Current Bankroll: $2 - 1.4M Play Chips
I just reached a new personal record in Full Tilt's 2700-player $100 Freeroll. Played a real solid night before taking a bad loss late in the game and finding myself in blinds trouble with 32 left. I dropped to 28K with the blinds at 5K and had to push preflop with pocket 8s. Big stack called and hit an ace on the turn to send me packing.
It was a really great learning experience. I had previously not taken these huge multi-table freerolls very seriously because the game play is so loose and crazy early on and it takes so long to get anywhere near the money, but after experiencing the play later in the game I think they are actually a really good way to practice your multi-table tourney game. Once the 2600 or so donks donk themselves out you are left with a group of really solid poker players who know how to make a good game interesting.
I'm still a bit disappointed at having just missed the bubble, but I'm glad I was able to experience what these large freerolls can really be. I'll definitely be setting aside more time for these tournaments when I can. It took me 4 hours to reach 32 players left, so it was definitely a huge time investment, but the game play towards the end made it all worth it.
It's good to be able to feel excited about something after a tough loss like that, especially after busting in the 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll earlier in the night, but it's good to have positive momentum going forward into the next couple days. I may still be in the murky depths of a nearly non-existent bankroll, but I'm gaining so much experience in the process I can't help but feel like I am on an inevitable trend upwards.
When you are sitting in 16th place with 21 left and the bubble is at 18 you probably still want to at least see a flop with pocket kings, but if the next pay increase is at 2nd place and you are in position to basically fold your way into the money, it's probably not worth it to risk your tournament life for a chance to pick up some more chips. No matter how big the pot is, it will never be large enough to offset the risk of missing the money, even if the risk is minimal. Those extra chips won't do much to increase your chances of reaching the next pay-out level, and so putting any amount of risk on your tournament life in this situation is a negative expected value in the long run. Fold your kings, and probably even your aces.
Somehow that sage advice is always harder to follow in the heat of the action though. I played a great game through the 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll on Full Tilt tonight. It was a bit of a roller-coaster ride when a guy pushed all-in in front of me for about two-thirds my stack and I couldn't fold my pocket aces. He hit a flush on the river and sent me into survival mode. I played some excellent poker though and managed to work my way back up to 16th place with 21 players left when my kings showed up. I naturally couldn't resist calling a big raise from a big stack in front of me who had been playing real aggressive and taking advantage of the extremely tight play this close to the bubble. I didn't take the time to fully analyze the situation like I did above, and had I done that I easily would have folded my way into the money, but no, I acted rashly in the heat of the moment with what on the surface looks to be a good opportunity. Sure I probably had him beat by a mile, but that's not the point. It's really irrelevant that he had pocket 9s and hit his set on the flop because the outcome in poker is never under your control. You can only control your own decisions and actions, and this one was clearly a bad one. I may have had the odds to not get busted most of the time, but at that point in the tournament even a 5% chance of busting out is way too high a risk to take with almost any possible return given the distance to the next pay-out increase..
I've got a discussion going over at Raise the River about this hand if you're interested.
They say tournament play is all about situation, and this hand proves that more than anything else. It's not worth crying over bad beats unless you can learn from the situation, so hopefully I've learned a good lesson while the stakes are still only $2. Although $2 is like a million bucks for my bankroll right now :)
So much for my streak of 5-straight cashes in this nightly tournament. It's always good to recognize that it was my bad decision that cost me the game tonight though. Always recognizing errors and improving on my play is what this bankroll challenge is all about, so at least I've gained something valuable tonight.
On another positive note, I'm currently sitting at 73 of 170 in one of the huge 2700 player tourneys on Full Tilt so it looks like I may break my record of 75th. Who knows, maybe there's a couple dollars in store for my bankroll tonight after all. I'll post an update on that one in a bit if things go well.
Current Bankroll: $4.75 - 1.65M Play Chips
Picked up another 2 bucks in the 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt tonight. Went for a stab at the $1 tourneys playing one 45-player and one double stacked 90-player. Got some good early starting hands in both of them but both times it was followed by a long dull streak that sapped me right back down. Perhaps I settled in and became too passive after picking up a cushion early on, I'm not sure. Placed 15th in the 45-player and 28th in the 90-player. The bubble is at 6th and 18th respectively.
I can't really complain about my play in the 45 player, I just couldn't keep myself out of blind trouble and then lost a coin flip when it came time to push. As for the 90-player though I was a bit disappointed. I played really well all the way through until I decided to make a push with QT after hitting ten high on the flop. Mind you 3 other players had limped and it had been checked to me on the flop. I bet 3/4 of the pot cutting my stack by about a third. I figured this would give me a chance to still get out if someone jammed, but when two of them folded and the 3rd raised it up I couldn't help but jam because he had been playing it so passively and he had been quite aggressive otherwise all night. I guess his passivity should have made me more cautious if anything because I completely misread him. He turned over pocket kings and needless to say my pair of tens didn't pull through.
I was pretty surprised to see pocket kings after no raises both preflop and after the flop. I really wonder how I could have put him such a strong hand given he was an aggressive player (playing 56% of the time and raising 10% of the 39 hands I saw) limping and then attempting to raising my raise. It had all the signs of a classic steal. Perhaps the slowplaying should have tipped me off, and the fact that I had a really tight image at the table should have made it less likely that he was attempting a steal.
But the thing that really irks me is that I made a good raise with a mediocre hand giving myself a chance to get out if I got jammed. But when it came down to it I couldn't get out of the way when the raise came. Granted I did make an educated decision, the risk was just way too great for such a call to really pay off even with a good read. There were just way too many hands that could have beaten me even if he didn't have a killer pocket pair. I actually put him on T9 or some other junky kicker, because I figured he would have raised preflop with anything stronger. Of course I should have also considered the likelihood of trips since that is what his raise probably screams of the most. But all-in-all I should have been able to make the disciplined fold and maintained a decent chip standing in the tournament. Sure I would have been approaching blind trouble, but not soon enough to risk my whole stack on such a call.
I guess I am happy that I played so well overall, and even though I got trapped in such a nasty situation I'm glad I was able to make a real solid, educated decision even if it was the wrong one. Just thinking hands through before acting is the first step, so hopefully I can learn from this and figure out how to avoid such a situation in the future. I guess I'll be more careful next time an aggressive player slowplays and then pops my raise. Perhaps it's not as blatant a steal as it looks.
Unfortunately I'm going to be gone over the weekend so no more poker for me until next week. Hopefully I can come back focused and ready to take on the cash side again. Until then, keep the felt warm for me mates!
Current Bankroll: $5.25 - 2.1M Play Chips
It's been a real tough past couple days. I've been having trouble moving between the cash games and the tournaments and despite doing alright at the cash tables my tournament play has been awful. After analyzing my play a bit I decided I was being too aggressive at the wrong times and not really working the situations like you are supposed to in tournaments.
Tonight I decided to settle down and just focus on situation, not my cards. It seemed to work really well, as I kept making really good plays hitting up AK against A9, QQ against KJ, and other really nice situations that you just dream for in a tournament. But despite continuously putting myself in good odds I couldn't seem to outlive a showdown. I played 16 10K Play Chip tournaments today and only managed to cash in one of them for a measly $27K and a total loss for the day of 133K putting me in the red for the first time since I started tracking these tourneys over the weekend. I really can't find where I was screwing up though, despite the awful results. In the few tournaments where I managed to be able to build up a stack it always ended with a bad beat that put me back in the push-or-die mode. Aside from the one game where I cashed, my best finish was 18th, and my overall average for these tourneys is a pathetic 33 out of 90.
Somehow I managed to keep it all together in time for the nightly 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt, and despite hitting the same bricks there, I was able to wait it out each time long enough to get a hand to pull me back into it. I dropped down as far as 2BB at one point, but each time I decided to wait for the right situation and each time it ended up presenting itself in time. I don't know if that was just luck or if I managed to maximize my odds as best I could, but either way it felt good to finally be able to see some results.
After the bubble broke and the chase from 18th to 2nd (where the next payout jump is) began I made sure to be the biggest donk at the table moving all-in each time I got a decent heads-up hand and it made for an exciting rollercoaster ride. I somehow snuck myself into the final table in 7th place, and from there worked my way into 2nd place overall with 6 to go. At that point I had a decent lead over the other 4 so decided to play it real conservative and only go in with premium hands and let the other guy take them out. I figured I could fold myself into 2nd place even if it meant having no chance at 1st. As it turned out I got enough hands to take out some of the other guys without too much risk and ended up just below the other guy when we went heads-up.
Despite having not played heads-up in way too long my feel for the game was as good as it has ever been, and I had soon managed to trap him in a big hand by slowplaying top-pair/top-kicker after the flop. After that it was just a matter of a couple all-ins to take down 1st place, my first ever in these 500K Play Chip $40 Freerolls.
It's really great to see that despite my poor performance over the last couple days I was able to pull myself back together and play the game that was necessary to cash in tonights tourney. Making the final table was a bit of a treat, but I can't claim that there is much skill involved in surviving the donkfest that begins after the 18th place bubble bursts. It was really nice to see that my final table play is still there though, and taking down the extra $3 for my biggest freeroll cash-in ever was a big confidence booster.
Perhaps it is all just due to the inevitable variance in poker, but I really felt like I overcame some tough situations with discipline and patience. Even if I couldn't have controlled getting the necessary hands to pull me out of those situations, at least I was able to play well enough to put myself in the position to benifit from them. And that's really the key in poker. You can never control the cards, but if you put yourself in the right place at the right time, good things will happen and that is what I have been missing over the past couple days, constantly busting out before anything good can happen.
Anyway, I'm going to hold out until I break $6.25 before taking another shot at the $1 tourneys so that I can play 5 of them in a row before busting out. Hopefully that will give me a chance to adjust to the different playing style in those tournaments before it's too late.
Current Bankroll: $0.75 - 1.65M Play Chips
The key to success in any poker tournament is knowing how to pick your battles and avoid situations that can put you at risk. More than simple calculations of odds and profit in the long run, a skilled tournament player must be ready to fold even the biggest hands when they just aren't worth the risk to play, and especially being able to push in just the right situation regardless of cards in the hole in order to avoid being placed at the mercy of the blinds.
Katitude has an excellent article about just how frustrating it can be to make those tough folds and then end up flopping the nuts. Folding AKs is not an easy thing to do, but if you consider the situation, facing a 5*BB raise amounting to almost a third of your total stack, you're much better off in the long run waiting for a situation where you can build your stack with much less risk.
The basic rule of thumb is that if calling a raise and losing puts you close to blinds risk whereas folding outright leaves you still sitting pretty, your best option is to fold. Just about the only hand I'd want to play in such a situation would be AA since I know that I would have a big advantage going to the flop, and just about every other hand you'd have to worry about being behind and would be forced to hit something on the flop.
But even with these rules laid out clearly, it's not always easy to just walk away from those big hands after hours of sitting around waiting for them. Just last night I started getting anxious near the end of a $1 90-player tournament and decided to push with pocket 10's. A big stack behind me reraised me putting me nearly all-in. If I had just folded the hand outright I still would have had plenty of time to wait for a better hand to push all-in with, but instead I was stuck going all-in with a pair of tens which easily busted out when the big stack showed jacks and ended up hitting trips on the flop.
I guess part of experience is simply having the discipline to act on the rules that you set for yourself. No matter how well you know how to play, it doesn't help if you can't stay strong all the way through a tournament because one moment of weakness like that can bust you out quite quickly.
I'll just have to keep playing and keep learning from my mistakes. I'm back down to .75 now so I'll have to wait for another shot at the 500k play chip freeroll before I can hit the real money tourneys again. I really like the 90-player one better than the 45 player one. You start double-stacked which givese you a lot more time to wait for a hand, and the prize-pool is spread out over 18 spots rather than just 6, so you have much better odds to cash. The next few days won't leave me with much time to hit the tables, but I'll try to build my play chip stack back up until I have time to take another shot at the 500k.
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