I seem to be pretty decent at getting 2nd place in these medium-field tournaments (this time was 90 players). And when the jump in prize money from 2nd to 1st is by more than 60% (here, from roughly $160 to $260), that's sort of an unfortunate thing to be good at. Could be bad luck, or maybe I need to practice my heads-up game and learn how to close...
Although in all honesty, I can't complain. I went into the final table like 4th in chips, and was doing fine but not awesome... figured I'd likely get like 3rd-6th or so... and then when we got down to 3-way, I was the short stack by like 20k to like 100k and 100k. Getting JJ paid off helped the come-back a bit, and I did actually gain the chiplead for a few hands, but it didn't last.
When we got to heads-up, it was against a guy whose screenname is "sleep w fishes." Now I didn't know who he was, but I looked up his stats... and they're pretty impressive. He's got a few big cashes in these $10-$20 tournaments, including two that are in the $4k-$5k range, and several 1st places in the 45-player $26 tournaments (for $410 each). I actually find it sort of incredible that with all these wins, he's still playing at the $20 level.
Anyways, my reaction while playing him was that he was making some mistakes -- I thought he was a bit TOO aggro, and also calling things a little light. But in retrospect, he may have been playing pretty solid... I may have to go back and look at the hands again to see what I can learn. With how much that he's winning, he must be doing something right...
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday, February 05, 2009
528th for $363.95 + $200 bounty
Well I just busted out. My last hand I had 99 in CO, opened to 3x, the BB shoved (had me covered), and I actually thought about folding because I figured it was probably a race at best, even if he was screwing around and re-stealing. But I figured I'd go with it, gotta win races to win the tournament. So I called and yeah he had AK, and flopped the A.
But at least I didn't go away empty-handed, got $363.95 for the 528th place finish, out of a final total of 6275 (they were still doing late registration for a bit). ALSO, they had bounties on all the FTP pros, so you got $200 if you knocked one out. I knocked out Gabriela Hill on this hand. And... for the little bit that I was sitting with her, she really looked like she was playing rather poorly, so I was hoping to get the chance to bust her. And yeah this call by her in her final hand is definitely questionable (although, in all honesty so is my shove, but we won't talk about that, lol).
Come to think of it, I actually don't even really know who she is. So I'm not sure how she got to become an FTP pro. But hey, thanks for the extra $200, Full Tilt :)
(edit: I looked up who Gabriela Hill is. Makes sense now since she's really an announcer, not a professional player).
And now back to my regularly scheduled $10 tournaments... actually, I think I might be ready to move up to the $20s with this $563.95 score, haha. And of course I will have my constant eye on satellites into more of these big events.
But at least I didn't go away empty-handed, got $363.95 for the 528th place finish, out of a final total of 6275 (they were still doing late registration for a bit). ALSO, they had bounties on all the FTP pros, so you got $200 if you knocked one out. I knocked out Gabriela Hill on this hand. And... for the little bit that I was sitting with her, she really looked like she was playing rather poorly, so I was hoping to get the chance to bust her. And yeah this call by her in her final hand is definitely questionable (although, in all honesty so is my shove, but we won't talk about that, lol).
Come to think of it, I actually don't even really know who she is. So I'm not sure how she got to become an FTP pro. But hey, thanks for the extra $200, Full Tilt :)
(edit: I looked up who Gabriela Hill is. Makes sense now since she's really an announcer, not a professional player).
And now back to my regularly scheduled $10 tournaments... actually, I think I might be ready to move up to the $20s with this $563.95 score, haha. And of course I will have my constant eye on satellites into more of these big events.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
FTOPS 2nd break
Well I'm still alive. I'm sitting at 7460 chips, and the average is 8159.
In the first few levels I was pretty active, putting in a lot of bluffs and getting called, so my table might think I'm a total monkey. I had one bluff that I DID get away with though: this REALLY shouldn't have worked.
I think my turn check-raise was fine... but after he calls that, he's saying he doesn't buy what I'm selling. So he's almost certainly calling the river, too. Well, I got really lucky on this one.
On the other hand, here's one I'm really proud of: you don't have an ace.
I was surprised that his pre-flop raise got us heads up. But then again, I think it was pretty apparent from his raise that he was really strong. Now, once that Ace came down on the flop, I felt that it wasn't too likely that he had an Ace. And so I decided to take this pot from him, but to wait until the turn to do so. And yeah, success!
Oh, in another hand, I raised to 4510 by accident... I meant to raise to 450 :-P The keys are too close together on my number pad. Fortunately no one called, haha. Although, I had AQ so I might not have been in too bad of shape if someone did, but still.
okay, back to it.
In the first few levels I was pretty active, putting in a lot of bluffs and getting called, so my table might think I'm a total monkey. I had one bluff that I DID get away with though: this REALLY shouldn't have worked.
I think my turn check-raise was fine... but after he calls that, he's saying he doesn't buy what I'm selling. So he's almost certainly calling the river, too. Well, I got really lucky on this one.
On the other hand, here's one I'm really proud of: you don't have an ace.
I was surprised that his pre-flop raise got us heads up. But then again, I think it was pretty apparent from his raise that he was really strong. Now, once that Ace came down on the flop, I felt that it wasn't too likely that he had an Ace. And so I decided to take this pot from him, but to wait until the turn to do so. And yeah, success!
Oh, in another hand, I raised to 4510 by accident... I meant to raise to 450 :-P The keys are too close together on my number pad. Fortunately no one called, haha. Although, I had AQ so I might not have been in too bad of shape if someone did, but still.
okay, back to it.
FTOPS XI here we goooo
Event #1 of FTOPS XI has begun! We've got a total of 6,108 players and a 1st prize of $210,750.43.
Things have just begun and I'm already in a bit of a hole. Ran into aces, had some other things go wrong, and I'm already down almost 1,000 chips after 7 hands (we started with 5,000).
Projections on 2+2 have been saying that this thing is gonna go until 10:30am EST. Time to get comfortable... hopefully...
Things have just begun and I'm already in a bit of a hole. Ran into aces, had some other things go wrong, and I'm already down almost 1,000 chips after 7 hands (we started with 5,000).
Projections on 2+2 have been saying that this thing is gonna go until 10:30am EST. Time to get comfortable... hopefully...
Sunday, February 01, 2009
SharkScope, Vegas Summary, FTOPS, etc.
Tonight I found a website that is basically a public online database of everyone's tournament results at pretty much all of the poker sites. Pretty sick, huh? You can search for anyone based on their screenname. So of course, I searched for myself! So it returned a bunch of data on me, including this graph of my results:
Pretty cool, huh? I'm not entirely sure how far back it goes, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of this graph is within the last two months or so because I didn't play that many tournaments on Full Tilt before that. Notice the bit of a downswing I'm having right now, though. yeah, it's been pretty sucky. But, I think what I might do is check this website periodically, and post a new graph each month to see how I'm doing.
Anyways, I've been meaning to write a recap of Vegas, which I still plan to. But for now, I'll just give a brief summary of the gambling results: I played in a couple of tournaments, didn't cash in either (3rd in one that paid top 2, 13th in another that paid top 6). Lost a bunch on craps and blackjack, too. But managed to come out ahead in non-tournament poker. The totals were something like:
Blackjack: -$155
Craps: -$100
Poker Tournaments: -$140
Poker cash games: +$220
total: -$175
The FTOPS tournament that I won a seat into is in less than a week, on Wednesday at 6pm. First place is still listed at $172,960... gonna have to have a lot of things go right to even get anywhere close to that. But here we goooo...
Pretty cool, huh? I'm not entirely sure how far back it goes, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of this graph is within the last two months or so because I didn't play that many tournaments on Full Tilt before that. Notice the bit of a downswing I'm having right now, though. yeah, it's been pretty sucky. But, I think what I might do is check this website periodically, and post a new graph each month to see how I'm doing.
Anyways, I've been meaning to write a recap of Vegas, which I still plan to. But for now, I'll just give a brief summary of the gambling results: I played in a couple of tournaments, didn't cash in either (3rd in one that paid top 2, 13th in another that paid top 6). Lost a bunch on craps and blackjack, too. But managed to come out ahead in non-tournament poker. The totals were something like:
Blackjack: -$155
Craps: -$100
Poker Tournaments: -$140
Poker cash games: +$220
total: -$175
The FTOPS tournament that I won a seat into is in less than a week, on Wednesday at 6pm. First place is still listed at $172,960... gonna have to have a lot of things go right to even get anywhere close to that. But here we goooo...
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