I Got What I Wanted
by Doylestown on 11/08/07
I got what I wanted in more ways than one………
Last I wrote I had identified a couple of “leaks” in my game for lack of a better term, when looking back at my 3 months of data while playing 6-Max cash. One of the problems I identified had to do with variance, or so I still believe. Most of my sessions are typically an hour or less due to time constraints, there is nothing I can do about those and for the most part they have been pretty consistent with either a small win or a small loss as would be expected. The sessions where I was able to extend beyond that in length had a similar disturbing pattern. Either they would go bad early on and a big loss would ensue, or, I would be ahead a couple or three buy ins and would wind up giving much of it back instead of compounding a win. After careful analysis of my hand histories I had determined that my game play was fine (I can assure you that I wasn’t playing scared) and I had just been running badly when I would get ahead some decent money.
I wrote that I needed to have some faith and patience in the hopes that this would correct itself, believing fully that it was a variance issue. I didn’t have to wait long. The very next day I played a lengthy session and booked a nice win. Here are my results thus far this week.
Sunday + 4 ½ buy ins
Monday even
Tuesday + 2 ½ buy ins
Wednesday – ¾ buy in
At the end of October I wrote about how I missed the pain. This referred to my desire to get back to tournaments and the strong emotions (both good and bad) that result from playing them. On Tuesday I found time to squeeze 1 event in which I wasn’t long for. On Wednesday I took the afternoon off and loaded up 4 tournaments. I felt ALIVE!
3 of the 4 ended with me approaching the bubble. I got my money in good to really good 7 different times over the course of those 3 events and won only twice, LOL. I was also pretty bad at racing, not a formula for success. Despite all of the bad luck I was still in contention which is a sign that I was playing well.
The fourth event was the $20 Rebuy on Full Tilt. I was able to build a decent stack in the rebuy period and then continued to chip up for the next couple of hours. I was pretty consistently a top 10 stack and I flirted with the chip lead a couple of times. I lost a momentum killing race with QQ to AK around the bubble and things really never got back on track for me. Circumstances went awry as we got into the money, my raises and c-bets just weren’t working, it was one of those days. I battled to just hang onto my 7th to 10th place chip stack while I waited for a good spot to double up.
We were on the final table bubble playing 5 handed when the good spot appeared:
Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t1200/t2400
(Ante: t300)
5 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
Doylestown: t30000
CO: t32077
Button: t134036
SB: t52626
BB: t101312
Pre-flop: (5 players) Doylestown is UTG with Q
Q
Doylestown raises to t5400, 2 folds, SB calls t4200 (pot was t10500), BB calls t3000 (pot was t14700).
Flop: 5
8
4 (t17700, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Doylestown is all-in t24300, SB folds, BB calls t24300 (pot was t42000).
Turn: 8 (t66300, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t66300)
River: 5 (t66300, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t66300)
Results:
Final pot: t66300
BB showed 5d 3d
Doylestown showed Qd Qc
This flop over bet is something I rarely do. I believed in this situation that the timing was perfect for it. I represented a whiff with a big Ace and I was rewarded ( I got what I wanted) with the villain making a call as a big underdog. The turn card left him drawing to 2 outs and then boom the river punch to the gut came out of nowhere and just like that my afternoon was concluded.
Yesterday I didn’t have to miss the pain. I finally got to live it again. As I recently wrote, one of my poker goals was to find time to squeeze tournaments back into my life. It felt great to be playing them again, results be damned.
Last I wrote I had identified a couple of “leaks” in my game for lack of a better term, when looking back at my 3 months of data while playing 6-Max cash. One of the problems I identified had to do with variance, or so I still believe. Most of my sessions are typically an hour or less due to time constraints, there is nothing I can do about those and for the most part they have been pretty consistent with either a small win or a small loss as would be expected. The sessions where I was able to extend beyond that in length had a similar disturbing pattern. Either they would go bad early on and a big loss would ensue, or, I would be ahead a couple or three buy ins and would wind up giving much of it back instead of compounding a win. After careful analysis of my hand histories I had determined that my game play was fine (I can assure you that I wasn’t playing scared) and I had just been running badly when I would get ahead some decent money.
I wrote that I needed to have some faith and patience in the hopes that this would correct itself, believing fully that it was a variance issue. I didn’t have to wait long. The very next day I played a lengthy session and booked a nice win. Here are my results thus far this week.
Sunday + 4 ½ buy ins
Monday even
Tuesday + 2 ½ buy ins
Wednesday – ¾ buy in
At the end of October I wrote about how I missed the pain. This referred to my desire to get back to tournaments and the strong emotions (both good and bad) that result from playing them. On Tuesday I found time to squeeze 1 event in which I wasn’t long for. On Wednesday I took the afternoon off and loaded up 4 tournaments. I felt ALIVE!
3 of the 4 ended with me approaching the bubble. I got my money in good to really good 7 different times over the course of those 3 events and won only twice, LOL. I was also pretty bad at racing, not a formula for success. Despite all of the bad luck I was still in contention which is a sign that I was playing well.
The fourth event was the $20 Rebuy on Full Tilt. I was able to build a decent stack in the rebuy period and then continued to chip up for the next couple of hours. I was pretty consistently a top 10 stack and I flirted with the chip lead a couple of times. I lost a momentum killing race with QQ to AK around the bubble and things really never got back on track for me. Circumstances went awry as we got into the money, my raises and c-bets just weren’t working, it was one of those days. I battled to just hang onto my 7th to 10th place chip stack while I waited for a good spot to double up.
We were on the final table bubble playing 5 handed when the good spot appeared:
Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t1200/t2400
(Ante: t300)
5 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
Doylestown: t30000
CO: t32077
Button: t134036
SB: t52626
BB: t101312
Pre-flop: (5 players) Doylestown is UTG with Q
Q Doylestown raises to t5400, 2 folds, SB calls t4200 (pot was t10500), BB calls t3000 (pot was t14700).
Flop: 5
8 4 (t17700, 3 players)SB checks, BB checks, Doylestown is all-in t24300, SB folds, BB calls t24300 (pot was t42000).
Turn: 8
(t66300, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t66300)River: 5
(t66300, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t66300)Results:
Final pot: t66300
BB showed 5d 3d
Doylestown showed Qd Qc
This flop over bet is something I rarely do. I believed in this situation that the timing was perfect for it. I represented a whiff with a big Ace and I was rewarded ( I got what I wanted) with the villain making a call as a big underdog. The turn card left him drawing to 2 outs and then boom the river punch to the gut came out of nowhere and just like that my afternoon was concluded.
Yesterday I didn’t have to miss the pain. I finally got to live it again. As I recently wrote, one of my poker goals was to find time to squeeze tournaments back into my life. It felt great to be playing them again, results be damned.
Comments
harlem says
Great that you're playing live games I have one myself tomorrow night. Keep the update coming.
11/08/07
Anonymous says
Keep it up!11/08/07
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