Gaming Club WSOP Challenge Week 3

[AAmaz0n]

Fear and loathing in the “germ free zone”

Ok, let’s start with the numbers

Days played …………….21
Hands played…………..…………50,000
Average per day…………………….……….2381
Hands remaining………….……….70,000
Days left…………….……27
Average needed per days left….…………….2593

I’m falling a bit behind, time to pump up the jam. The situation is not unrecoverable, but as I near the halfway point it’s clear that I haven’t been hitting my quota on enough days and need to put in some more time.

The good news is that someone from the Gaming Club contacted me about travel arrangements, so they are serious about preparing to send me out. They found some nice flights out of Burbank so that I don’t have to deal with LAX. The last time I flew out of LAX I had to stand in a line several blocks long to get through “checkpoint charlie” and glad not to do that again.

One of the main problems continues to be the chair and my health. My ankle swells every time I sit for a few hours no matter how I position myself. My doc has been very little help; he just says that I’m “retaining water” but I don’t understand why that would happen just on the right side, I think that there is something really wrong. The chair doesn’t help, at some point I’m going to have to take some time and go shopping for something much more ergonomic that doesn’t hurt after a long session. I’m not sure that I can justify the price of a Leap or Freedom on my bankroll, but I have to find something that I can live with at least for now.

The other thing is that it is hard for me not to take breaks to avoid going on tilt. I’ve had so many bad beats lately that I’m starting to swear that they’ve given away pattern maps to all the players at 2/4 6max limit and 1/2 6max no limit. Things like someone calling the flop with 93o, flop of K J 7, they continue to hang in and catch runner runner 9 9. How do you call a preflop and flop bet with that? The folks at 2/4 do, and they are eating my lunch with that stuff. Variance, variance, yeah, yeah, but I don’t know that I’ve ever had a run of 31,000 hands at 2/4 before where I’m still in the hole; -0.61 BB/100

The bright spot is 5/10 where I am up 2.5 BB/100 over 5,000 hands. I tend to do better in tighter games; I don’t know if this is because the players are more weak/tight than loose aggressive or maybe I concentrate more. I have been trying to get as many hands in at this limit as I can.

The no limit game has been such a complete bust that I’ve almost given up on it. My main money maker at most sites, this has been a bankroll destroying disaster. I’ve won in just 21 out of 55 sessions (38%) and would be ahead overall if I had never touched this game.

Yesterday I had to take a long walk after my 66 with a flop of A 9 6 ran into A 9 and I put him all in. Getting my whole buy-in in the pot as a 5-1 favorite a good idea? Of course not, he rivers an A and takes down a $400 pot. I win small pot after small pot at 1/2 NL, and then get my money into a big pot with the best of it and get outdrawn almost every time.

This week, I’m going to try to remain calm, take a deep breath, and not think about what this challenge is doing to my bankroll or how many bonuses I’m passing up. Focus on the WSOP; this frustration will all fade away when I’m facing down Doyle, Phil, and Danny. Right?

Shauna

[AsiaKurosawa]

Congrats on the 1/2way point [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'd worry about the swelling on one side too-- a family friend found out he had DVT after having legpain looked at-- he was told it likely was exacerbated by a long int'l flight he took (small seats, no movement of legs).

Good luck!!! Sending you well wishes on the legs and the game,

aK

[VinnyTheFish]

Keep going - we are rooting for ya!

Are you closer to getting 100K with 15K rake? Thatwould cut your playing down by about a week or so!

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[AAmaz0n]

yes, a blood clot was the first concern; folks on HRT run a higher risk of developing them. the good news is that they did a doppler study first thing; an ultrasound up and down the leg that showed good flow and no clots.

So we don't know what's going on, but at least we ruled that out.

Shauna

[AAmaz0n]

thanks Vinny,

It would be nice if I could cut it down to 100K hands by increasing the rake; I just don't know if I can get enough 5/10 games going to get up to 15 cents per hand. Particularly since Gaming Club keeps telling me that I'm 9 cents a hand now, even though my poker tracker stats say that it's really 12. I don't know how they are counting it, but the numbers don't add up.

I think that I need to plan for the whole 120K, which means a lot more hours this week. If I can just stop getting my KK cracked by 45s and AJ by the Bill and Ted hand (69o) for a while I should be able to do it.

Shauna

[IggyWH]

Kick some ass Shauna...

It's times like these that I wish I had some serious poker friends. Just think how easy this would be to knockout if you had 2 or 3 people working on it.

[largeeyes]

Any danger of losing more to your bankroll than it would have cost just to buy in?

[AAmaz0n]

I'm working on it Iggy. At least for today, the "give AAmaz0n's opponents all the cards they need" switch seems to have been turned off. Just in time too, I was about to break out my tin foil hat. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Naturally, the thought occurs - geez I could get some folks over and just take turns to get this done. I wouldn't want to violate the spirit of the challenge though by taking credit for others playing hands for me. I simply have too much integrity for that; it wasn't part of the deal that I made.

If on the other hand the Gaming Club folks decided to "spread the joy" a bit by letting some of my friends in on the fun I certainly wouldn't object. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Shauna

[AAmaz0n]

[ QUOTE ]
Any danger of losing more to your bankroll than it would have cost just to buy in?

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt it *fingers crossed*. I'm down about $800 and almost halfway home, so if the downtrend continues the same way I might lose about $1800 total.

I have a hard time believing that the cards can continue to run bad for another 70,000 hands though. I'm still expecting things to turn around and show a slight profit. People can only hit their 2,3, and 4 outers against me for so long before it catches up to them.

In the middle of such a large downturn, it's easy to be riddled with self doubt. I've certainly been spending some sleepless nights trying to figure out what's wrong. But when I review the data, it's things like Session X - played 70 hands and won 0 ;lost 20 BB with KK, AJo, 99, AKs, AQ and assorted blinds. Session Y - lost a buy in at NL when putting someone all in and they hit their two outer on the river. I'm just not seeing much on my part that indicates that I'm playing badly, just getting bad results.

In a way, I think that this swing is a test of character and will. It's hard to slam your stack all in when you've been losing for several days even though you know that you're way ahead in the hand; you just start envisioning how they are going to hit their flush draw instead of focusing on the fact that you are getting your money in as a 2-1 favorite.

But I'm a Klingon. I'm not about to back down and start playing weak passive losing BS poker. I have to keep pushing and trust that probability will take care of the card distribution. That's not to say that I'm ignoring the possibility that I have some leaks; I keep reviewing every day to see what went right/wrong on PT. But
</hthe end I have to play the same tight aggressive game that built up my bankroll in the first place.

Qapla,

Shauna

[HavanaBanana]

2034 hands played today.
By me.
played 12-13 hours
I am tired!

The effect of doing 2500 or so hans a day is quite numming on the brain, VERY hard to keep concentration up, I went from 500+ to 1000- and ended up 1250+ however I had some periods where I played quite bad, 3 betting with 24o is probably not completely stellar play ? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

So all kind of Respect to Shauna, she really deserves her seat!.

ToT