Running with Spades

Current Bankroll: $8.20 - 1.1M Play Chips

Apparently the lowest limit games at Full Tilt are $.25/$.50 so needless to say I was forced to continue playing at the lower limit $.05/$.10 no-limit tables. I picked up another $2 in last night's 500K Play Chip $40 freeroll, but didn't have time to put it into use last night. Today seemed to be the perfect time though. I played some really solid poker for 4 hours and managed to quadruple my bankroll to just over $8. I managed to avoid getting into any tricky situations, but I was still able to make some good steals and really didn't take any big hits all night. I'm sure the variance is bound to even out over the next couple of sessions, but hopefully I've built up a big enough stack to avoid busting out again.

I really felt on top of things today and hopefully my new confidence will continue to bring me good results. I took some hits at the play chip tables last night so my play chip stack is seriously lacking if I'm going to have to make another stab at the nightly freeroll. But I'm sitting at the highest point in my bankroll since I won that $1 tourney back in mid October, and I feel like I'm finally on an upswing that I can sustain. I know that I'm still low enough to lose it all quickly if I'm not careful, but hopefully I've learned enough about that to avoid it this time around. We'll have to see how the next few days go...

Ace Filled Dreams has decided to start playing more limit holdem instead of no limit. He has written up an interesting post detailing his reasons why, and it got me thinking that limit is really where I should be focusing my efforts for my small bankroll game on the cash side. While playing no-limit with only 20 times the BB is really tough to build up on, such a small stack is not nearly as disadvantaged in limit games because you are never going to have the option to push huge amounts in anyway so you are not losing anything by not holding the table maximum.

I haven't played much limit holdem, but I think I'm going to give it a go to see if it is a better way to maximize my odds of moving out of the short stack position without continually busting out again. I'll give it a shot tonight if all goes well in the 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt and see if I can come up with some good strategies to make it pay.

Current Bankroll: $0 - 1.75M Play Chips

Well due to the disappearance of the $1 tourneys at Full Tilt Poker I've been trying my hand at the $.05/$.10 table games. I thought I had finally gotten the hang of it when a series of bad beats stripped me of my limited bankroll way too fast. I'm still not sure if I made some mistakes or if I was just unlucky, but needless to say I was back to square one with an empty bankroll.

Soon enough I got myself another $2 in tonight's 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt Poker, but I just couldn't make it happen at the cash tables. I hit a terrible streak with the cards and just wasn't ready to risk my bankroll with junk, so I ended up folding my way down to $1.05 before getting it all in with AQo against 88. I hit my ace on the turn but busted to a completed straight on the river.

I'll have to consider if maybe I should wait until I have a larger bankroll built up from the freerolls before hitting the cash tables, but I actually felt like taking a hit-or-miss stab at it with a small bankroll isn't that bad of a strategy considering I am bound to double up eventually, and as long as I can play it smart enough once that starts happening I should be able to get a more consistent uptick. It's just really tough to play at a table where you feel completely short-stacked and holding on to every penny but I guess that's just something I'll have to overcome now that the $1 tourneys are gone...

Current Bankroll: $6.90 - 1.7M Play Chips

Ok, so I lied. I actually had some time to play today before I had to leave for the weekend. Apparently Full Tilt has gotten rid of all the small buy-in SnGs other than one $2 180-player SnG. So I guess I'm going to have to scrape it out at the low limit cash tables instead. I played for a bit at a $.10/$.05 table and pulled out a nice $2.15 profit. Didn't run into any tough situations though and won every pot I made a stab at, so I don't know if I was getting lucky or I was just picking my situations right. Either way it's nice to be on the upswing. Hopefully I can continue to work my way up after I get back from the weekend.

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!