Monday, April 22, 2013

90 person MTT

Played well early, and got 2 half stacks, effectively doubling to $40k. Then using my new found aggression and determining when players were sitting on 1 pair hands, I applied the heat. In the first two cases, I got called down thin. I did not expect either as I had showed down two monsters to build my stack. Still, I was at $32k and plenty healthy.

After a table break, I was frustratingly card dead for a while. I managed to take down some hands with marginal holdings (or air), but by the time we reached 1000/2000/300 I still had $40k.

The real tragedy was that with about 32 left, I lost patience and tried a steal raise with JTo and got TWO callers. The flop was AK-rag and I figured I could represent here, but as I review the hand, the button caller had to have an Ace. On the turn there were two diamonds and two hearts on the board and I pushed, which is illogical. Everything calls here. Including Ace-rag, which sent me packing. Terrible, terrible play after a good first 6-7 hours.

If I can lock down this leak, I might stand a chance. BUT, I still did not do a very good job of accumulating chips in middle rounds, which continues to be my Achilles heal.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Guess Who's Back... Back Again....

After a minor fiasco with Google terminator bots, the blog is back on line. And just in time too. 2 months to the WSOP. I am in event #40, representing 1 of my poker leagues. (First in 1, last in the other... WTF?)

I have started studying and practicing again, and I came to a realization. Ok, that makes it sound organic which is disingenuous. I finally started listening to "Thinking Poker" podcast (via a comment by Vanessa Selbst in an interview) found that if I stick to just the strategy sessions, it works great for me. Now, more importantly, a MAJOR piece of my level 3 thinking was missing! The concept of CAPPED RANGES. How the F'N HELL did I ever get this far without studying this to the degree to which it deserves. I feel like a fool!

My hand reading skills went way up (duh). I must have been evaluating holdings based solely on street actions and getting away with it a lot since most players don't bluff well (poor frequency, poor spots). Gez, what an improvement.

Second best adjustment? Trying not to "end" the hand. The concept of "keeping his range wide" is now comprehensible to me! I sorta knew all this stuff, but never QUANTIFIED it. Now I feel like someone took my screwdriver out of my hand and handed me an electric one.

Poker has become interesting again.

And NOT a shill, but I am liking the 6 max games on Seals (bitcoin).