2009 in Review - 2010 Goals

A little bit overdue, but seeing how I have only played maybe 100 hands of poker in 2010, still not too late.

Looking back at 2009.
1. Have my first 5 digit score
2. Final table one of the bigger Sunday tournaments
3. Work on my heads up game (cash)
4. Put in some serious volumn for MTTs (35~ tournaments weekly)
5. Satellite into the WSOP ME
6. Satellite into one other live tourney (EPT/Aussie Millions preferrably)
7. Work on my deepstack cash play

*strokethrough = failed, bold = accomplished, italics = partial

As you can see here, I pretty much failed on all except for 1, and that was qualifying to the 2009 WSOP Main Event. I guess since the package was worth $13000, and I won it twice, I can technically count my second win as a 5 digit score? Anyways, the amount of time I spent playing poker this year was definitely alot less than what I was hoping for, but that was due to other various life commitments/things that came up which prevented me from putting in the volume I was initially anticipating.

With less time spent playing, that obviously translate into focus onto one particular area (MTT/SnG) and less devotion into other games (HU/deepstack). I have no regrets about not achieving those goals - part of me recognized that the goals were quite ambitious to begin with, and secondly, poker in the end is still a hobby which has provided monetary gains, but still not replaces events from "real life". While I had a legitimate shot at possibly qualifying for the Aussie Millions, the results that I had in 2009 is still an achievement that I'm proud of.

Now, onto 2010. Refer back to a previous post where I mentioned that I am now officially out of university, full-time poker player is definitely out of the question. I am at the point where I envision myself working full-time while playing poker part-time as a hobby which hopefully will be able to provide some extra side income.

Here we go - poker goals for 2010.

1) Qualify once again for a WSOP Main Event
2) Qualify for one other non-US/Canada tour tournament event (ex. EPT, APPT, Aussie Millions, etc)
3) Continue to focus on improving primarily my MTT game
4) Achieve a 5% ROI in my MTT play in 2010
5) Non-result oriented, but continue to enjoy this game as a recreational hobby.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 858578

What's been happening lately

I've managed to luckbox a relatively good run on Full Tilt just playing their hyper-turbo single table Sit-and-go. Basically you start with 300 chips, blinds at 15/30 and goes up every 3 minutes. Between those, a few of the 90-man turbo knock-outs and $70 hyper turbo satellite to a $535 buy-in Sunday major (which I obv. unregister and take the T$), I essentially averaged out to about a 3x buyin win per day over a 10 day period. The win-rate is definitely not very high, but given the amount of time I have put into playing, I am not complaining.



On another note, I recently took a stab at playing an Aussie Millions satellite, as well as a PokerStars Caribbean Adventures satellite. On the Aussie Million front, busted in 11/12 out of 51 when I had KK 6 handed (while I was third in chips) and ran it into AA (while someone else had JJ). The player with the AA also happens to be 2nd in chips, so at the conclusion of the JJ < KK < AA hand, player with the AA rocketed to the top with 2.5x the chips of the player in second place.

On to Sunday, where I got into the miniFTOPS main event, ran my stack up to about 3x starting stack (started with 7500), before losing JJ < AA again to drop back down to 10K or so, and finally went out when I shoved Ax OTB with about 10xBB into AQ, flopping a gutshot but not getting there.

Finally, PCA satellite. Doubled up early with my TT cracked JJ, blinded down for awhile, and misplayed KQ on a K73 8 board to a slowplayed AK. That hand dropped me down back down to roughly starting stack (3K) where I grinded my short stack for about an hour and a half. I did get lucky a couple of times while I was short to stay in the tourney (AQ = AK on J J 3 8 3 for example) but eventually busted in 240th place or so (40 gets seat, 750~ entrants) with first my JJ lost to AT all-in preflop. And last hand had me shoving 55 into a limpers 33 and he flops a 3.

I believe this weekend will probably be the last weekend in which I attempt to try to satellite into both PCA and Aussie Millions, meaning a trip to the Bahamas and Australia will have to wait at least another calendar year. For now..Monte Carlo April 2010 is the goal.

A decent come back

After my rant/tilt post last night, my Sunday started out pretty bad. Had a late start in both the Sunday 1/4 million, and the Turbo Takedown. Nothing interesting to speak of in those tourneys, just busted out by losing a flip surviving for less than an hour in both. So that means I've probably played 5-6 turbo takedowns by now and haven't cashed in a single one. Let see how long I can keep this streak going for.

Next up was the Sunday Million, and I pretty much bubbled every single multi-seat satellite I played in for that, and by the end of it, I probably spent enough on satellites to buy-in directly. As a result of my bad play, I obviously decided not to buy-in directly and play some micro/small MTTs to kill time. Basically I was 0-fer in cashes by the time the PokerStars Dream Job tourney came up.

I lasted about as long as it would take to eat dinner, basically flatting a mid-PP, and reading the EP's raiser c-bet as weak on a low flop (c'mon, he lead out with 2x pot) and I shoved, obv. running into a bigger pair (QQ). So after busting that, I was pretty much set on not playing for the rest of the night.

Lo-and-behold, SirWatts decide to make the final table of the PokerStars $200+15 rebuy tourney. And since we never know how long he'll last, I didn't wanna get caught playing a MTT nor start a cash game and have to leave. Which meant it was an excuse to start dipping into FTP's super turbo SnGs again. Contrary to the last couple of nights, I managed to have a good winning session, and of course laying a few bad beats along the way. So while I grinded to turn a couple of hundred in profits, SirWatts obviously decides to show me up by winning his tourney for $37K - congrats man!

So no, I didn't win the Dream Job promo (that would've been sick) but erasing the losses from the past couple of nights and being able to get back in the black is obviously a good sign.

Actually feeling tilted

This is the first time in a LOOONG time I've actually felt a little tilted. I guess the last time I remember it happening was while I was in Las Vegas last Nov with a bunch of guys from Canada's Poker Forum and losing a 500x big blind pot to a guy that hit runner runner full house to beat my flopped flush (all-in on the flop when I flopped it, he had overpair without the suit on board).

Back tonight, recently I received a bonus offer from Full Tilt Poker for $500, and obviously poker players can't turn down free money. So I asked Pinhead to ship me some moneys on Full Tilt so I can grind away at this bonus. While I enjoy Full Tilt's cash game, I really like their Super Turbo tourneys where you start with 300 chips, blinds 15/30 and each level is 3 minutes long. I know the structure is a crap-shoot, but after awhile, you are actually able to label some players and exploit their style. This structure also allowed tons of volumn, but obviously has HUGE variance. I've had mixed results but was still turning in a positive ROI in about 200 that I've played up until tonight.

Tonight came around, and I couldn't get anything going. I've always believed that running bad isn't just about losing the consecutive coin-flips, or losing while in a domination situation, but running bad also consists of no one having a hand when you have a big hand, or having a big hand but running into bigger hands, etc etc. And tonight was just one of those nights. Not only was I losing the 70/30, 60/40, 50/50, but I was simply getting slapped around by deck. Having AA in the BB while everyone folds, shoving AJ in the SB and running into AQ on the BB in a BvB battle. It was just frustrating - and by the time I got to type this blog entry, I honestly felt a slight bit of tilt setting in.

I really hate for my blog to become rants about bad beats and running bad - and I honestly thought I have been able to remove any emotional attachment to the results of this game, but I guess I still got some work to do.

On the bright side, Poker Stars is running a Dream Job promotions tomorrow (Sunday) at 7pm that I have been looking forward to for awhile. As of this writing, there is 226 players registered, meaning the overlay is at a whopping $100K right now. Obviously I expect a high number of last minute entrants, but this tourney will still have an overlay and hopefully I have saved my run-good for this tourney as it would be pretty awesome to win it.

Anyways, hopefully the next blog entry wouldn't be as negative as this one and the previous one!

Back at the Grind

So it seems lately I've found the desire to put some hours in at the virtual felt again. Nothing big, nor massive number of tables, just getting back into a bit of sit-and-go's and a bit of PLO. Ran pretty hot for the first couple of nights and positioned myself nicely in the "Battle of the Planets" in the high orbit section. However tonight just wasn't my night where overpairs were cracked by underpairs, players stacking off in dominated situation on the bubble and winning the 30/70. So now I need to essentially win 10 of my last 12 SnGs to be able to finish in the top 10 for the high orbit.

I went deep in a couple of tourneys (finished 28/1000+) but still short of the huge score. Coming up next is probably back at trying to grind out an Aussie Millions or PCA seat...

Just a few hands to illustrated my night.
QQ < 77 AIPF

Another 2 outer

Another one

Yeah..it's been pretty ugly.