Breaking Even Sucks

Well, I had the opportunity to play some on Friday and yesterday, and while the results are encouraging overall, I'm still taking some very pivotal beats that are keeping me from making progress from my current bankroll predicament.

The big news is that yesterday was my inagural run at the Poker.com monthly 50k freeroll for those getting 5k points for the month. I really had a blast running this tourney, as it actually had a damn decent structure (2k stack, blinds every 15 mins) which I felt rewarded strong players. With about 1850 starting, my first hour was phenominal, as I ran my starting stack up to over 8k. I doubled up fairly early when I turned a flush and Johnny Action at our table was firing bets at me with his suited ace all the way to the end. I had a lot of hands hit and hold up, and this saw me spend some time in the top 20. I knew that this inevitably meant things would go dry, and they promptly did, as I don't think I won a hand in the 2nd hour. But I also protected my chips, and only lost about 3k to blinds and a few paid for and missed flops. Needless to say, with the bubble approaching, I was looking forward to the tide turning in the 3rd hour. When my KQ flopped a flush on the first hand of the 3rd hour, I was liking the way things were headed, until it folded to the big blind who folded to my lone min-bet on the river. I kinda felt like that was gonna be the story, and it was. I was on the outside looking in with about 25 players to the bubble, but managed to double up w/AJs under the gun. That got me ITM, and I eventually busted in 281st when 95 turned a 9 to beat my J7. It was only $5, but its always nice at least somewhat of a moral victory to cash. My tournament life was only at stake twice, and when I did bust I managed to get in with the best of it as the SB bluff-raised my short stack in the big. I had what it takes to win the tournament, but no cards to do it with. Now I just hope I can turn things around and qualify for this thing next month, too.

After I busted, I thought I'd look for a fellow blogger and see if he gave it a go. Ironically, he busted in 279th, two spots ahead of me. This guy seems to not have played.

Incidentally, I kept tabs on the luckbox donkey who I immediately tabbed with the "fish" icon 3 hands into the tournament, of whom graced me with my first double up. I was with this guy until well into the 2nd hour and HATED to have our table broken, as I had an eye on his chips and was just waiting for the hand. This guy sucked out for his tournament life no less than 4 times, and managed to make significant forward progress by a strategy of sticking all his chips in the middle like it was his job. I was the only player at the table who he showed any respect for, and who got any chips off of him. This guy was vastly afraid of non-push monkey action, and was such an easy read it was sick. Well, he ended up spending a lot of time in the top 10, and finished in the top 15 for a $500 payday. It makes me wonder what I could've done if things went a little bit differently and he doubled me up just one more time. But that's neither here nor there. I just took quite an interest in this guy as his skill level was obviously low, but whatever he was doing it was working for him...at least from 2-6 PM yesterday.

Moving on, I also ventured into a new arena over the weekend. I ran about four $2 satellites. These are 5 person SNGs where the winner gets $11. It took me about 3 of these satellites to get the hang of them. At first I played them very loose due to it being a 5-handed SNG. Well, I failed to recognize the differences between this and a normal SNG, in that the blinds are timed as opposed to every 10 hands (like the normal SNGs at Poker.com), and also, of course, you have to play to win. The timed blinds at the shorthanded table allowed for a lot more play as the chips moved around, and I found myself playing a lot of hands, missing a lot of flops, and making an overall pathetic showing. So eventually the winning formula was my typical game, to play tight and just play the big hands as they come. Heads up was also a new experience, as, again, due to the amount of play in the structure, heads up took almost as long as x-handed play. I'm not used to this much heads up play, but in my first opportunity to get heads up in one of these, I managed to come from behind to take it down.

Now, initially my plan was to use these for $11 SNGs, but I'm kind of a dumbass and didn't do my research on them. I guess they can only be used for the $11 satellites and it says MTT buy-ins, which is also fine. But the pickle I'm in is whether to use it for some $11 guaranteed MTT and take a good shot at a 2 figure cash (usually less than 100 runners), or run the $11 satellite and try to turn it into a $60 ticket that will get me into Poker.com's Sunday 20k Guarantee. With my current bankroll predicament, I can't really waste a lot of money trying to win 2 straight SNGs to satellite into a MTT with about 300 runners. But at the same time, I like my odds in a 300 person tourney w/a decent structure and first prize of about 5k. So I'll have to keep thinking on that. I should probably sit on the thing for at least a few days and see if I can build at least a little backbone into my bankroll and see just how "wasteful" I can be w/the $11 value in my back pocket.

Other than that, SNGs were -EV for me for the weekend. As is the trend lately, I tended to run my big hands into the unlikely nuts holdings, or managed to get outrun when I do something right. Yesterday I had a real stinger as I made a clutch call on a flop all-in from a preflop over-raiser when I had an overpair to a raggy board and it felt like this guy was on Ace-Face. I made the call, he showed AK, and spiked a K on the river. You don't often get opportunities to make great plays like that, and it hurts that much worse to make the clutch play and get robbed. Of course, I'm also not afraid to admit that I also made a lot of mistakes as I was trying to push the envelope and win some SNGs. However, at this point if I'm really gonna turn my bankroll around and try to do this Circuit Event thing at the end of January, I really need to hunker down and quit screwing around. While taking some chances for 1st or 2nd place SNG money is an admirable ploy, its not my game. So I need to settle down and play my game, and make it work for me.

Luckily some .10/.20 limit action bailed me out yesterday, and my bankroll currently contains about $22 of value, which is technically a win for the weekend, but still just chump change in the grand scheme of things.

So wish me luck, because I'm gonna try and really dig in and get to work.

Check ya.