running bad turns into running good

MTTs are an interesting animal. The luck involved in a single MTT is ridiculous, especially those with weaker structures. One may be a long term winner but over 500 MTTs be a loser and quit them for good. The opposite can also happen, where a long term loser can crush the game over a couple hundred even 1-2,000 MTTs.....With that said, this past week was brutal. I got killed in really everything I played - I ended up the week only -2k or so, but the process of losing that 2k was excruciating. MTTs are really a kick in the gut compared to SNGs and cash. With SNGs and cash, you can always reload, while in MTTs a bad beat or two at a major final table can be so tough to bear mentally and financially. Luckily I think I take bad runs pretty well - I understand variance real well and how expectation can deviate in both directions dramatically, especially in bigger tournaments. I came into today with an open mind - I was looking forward to playing a long session of 20-22 MTTs, so I sat down at 3 PM EST and began my schedule. Throughout the day I took the worst beats imaginable - I lost pair to under pair 3-4 times, ran into AA a ton, and just got raped every way possible. I registed all the way up to the AP 30r, and with 5 to go on the day and zero cashes, I was thinking it would be a wash.

In the end I had the 20k,30k, and 15k 30r left all on AP as my final three. First came the 20k where a shorty shoved, a big stack flatted, and I reshoved AQ with like 18 bbs. Me and the shorty had AQ, big stack 10s, gg me. Then came the 30r - I had about 35 bbs when I 3 bet a UTG raiser with AKo. He flatted and the flop came all rags - I wasn't too happy 3 betting pre looking back on things, but I ended up throwing out another bet to see where I was - he min raised me and I had to fold. Eventually I got it all in and busted. The 30k was my final hope - the funniest part of the tournament was I had gotten KK/AA with about 10 bbs and gotten no action. I thought to myself there's no way Im doing anything in this tourny if I cant atleast get action with the big hands and being so short. At this point luck came my way - 44 cracked 99 for a double. Some donk slowplayed KQ and let me get there with a weak hand to pick up another 15k, and slowly I was gaining some chips. I doubled later on with A6 vs A3 in a blind battle, and later on got some value out of AA(finally). I came into the FT in 2nd, and worked my way to 3 handed. This hand was pretty big

Stage #1772396594 Tourney ID 4446726 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No Limit 6,000 - 2009-07-14 02:48:05 (ET)
Table: 22 (Real Money) Seat #6 is the dealer
Seat 5 - JWC64 (334,050 in chips)
Seat 6 - ETHANSKY1234 (298,942 in chips)
Seat 8 - Z06FANATIC (210,008 in chips)
JWC64 - Ante 600
ETHANSKY1234 - Ante 600
Z06FANATIC - Ante 600
Z06FANATIC - Posts small blind 3,000
JWC64 - Posts big blind 6,000
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to Z06FANATIC [10d 10c]
ETHANSKY1234 - Raises 18,000 to 18,000
Z06FANATIC - Raises 54,200 to 57,200
JWC64 - Calls 51,200
ETHANSKY1234 - Folds
*** FLOP *** [Jh 5d 4h]
Z06FANATIC - Bets 134,200
JWC64 - All-In(Raise) 276,250 to 276,250
Z06FANATIC - All-In 18,008
JWC64 - returned (124,042) : not called
*** TURN *** [Jh 5d 4h] [9d]
*** RIVER *** [Jh 5d 4h 9d] [6d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
JWC64 - Shows [Ad Qs] (ace high)
Z06FANATIC - Shows [10d 10c] (One pair, tens)
Z06FANATIC Collects 438,616 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(438,616)
Board [Jh 5d 4h 9d 6d]
Seat 5: JWC64 (big blind) HI:lost with ace high [Ad Qs - P:Ad,P:Qs,B:Jh,B:9d,B:6d]
Seat 6: ETHANSKY1234 (dealer) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 8: Z06FANATIC (small blind) won Total (438,616) All-In HI438,616) with One pair, tens [10d 10c - P:10d,P:10c,B:Jh,B:9d,B:6d]


We got HU and just chopped it. yes im a pussy when it comes to these situations, but the guy played semi well and whats really my long term edge here? Even so, this was a short term situation and we both had equal stacks, 80 bbs deep, and I figured what the hell let me chop it. I got 6600 for the ordeal, and turned my day from in the gutter to a very good day. Its funny how quick things can change in MTTs, and how a little bit of luck can turn things in a whole new direction. Anywyas back to the grind tomorrow - my only real goal lately is to win the 75k on tilt, so lets hope that happens tomorrow.

MTT schedule

I don't know if anyone really reads this blog to begin with, but what the hell I'll continue posting when I'm bored. Since im sitting here at 2 am not wanting to go to sleep, I figured I'd throw up my MTT schedule. I've been running this schedule about 3 days a week, and then running a half a day on one of my off days. My goal is to get in 80 MTTs a week - originally I wanted to do 100/week but figured thats not gonna happen unless I kill my social life and start 12 tabling. Here's my current lineup

All EST times

3 PM - Stars 55 80k
AP 30r 8K
Cake 30r 20k
FTP 162 50K
330 - FTP 50+5 20k
4 PM - FTP 75 22.5K
430 - FTP 30r 19.5 GTD
5 PM FTP 120 KO 30K
5:15 Stars 50 1r1a
530 - Stars 30r 2r1a
7 PM - Stars 100 40k gtd
FTP 75 40k
AP 50r(debating tossing this in)
730 - Cake 109 20K gtd
8 PM - FTP 162 75K
AP 120 20K
830 - FTP 30r
9PM - Cake 30r
AP 30K Sniper
10PM - AP 30r

So right there is 20 MTTs - I might try to work more in from time to time, but after 8pm I got 8-9 rollin so thats definitely not when i wanna add more. I end up spending around 2100-2300 in buy ins on these full days, and I figure with atleast a 50% overall ROI I should see some good profits. So far its been fun but ive also ran above expectation....I raped AP last month, and finally hit a FTP top 3 when I went 2nd in the 30r the other day for 4700. Im hoping I can hit one of the bigger ones soon enough - Ill continue to try to satty into the FTP 1k/AP 1k, as the qualifiers (especially on AP) are super easy. Stars hasn't offered a ton to my schedule and so far ive skipped out on the Nightly Hundred Grand hearing that its not the most +ev MTT. My main focus is playing the rebuys, and all the AP/Cake tournaments. There's some terrible players on these two sites, and Ive done real well in my AP career, although Cake has yet to show me any profit.

I have yet to be tempted back to SNGs - mainly because im so sick of playing them, but my overall profits without race cards wasn't too hot. It also didn't help last year I never took advantage of reload bonuses, so that definitely hurt me alot. With race cards Im sure the hourlys are very comparable, but in a sense 1 hour of MTT play isn't as brutal to me as 1 hour of SNG play. Grnding a 4 hour clip of SNG's use to brutal, and during the races I'd go 4 hours break, and go another 4 hours. Even 2 hours got boring to me, but with MTTs the feeling Id get after 4 hours of SNGs usually comes 10-12 hours in. Also obviously theres more excitement when your deep, especially in a bigger buyin tournament where first place is over 10k. Its hard to get too excited about a 3-4k cash considering a full day of buy ins is 2k, but cracking a 15k score is always real exciting. Another silly thing is checking out PLB points on pocketfives - yes the leaderboards are pretty worthless considering you could be ranked in the top 100 and still in the red, but it keeps me interested and sort of something to look forward to. I'd like to get up there in the ranks one day even though the whole thing is silly, so we'll see how long that takes. Anyways I guess ill wrap this up so i can go to bed and get ready to ship some mtts tomorrow. Later folks

June wrap

MTTs have been going great thus far - Ive ran like a god on AP this month, so so on FTP, decent on Stars, and slightly up on Cake. Ive also been watching alot of PXF vids to work on my game, and it seems to be going well - I feel alot more comfortable in 30-40 bb spots where before I was a little out of place. Im glad to be breaking from SNGs for a while as they were very boring and really weren't doing too much for my game. I'll still keep them around but for now Im just running MTTs until AP offers some ridiculous free money to come back. Heres the stats for the first half of 2009


Second half of June 09 -

+17,378.92 in MTTs
-750 in live losses
-550 from not making 1k in the rakebreak race that I factored into race cards

+16,078.92
2009 stats

Total profit 102,327.28
Hours played 879

Hourly rate = 116.41

On a SNG Hiatus

So race cards came to an end on the 16th and I've been playing solely MTTs since..Its been a nice change and I think I'm going to try this out atleast for July. My hourly this year has been satisfying but without race cards I'm sure its more near 90/hr....90/hr is still great but my goal is to make more money and the way for me to do that is MTTs....Ive done decent in them in the past (think Im +40k or so overall), so its not like im jumping into this without an idea. Also my bankroll is way overrolled for 100-200 avg stake, so I should be fine in terms of that. I think MTTs are the way to go in terms of long term goals - I dont really improve my poker game playing SNGs so really Im just grinding out and never improving...MTTs will allow me to work on my game and become better, and eventually move to higher stakes where I can make 200/hr+....so as of now Im playing up to 200 FO's and 50r's......Im playing Cake/FTP/AP, but mainly FTP - they have a ton of MTTs with amazing structures - Cake has the worst structure of them all but the fields are super soft so I will definitely stick around on that site. Overall I believe Im +6k or so since I started this experiment, but Ill figure out the correct numbers once June ends. In July my goal is to play atleast 300 mtts, and hopefully with say a 50% ROI that would be around 15k....I might try to do more than 300, but I figured 300 would be a decent goal I could set on a 40 hour work week. July should be very interesting and Im excited to give this a go. Ill update the end of the month so I can get exact figures.

Done with race cards finally

So its Friday and the race cards promo runs till midnight on Monday but I'm taking the weekend off and definitely wont have anyone pass me unless they go nuts this weekend. I had a nice run in the 25k sniper last night, taking 3rd for 3k......I picked up a huge stack with like 50 left - think I had 64k at 400/800....It seems though everytime I get a monster stack early I never seem to get far - maybe the positive variance catching up? Anyways I played pretty aggro and got all the way down to like 25k.....from there blinds had gone up so I tightened up and built back up....at the final table things were up and down....I lost QQ to 44 4 handed which was definitely a blow to my stack...after that I won QQ to AK but then made a move with an open ended srt draw 3 handed with an overcard and ran into the nuts. oh well...


Anyways here's the breakdown to the best of my ability - it really is a bitch trying to figure the exact profit and where it all came from. here we go

+11,000 Race Cards Bonus
+6500 in MTT profit
+9400 in rakeback
+3k credits for cash
+3300 rakebreak rake races
+4000 500k credits for gift cards
+6900 in reloads
-1600 in staking
+3430 in playing 6 mans/9 mans/ 100 HU UT's (where the real skill is)

+45,930

So there's the stats. I fell pretty far down the race towards the end as guys were pushing alot harder than I expected. I could of gotten higher but whatever - Im not going to kill myself for it...Ended up playing not as many hours as I expected - 313 total hours.....comes out to about 140.7/hr which easily was my highest hourly rate over any race.....For the rest of the month I'll prob take it easy and definitely lay off SNG's and play more mtts....I put some money on FTP to play MTTs there and plan on playing more of em from now on....heres some yearly stats

2009 stats

Total profit 86,248.36
Hours played 799.5

Hourly rate = 107.8


EDIT - had to play 7 more hours on Sunday to hold my position - ran like god in 100 HU UT's, so I had a nice profit. figures are updated.

Won 30r - still grinding sngs

So the 30r was interesting today...it was the 10k gtd on saturdays - during rebuy period I had busted my stack and was going to call it a day, but since I had the auto rebuy checked I already got 1500 in chips back so figured id rebuy again and get back on track......funny how many times I was close to giving up good things happened....anyways I had chipped up to roughly 10-11k when I flopped a set of 6s in a 3 handed pot on a board of J65 rainbow - went check check guy fired out, I called, other guy calls and turn brought a 5......I believe at this point I checked 2nd guy fired out 3rd called, I just flatted again...river came a J which obviously killed everything....at this point I was pretty screwed in the hand - I checked, 2nd guy fired around pot for like 10k, 3rd guy goes all in, I fold - 2nd guy shows a bluff, other guy showing AJ.....funny thing is if I push the flop or turn I m probably going busto.....not really a tough fold on the river there just a shitty situation....after that I ended up cracking KK with A4 after shoving like 17 bbs from button....Later on I believe I won 2 coinflips with about 5 left....3 or 4 handed I pick up QQ to RSaleh's 7s which brought me to about 180k going into HU, while the other guy had 400k.....HU was quite interesting - he was making large raises/reraises pre and postflop.....I remember a couple hands at 1200/2400 I raise to 5400 preflop, he pops it straight to 200k - interesting to say the least...anyways I ended up picking up 7s raising pre - he repopped it to something ridiculous like 60 bbs more so I got it in - he had 57o off and I held....he definitely handed me the 1st so ill take some free handouts....

sngs went so so - broke even but I was fine with that.....my goal was to just play my game and let the money go where it may......Im looking forward to the end of the race so I can relax a little and plan some vacation time....

biggest day in online poker thus far

so first of all if you play mtts dont read this, as the number will be laughable, but ended up making 6900 from playing/bonus money today.........Ive had bigger weeks then this but a single day previous record was like 5500, so I was happy........roughly 4500 of it came from SNGs, with the rest coming from a 3rd or 4th place in 20k ( I forget).....the only issue I had was my donking out of the 20k......seems like when Im shorthanded I tend to overshove bvb type situations, which leads to my busting when its not necessary...I had something like 50-60 bbs in the BB vs an sb who opened to 6 bbs - I had 88 and reraised to like 70k commiting me.....the problem with this whole situation is I basically turned my hand into a bluff - 22-77 prob fold out, alot of weaker aces fold - the worst part was this guy was semi tight and hadnt shown anything crazy he would have to give alot of credit to my reraise.....anyways he shoved, i called, he had aces.....I think the best line would be to flat here - granted the flop was 10-8-2 so I might be going broke anyways, but the ridiculous reshove was terrible by me....wish I would think twice before getting 60 bbs in preflop....outside of that hand though I thought I played well - made a couple 3 bet bluffs here and there, some value bet bluffs, etc......Im definitely making a point to not make retard shoves anymore in MTTs - I tend to not think enough when I have alot of SNGs going as well, so these plays are definitely costing me some money.....

as for the rake race, things are going well.....I believe im in 8th right now and have been turning up the heat this month.....50 hours a week for the rest of this race is my goal, so hopefully I can move up to 5th or 6th and pocket around 16k.....gl me