that I'm not handling well, at least not in the 5/27 :-(
A classic sample: final table, mid size stack, blinds 100/200, getting A10o which is folded to my. Players in the blinds are both short, so I raise 3BB. This is probably too small already. All players fold, BB hesitates, and calls, and probably has a small pocket. BB checks the flop, and now what? AI, check or c-bet?
Again, I picked the worst alternative, raising another 3BB, which of course is reraised with an AI. I guess he would have folded an AI from my side.
Simply poor play from my side. No wonder that I'm having a negative stat on the 5$ tourneys :-(
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Enjoy the summer everyone! AA fun hands
I look forward to getting back in action....in the meantime.....be careful on slowplaying those monsters.....
Some more AA fun here. Same tourny a couple of hands inbetween these two
Some more AA fun here. Same tourny a couple of hands inbetween these two
Sundays private game result
First of all, sorry for being so late, but it has been quite a busy week.
I managed to make some steals due to fairly good hands during the early rounds.
Having Roland and MrS to my left, and Klokk and Seabreez, limping and raising a lot of hands, was an akward position, though.
I played tightly, successfully c-bet some A hands. I maybe should have waited with betting my AJ in sb, when I hit the top pair with J on the turn?
Roland managed to steal a couple of bigger hands, before I got AJs in co. I made my standard 4BB bet, 200, and got an instant AI reraise from Seabreez. I had him covered with 360 chips, and was pretty sure that he had a small pp, leaving me with 2 overcards. I decided to call, and was horrified when he showed his AQo. Luckily, I was saved my a magic J on the turn. I have faced quite a lot of such losses myself, so I know how it feels. Sorry Seabreez.
Klokk started to playing more aggressive when blinds were 50/100, betting and calling a lot of hands. Painful to have him just to my right. At the end of the day, he took out Roland with a nice straight, and I was heading for my standard 3. place.
Not this time though. MrS shoved with K10, and Klokk took him out with a KQ, leaving the two of us HU.
I managed to win the first flip with A9 (Klokks favourite hand), against his A5.
The next flip was my 77 against his Q9, the standard 50/50 situation. For a change, my low pp held up, although I was pretty sure that Klokk would make his inside straight on the river.
For the first time, I was in the lead, and got an AA on the next hand. Unfortunately, Klokk didn't take the bait, but I should probably just have called his min raise. As a matter of fact, I was busy on a final table in a 5/27, which took quite a lot of my attention. I missed to bet an A3, with a 3 on the flop, at the same time when I messed up badly on the other table with AK. I didn't notice that
there were actually 3 players left, and called an AI. I can't understand how you manage 12 tables at same time, Roland. I make mistakes already with 2 tables, lol.
Finally, I busted out of the 5/27 with A10 against AA, so I could concentrate on HU against Klokk, who continued to play aggressive, and pulled out almost half of my stack, just by betting harder, or playing better is probably the correct term :-)
I managed to stay alive though, doubled up with AK against A8, bluffing an A, and finally getting another monster KK, against K9.
All in all, I did play ok, but there are several hands I could/should have played differently.
Nice to have ended the 3. place streak, finally.
Last not least, here's the AK term once again: Anna Kournikova, looking good, but (almost) never wins.
I managed to make some steals due to fairly good hands during the early rounds.
Having Roland and MrS to my left, and Klokk and Seabreez, limping and raising a lot of hands, was an akward position, though.
I played tightly, successfully c-bet some A hands. I maybe should have waited with betting my AJ in sb, when I hit the top pair with J on the turn?
Roland managed to steal a couple of bigger hands, before I got AJs in co. I made my standard 4BB bet, 200, and got an instant AI reraise from Seabreez. I had him covered with 360 chips, and was pretty sure that he had a small pp, leaving me with 2 overcards. I decided to call, and was horrified when he showed his AQo. Luckily, I was saved my a magic J on the turn. I have faced quite a lot of such losses myself, so I know how it feels. Sorry Seabreez.
Klokk started to playing more aggressive when blinds were 50/100, betting and calling a lot of hands. Painful to have him just to my right. At the end of the day, he took out Roland with a nice straight, and I was heading for my standard 3. place.
Not this time though. MrS shoved with K10, and Klokk took him out with a KQ, leaving the two of us HU.
I managed to win the first flip with A9 (Klokks favourite hand), against his A5.
The next flip was my 77 against his Q9, the standard 50/50 situation. For a change, my low pp held up, although I was pretty sure that Klokk would make his inside straight on the river.
For the first time, I was in the lead, and got an AA on the next hand. Unfortunately, Klokk didn't take the bait, but I should probably just have called his min raise. As a matter of fact, I was busy on a final table in a 5/27, which took quite a lot of my attention. I missed to bet an A3, with a 3 on the flop, at the same time when I messed up badly on the other table with AK. I didn't notice that
there were actually 3 players left, and called an AI. I can't understand how you manage 12 tables at same time, Roland. I make mistakes already with 2 tables, lol.
Finally, I busted out of the 5/27 with A10 against AA, so I could concentrate on HU against Klokk, who continued to play aggressive, and pulled out almost half of my stack, just by betting harder, or playing better is probably the correct term :-)
I managed to stay alive though, doubled up with AK against A8, bluffing an A, and finally getting another monster KK, against K9.
All in all, I did play ok, but there are several hands I could/should have played differently.
Nice to have ended the 3. place streak, finally.
Last not least, here's the AK term once again: Anna Kournikova, looking good, but (almost) never wins.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Suggestion for tournies the rest of 2010
Although most of our players are located in the same timezone, I suggest that we alternate on picking the day/time the rest of the year in order to increase attendance and fairness to the players.
My suggestion is that Benko picks date/time in August.
MrSmith selects September.
Klokkhammer selects October.
MrE selects November.
Seabreeze makes his pick for December.
If one of our non-regulars (Jane, Wollmar, BeatFreak, Barbapaps.....) wishes to arrange an extra tourny inbetween, that would also be welcomed. A tourny every fortnight works for me.
Any thoughts?
My suggestion is that Benko picks date/time in August.
MrSmith selects September.
Klokkhammer selects October.
MrE selects November.
Seabreeze makes his pick for December.
If one of our non-regulars (Jane, Wollmar, BeatFreak, Barbapaps.....) wishes to arrange an extra tourny inbetween, that would also be welcomed. A tourny every fortnight works for me.
Any thoughts?
Monday, June 14, 2010
First attempt at $4.10 Knockout
This will probably be my last post before taking a break for the summer. I took a small break from multitabling and played a single $4.10 knockout. This was my first game at the next buyin level. I didn't notice any difference between the play here versus the $1.40 games. However, playing only one table made making aggressive steal raises much easier. Poker is easy when the cards go your way!
I hope every has a great summer!
Roland GTX
$4.10 Knockout
June Private Game Results
Congratulations to MrEMC2 for taking down his first private game - GG! The final results were 1st MrEMC2, 2nd klokkhammer and 3rd MrSmith999. I donked off my stack on a bad read vs klokkhammer and ended up as bubble boy (nh klokk). Letting MrSmith overtake the top position on the leader board has put me on a serious tilt lol! Now I have to worry about MrSmith and MrE. I'll let the itm guys fill you in on all the details from the game. Here is the current leaderboard.
PS: Our next private game will be in August. We are taking a summer break in July.
Roland GTX
PS: Our next private game will be in August. We are taking a summer break in July.
Roland GTX
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Bad Set of Knockouts Yesterday
I played a set of 12 again yesterday. The blinds were up to 25/50 on all the tables when within a two minute span I picked up QQ on two tables, KK on a third and AA on a fourth - oh yeah! Three of the hands, all but the AA, were quite similar situations at full tables with me sitting as btn+1 with more or less my starting stack of 1500 chips and two or three players having limped ahead of me. I made a standard raise of 3x plus 1x for each limper and in all three the action folded around to the 2nd limper who flat called with a stack similar to mine!? Had the first limper check-raised me from early position I would have been wary. Limp-calling from the 2nd just smelled weak and I assumed they were most likely sitting on a medium pair, KQ or Axs type of hand. Now there is about 600 in the pot and I have 1200 chips remaining.
I got low unconnected flops in all three and the villian checked to me. I made a standard 50% raise and got reraised all in. I called and lost in all three. The QQ hands both ran into AA and the KK hand lost to a flopped set of 6s. Now, I could cry (even more) about getting unlucky, however, in retrospect I played these hands horribly!
As I'm now learning from Flynn's Professional No Limit Holdem, my bet sizing created a horrible situation where I allowed for the villian to move all in after my c-bet forcing me to call for all my chips rather than being the aggressor. Secondly, yes this is a $1 tourney, but calling off my stack so early with only QQ is still spewing chips. The KK was harder to get away from, but I have extensive experience showing that KK doesn't always hold up - LOL!
The AA hand was folded to me on the btn. I made a standard 3x raise and the bb called. The flop was K103 rainbow and the bb led out with a 30% pot bet. I made a 2.5x reraise which he called. The turn was another low card and he moved all in. Yes, I called off my stack again to see that he really did have K10!
After reminding myself not to overplay my hands so early, I managed to get the remaining 8 tables to the bubble. I bubble boyed three, but was happy with my play. AKo lost to A9s, AQs lost to A10s and a short stacked shove with A5s got called and lost to A9o.
With the 5 I cashed in I had one 1st, three 2nds and one 3rd. In two of the heads up matches I got stacked after moving all in with top two pair on the flop. In the game won, I also got all in on the flop with AA, while the villian had two pair. I rivered a set.
All in all a pretty horrible evening! I spewed chips with bad play, I was unlucky in several spots late and my heads up play still needs improving. The good news is that even after such a dismal set, I ended up with a whopping 25 cent profit thanks to the bounties - LOL! More importantly, I didn't tilt and convince myself that my mismanagement of the big pairs early were actually bad beats.
Getting away from an evening like this break even makes me optimistic about the future :)
Roland GTX
I got low unconnected flops in all three and the villian checked to me. I made a standard 50% raise and got reraised all in. I called and lost in all three. The QQ hands both ran into AA and the KK hand lost to a flopped set of 6s. Now, I could cry (even more) about getting unlucky, however, in retrospect I played these hands horribly!
As I'm now learning from Flynn's Professional No Limit Holdem, my bet sizing created a horrible situation where I allowed for the villian to move all in after my c-bet forcing me to call for all my chips rather than being the aggressor. Secondly, yes this is a $1 tourney, but calling off my stack so early with only QQ is still spewing chips. The KK was harder to get away from, but I have extensive experience showing that KK doesn't always hold up - LOL!
The AA hand was folded to me on the btn. I made a standard 3x raise and the bb called. The flop was K103 rainbow and the bb led out with a 30% pot bet. I made a 2.5x reraise which he called. The turn was another low card and he moved all in. Yes, I called off my stack again to see that he really did have K10!
After reminding myself not to overplay my hands so early, I managed to get the remaining 8 tables to the bubble. I bubble boyed three, but was happy with my play. AKo lost to A9s, AQs lost to A10s and a short stacked shove with A5s got called and lost to A9o.
With the 5 I cashed in I had one 1st, three 2nds and one 3rd. In two of the heads up matches I got stacked after moving all in with top two pair on the flop. In the game won, I also got all in on the flop with AA, while the villian had two pair. I rivered a set.
All in all a pretty horrible evening! I spewed chips with bad play, I was unlucky in several spots late and my heads up play still needs improving. The good news is that even after such a dismal set, I ended up with a whopping 25 cent profit thanks to the bounties - LOL! More importantly, I didn't tilt and convince myself that my mismanagement of the big pairs early were actually bad beats.
Getting away from an evening like this break even makes me optimistic about the future :)
Roland GTX
Thursday, June 3, 2010
More on Knockout Tourneys
After rereading my previous post I realized that 40% ROI sounded a bit outrageous and thus needed an explanation. I have played 47 $1,40 Knockout single table SnGs this week (4 sets of 12). I have been ITM 55% of the games which is pretty standard.
If I ignore all bounties and only look at my ITM prize money then I have a 19% ROI which is better than when I was 12 tabling the standard $1.20 sngs.
($78.30 in ITM cash) - (47 games x $1.40 = $65.80 invested) = 12.50 profit / 65.80 = 19%
Now let’s look at the bounties. Since I play so tight, I have been worried about earning enough bounties to make these knockouts profitable. Typically, when I move all in before the bubble I have less chips than the villain and don’t win a bounty even though I double up. (There is an interesting strategy note connected to this, but I’ll talk about that another day.) Most of my bounties have come from the end game. Furthermore, if you win a bounty but don’t get ITM, it is difficult to track them since you don’t get the e-mail notification. I’ve started noting my exact bankroll before starting a set. Then I can calculate how many bounties I’ve won from the non-itm tourneys by looking at the difference between the e-mails and my roll.
On average my bounty wins look like this:
3 bounties when taking 1st place
2 bounties for 2nd
1 bounty for 3rd
0,25 bounties for non-itm finishes
In total I have won 58 bounties throughout the 47 tourneys for $14.50. That is more than I have profitted from the prize money! Now when I add the bounty money to my itm profit my ROI jumps to 41%!
Previously I was concentrating on the $3.25 45 man turbos. I would have to have a 17% ROI in these in order to equal the profit from playing these $1 knockouts. Furthermore, I would have to manage that while multitabling 12 tables. I can’t do that.
I think I’m going to continue playing these for a few months to get a better estimate of my ROI at this level. I would like to get about 500 games under my belt. Hopefully, I can use this time to build my bankroll and improve my multitabling end game. The next buy-in level is $3.00 buy-in + 0.35 fee + 0.75 bounty = $4.10. Remind me not to start testing these until I’m rolled for it:)
Roland GTX
PS: I’m going away for the weekend. So, no poker for me.
If I ignore all bounties and only look at my ITM prize money then I have a 19% ROI which is better than when I was 12 tabling the standard $1.20 sngs.
($78.30 in ITM cash) - (47 games x $1.40 = $65.80 invested) = 12.50 profit / 65.80 = 19%
Now let’s look at the bounties. Since I play so tight, I have been worried about earning enough bounties to make these knockouts profitable. Typically, when I move all in before the bubble I have less chips than the villain and don’t win a bounty even though I double up. (There is an interesting strategy note connected to this, but I’ll talk about that another day.) Most of my bounties have come from the end game. Furthermore, if you win a bounty but don’t get ITM, it is difficult to track them since you don’t get the e-mail notification. I’ve started noting my exact bankroll before starting a set. Then I can calculate how many bounties I’ve won from the non-itm tourneys by looking at the difference between the e-mails and my roll.
On average my bounty wins look like this:
3 bounties when taking 1st place
2 bounties for 2nd
1 bounty for 3rd
0,25 bounties for non-itm finishes
In total I have won 58 bounties throughout the 47 tourneys for $14.50. That is more than I have profitted from the prize money! Now when I add the bounty money to my itm profit my ROI jumps to 41%!
Previously I was concentrating on the $3.25 45 man turbos. I would have to have a 17% ROI in these in order to equal the profit from playing these $1 knockouts. Furthermore, I would have to manage that while multitabling 12 tables. I can’t do that.
I think I’m going to continue playing these for a few months to get a better estimate of my ROI at this level. I would like to get about 500 games under my belt. Hopefully, I can use this time to build my bankroll and improve my multitabling end game. The next buy-in level is $3.00 buy-in + 0.35 fee + 0.75 bounty = $4.10. Remind me not to start testing these until I’m rolled for it:)
Roland GTX
PS: I’m going away for the weekend. So, no poker for me.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Multitabling $1.40 Knockout SnGs
I have gone back to the basics the last few days multitabling the new $1.40 knockout single table sngs. I like these for several reasons. Firstly, the fee is 15 cents rather than the 20 cents you pay for the standard $1.20 sngs. This doesn't sound like much, but as I've said before, it makes a significant difference in you ROI. Secondly, the knockout amount is 25 cents. This is quite high with respect to the $1 buy in amount. Thus, if you are consistantly winning bounties, then you are really helping your profit. Finally, the opponents are so weak that multitabling sets of 12 has become quite comfortable.
I am running about 60 % ITM and nearly 40% ROI. The worst set I've had still had a 10 % ROI. Now, what I have noticed is that getting down to the bubble playing standard TAG is easy. All the games thus far have gotten to the bubble while the blinds are still relately low, 100/200 in the worst case. Smart aggressive bubble play works well, but there are always a few players calling extremely light. So, you can't just blindly shove ATC into the middle stacks and expect them to fold. You need some sort of hand that has a chance of winning a showdown.
The biggest problem I am having is playing heads up on multiple tables. Winning these is where you are making the most profit, especially these knockout tourneys. When you take 1st, you win the villian's bounty as well as your own. I usually don't have much of a read on the villian at the start of heads up play. I notice that I end up 2nd much more often when I have 10 tables still running and 2 or 3 are already heads up. Whereas near the end of my set when I only have 2 or 3 tables open and all of them are heads up, I have been winning nearly all of them. This points clearly to the problems with multitabling (for me at least). These tourneys make for a good area for me to improve this weakness.
Anyway, if you want to have some fun, give these things a whirl :)
Roland GTX
PS: The June Private Game is already set up. Go register now!
I am running about 60 % ITM and nearly 40% ROI. The worst set I've had still had a 10 % ROI. Now, what I have noticed is that getting down to the bubble playing standard TAG is easy. All the games thus far have gotten to the bubble while the blinds are still relately low, 100/200 in the worst case. Smart aggressive bubble play works well, but there are always a few players calling extremely light. So, you can't just blindly shove ATC into the middle stacks and expect them to fold. You need some sort of hand that has a chance of winning a showdown.
The biggest problem I am having is playing heads up on multiple tables. Winning these is where you are making the most profit, especially these knockout tourneys. When you take 1st, you win the villian's bounty as well as your own. I usually don't have much of a read on the villian at the start of heads up play. I notice that I end up 2nd much more often when I have 10 tables still running and 2 or 3 are already heads up. Whereas near the end of my set when I only have 2 or 3 tables open and all of them are heads up, I have been winning nearly all of them. This points clearly to the problems with multitabling (for me at least). These tourneys make for a good area for me to improve this weakness.
Anyway, if you want to have some fun, give these things a whirl :)
Roland GTX
PS: The June Private Game is already set up. Go register now!
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