like 300 chips when the blinds were 100/200. did you notice that the people who did best were the maniacs? i swear at my table, there were 2 maniacs who would autobet/raise and damn near never fold who ended up being the table chip leaders. i was waiting for their bubble to burst, but it never did. one of the guys caught a gutshot against me twice! the best part was that he raised me the whole way both times. i was happy they were at my table, because i got paid when i got a hand. but, either their strategy is good for limit tourney or they were the 2 luckiest goofballs i have ever seen. also, what is this about the 2 wsop seats for only vip players? i haven't heard about this. is it another freeroll for top 100 vip players? later and keep up the good work!

[serling]

Hi David --

Glad your losing days turned around pretty quickly.

One thing I wanted to bring up. We played at a couple of the same tables this week and I recall you mentioning you were down $1K.

It's good to commiserate (I was also down a lot), but I think our opponents might take shots at players who state this in chat. They may realize you're probably now playing tighter, so they may bluff more often. Or they may just take potshots at you with bad cards, thinking that you're "unlucky" and if their bad hand beats you, you'll be tilting for sure.

(I never mention how I'm running in chat, but I know when I've rebought at a table and continue to lose, people will make more plays at me knowing I'm capable of folding. Then they'll show their bluff.)

Whereas if you state you're up $1K, players will leave you alone for the most part.


serling

[davidross]

I just checked my last 50 days and I won in 38 of them and lost in 12, so it's more like 3 to 1.

[davidross]

Hi serling,

It's interesting how we think about that. I never tell anyone if I'm up, but I'm pretty quick to tell them if I'm losing. Let's face it, the regulars know who we are so the chatter will make no difference to them. I just didn't want the casual player to think they might be playing over their heads, I like them to be relaxed and think I might be a soft touch. It's probably better just not to talk about it at all.

[davidross]

I don't think being a maniac can be a feasible strategy for these tournaments, but If you get hot you can sure accumulate chips. I'm certainly no expert, but if you are still alive around the 2nd break, the rising blinds make almost everyone equal at that point. You need to start winning hands at that point, nad you'll aquire chips fast.

THe next WSOP for VIP players only says you need to accumulate 500 VIP points between April 24 and May5 (Dates are guesses but it's something like that). So it sounds like there will be a lot of qualifiers for that one. Check your VIP stats and you'll see it listed there (When your in your Empire software it's under options).

[zamora]

maybe this should be discussed in the tournament forum, but since we started here i will continue here.
i think that the fact that only one spot was paid in the freeroll changed the strategy completely.

i have no idea how you played in the tournament so please take these opinions as general ones and not directed to your play in the freeroll.

perhaps the people at your table where genuine maniacs but if they did well its far more likely that they just played ultra aggressive.

also, since so many of the participants where low- or mid limit pros (at least i assume that almost everybody is multi tabling because of the number of points required to participate), my table was playing very tight for a long time and the first bettor or raiser usually won the pot. that gave an even bigger reward for those who played aggresively and the accumulated chips also allowed them to draw at or bluff out the tight ones.

when it pays nada for second place there is basically no point in getting to the final table with chips that hardly can last a full round. its better to give yourself the chance of hitting it big and go out in 99th place if things go wrong.

only playing starting hands that are in the right "hand group" will probably get an honorable placing but it also makes you vulnerable if one of the LAGs happen to suck out on you the few times you enter a pot.