SnG Strat

Conventional wisdom says to play tight early and loosen up once the antes kick in. With any luck you've managed to accumulate some chips so you aren't immediately forced into push/fold mode at the 50/100 level.

I tend to stay away from this line of thought and my ROI has been good.

With so many players mass-multitabling the SnG's you can easily pilfer the blinds by playing pretty loose pre-flop from MP and LP before anyone will catch on.

I've been raising a lot of hands from MP especially. No one online believes a Button or Hijack raise anymore. They're seen as pure steal attempts so I make my steals from UTG and MP with a high success rate.

Even if someone calls my UTG raise they're folding a lot of the time if an Ace or King flops because everyone online puts you on AK when you raise.

At some point you do go into push/fold mode and that's when I'll shove on the blinds with about 70% of my hands if we're down to 4 or 5 handed and I have them covered. They aren't calling unless they have 99+, AJ+.

Or, they shouldn't be.

Right now the best SnG's for my money are the Rush SnG's on Full Tilt. More hands means more chances for the bad players to make simple fundamental mistakes.

This Is A Call

If there are any MTT players who read this blog I'd like to offer up a suggestion.

I'd like to create and maintain a small network of players to discuss hand histories, talk tournament strategy - basically create a braintrust so we can all combine our experience and knowledge to become better players.

I've always felt that one of my biggest setbacks is having zero poker friends. This was further reinforced when I started reading 2+2 and PocketFives.com and realized a lot of these people have mentors, coaches, etc.

So if anyone is interested feel free to reply to this post and we can go from there.

I'm not currently an AIM user but I can easily set up a screen name and start chatting about poker.

Speaking Of Masochism ...

I played a $3 rebuy last night and finished 19th of 1900.

Standard bust out hand.

Blinds 8000/16000/XXX

Me: T285,000
Villain: T302,000

I raise to 38,500 UTG with KcKs

Folds to Villain on the button who makes it 85,000.

His OPR stats tell me he's a moron - negative ROI over 1,000 MTT's. I jam.

He snap calls with AdTd <------ LOL WUT. If you ever do this against a solid player, immediately log off and find a new hobby. 99 would be the worst hand you'd ever be up against in this spot.

Flop 8d 6c 6s
Turn Qd
River 2d

One day I'll win as a massive favorite when it means something substantial.

Back To Basics

What do you do when you come down with a case of the run bads?

Switch to games with lower variance. I've started mass multi-tabling SnG's with about half of them being turbos and so far I've had positive results.

It's nice to put one in the win column even if it's not what you originally had in mind.

SnG's are pretty mindless, too. You can figure out who is good and who is not very quickly just by seeing what hands get played in the first three levels.

After that if you haven't managed to build a big chip stack you play your push/fold game and hope for the best.

I don't personally know anyone who enjoys playing SnG's but they are very profitable and the object of this game is to make money - some times I forget that and play games that are "fun" for me like Pot Limit Omaha even if I don't have an edge at the table.

This downswing reminded me there's a time for fun and a time to make that scrilla. I'm going to stick with the SnG's for a while in order to better practice bankroll management and also be able to manage my poker playing time a little better.

A couple times I'd find myself down in New Jersey deep in a tournament with a healthy chip stack, but starting to nod off a bit. Not good. Not good for your bankroll or your health so it's time to change that.

When I made a couple Final Tables in March it was ok - but now reality and variance has set in so I need to balance a lot of things: My sleep, my diet, my relationship, my 3-bet range ... it never ends.

But poker is last in line. It has to be.

My Chart Looks Like the F'ing Stock Market

The majority of 2010 has been a real exercise in patience for me.

I can now count 8 times where I went extremely deep in large tournaments (down to 3 tables) only to lose a 70/30 situation or better.

Because I've been hauling my ass back and forth between Boston and New Jersey every week I've been playing low volume. Seems like no matter what the volume is I get the same results:

Shit. Right on my face.

I played a $10 Rebuy not that long ago and we were down to 23 players. Awesome, right? Sure. First place was about $6500 I think.

I was dealt KK in the big blind. I'm not a doom and gloom person. My first instinct is never, "Great, here comes the bad beat." Screw that shit. I was thinking of a nice little double up when the chipleader raised from middle position. A double up would put me around 3rd or 4th in chips.

Blinds were 2500/5000/250 (?) - I always forget the ante amounts.

He raised to 20,000 and I'm not sure how you guys feel, but whenever I see someone raise 3X or larger when the antes kick in I immediately classify them as a bad player, or a novice. But that's only because fish make big raises when smaller ones will still earn folds. Call me a cynic ...

I can play this two ways.

1. Jam the pile in his stupid Russian face (no offense if any of you are of Russian lineage - it's just that they are still horrible at "the poker")

2. Flat and either lead out or check-jam a non-ace flop.

He's a loose player so I decide to flat instead of jamming and seeing a fold the majority of the time.

The flop is 9s 3h 2c so basically a perfect flop for me. And a perfect flop for him, so he thinks, if he has TT, JJ, or QQ. With his 4X raise preflop I think he is very likely to have a medium pair a lot of the time. Or he has something like AK/AQ but I place AK lower on the chart since I'm holding two of the kings.

I decide to check-raise all-in. Not to worry, he open jams a shit ton chips when I check to him. I of course instacall to see him turn over the monster A9 and watch as a third 9 hits on the turn.

Know what the worst part of being a good player is? You're never on the right side of that.

A good player never plays so badly that he needs a miracle card unless you get caught in a total cooler situation.

I can't remember the last time I owned myself and lucked out massively. I guess that's a good thing only I don't have the results to support it.

FML.

Maybe it's the fact I'm only playing around eight tournaments per week these days. I played four this week and cashed in three of them. Nothing substantial, though - 6 times my buy-in was the largest one, but it was a $100 MTT so I guess I have that going for me.

I'm done with the pokering for a bit. I've been home in Boston all week and spending a lot of time with my girlfriend which has been nothing short of perfect. It's also been really nice out and our apartment has two skylights and tons of windows so everywhere I look is a constant reminder to stop sitting on my ass and enjoy life.

Speaking of ...

You do the same, got it? Right now. Go on... get out of here!

My New Favorite Tournaments

I'm enjoying the single rebuy and add-on tournaments a lot lately. They aren't turbo structured so there is a lot of room for making moves during these tournaments. I think the optimal strategy is to use your rebuy immediately and play it like a freezeout for the first hour.

Last night I played 2 of these and a lot of players are calling off massive amounts of chips with a single pair in their hand - me likey.

It's a very advantageous format for people used to deep stacked cash games. If you've played fairly well or not run into any crippling beats or coolers you should be able to add-on and have at 40+ bb's behind.

I'm completely done with all turbo tournaments. I had managed to final table a couple of these and took that to mean I'm "good" at them. No. The blinds and antes skyrocket so much that it's merely luck.

I've done well with avoiding the turbos unless I decide to play SnG's which is a different animal. Not much going on with cash games lately. I haven't had enough time to study up on PLO to feel like it's profitable for me to sit down and play.

And the Hold Em games on Full Tilt are too rockish to hold my interest. I enjoy tournaments a lot and am actually starting to learn how to take the bad beats in stride (I have a short temper).

I think a lot of it has to do with using my girlfriend's laptop while traveling. I won't think twice about breaking my own mouse or keyboard in a moment of weakness but I respect other people's things too much to ever get that angry. So... helpful by proxy I suppose.

Plus I'm in a hotel so I can't exactly start yelling swears at 2 AM. I mean... I could, but then I'd find myself driving down the street looking for Vacancy signs. And that's no fun.

Low Volume

I haven't been playing or think about poker much lately. My regular job has me traveling from Boston to Princeton, NJ every week. I leave on Monday mornings and go back to my girlfriend on Saturday mornings. It will taper off but for now it is what it is.

Last night I took 4th in a smallish $10 rebuy for $1400 which was nice. I was cripped when my AcQc lost to Ad6h all-in preflop. I busted when I ran KJo into A8o and didn't catch. FTOPS is going on now and I plan on playing a few events. Would be nice to bink one and get a gold jersy.

I've also been playing, and having much success, in the 145 Man Rush Poker tournaments.

Cash games have been break even for the most part with profit coming from rakeback but I'm starting to get the desire to focus on tournaments again. I think that desire will always be there until I can manage a solid 5 digit or 6 digit score because I know I'm capable of multiple ones. I've gotten close three times now by final table bubbling some large events.