Catching Up
So, it`s been a while since I posted anything here. One reason is that I went through a pretty bad patch at the tables. I didn`t lose a ton of money or anything, I was just card dead. On the rare occasions I picked up a hand I either missed the flop or everyone would fold. Some good did come of it. I looked up one of my aliases on one of these sites that datamines and rates your play. It highlighted a big leak in my game and I realised it was an accurate assessment so I set about improving things.
I went over to Vegas 24/7 and played one of their micro sngs and took 2nd place. The money was irrelevent I just needed something to boost my confidence. It worked too, I went on to cash in my next two games and not simply because I hit decent cards, I played well and deserved those cashes.
Fast forward to this weekend and the OFC events. Saturdays freeroll saw me finish 70th from a field of approximately 1,000. No cash but a good result given how few premium hands I had. Sundays buy-in was by comparison a little disappointing. I got off to a great start limping in with 77 and flopping a set. I picked up a thousand extra chips and knew I could afford to play pretty tight and choose my moments. Luck seemed to be on my side as a guy ran his KK into my AA. My QQ held up against AK and for a considerable length of time I was up in the top 5. It was the middle of the tourney where things started to go wrong. A lack of playable hands saw me dropping down the field and if I`m truthful the middle sector is an area of my game that needs work. With 300+ players this was a big field for me to play against, I much prefer games with less than 100 runners. The end came for me against a play I should have recognised and folded too. A limp in which I raised to 4xbb and he re-raised all-in. I had QQ and should have just laid it down even though it was a third of my stack. Instead I called and he had KK. The sickening thing was I flopped a Q but he flopped a K. I was more annoyed with myself about that than I was about my recent run of bad cards.
Tonight has however proved to be a good night. It being xmas eve I knew there was a good chance the sites would be a little quieter than usual. I checked in on the $10 rebuy sat for the $2500 GTD at Poker.com. Sure enough the field was about half its usual size. Only 23 runners for 4 tickets to the main event. I jumped in and knew I stood a good chance when my KK doubled me up after my opponent pushed all-in on a flush draw. That one hand gave me enough chips to play nice and steady and establish a good table image. At the break I had the choice of adding on 1500 chips for $10 and as I was in 5th place decided to add-on. It proved a good decision as did my rock like table image. Raising with A-8s from mid position with 6 players left a fellow leaguer told me he`d laid down 10-10. With 5 players left I can`t remember the last time I`ve felt so nervous about a game. It seemed no-one wanted to go out and we played five-handed for what felt like an age before finally the bubble burst and I`d won my big ticket.
My plan is to play tomorrow`s game because hopefully it will be a smaller than usual field and hopefully a couple of the big boys will be missing from the lineup. Whatever the result I intend to enjoy the game, if I`m lucky enough to cash it would represent my biggest poker win so here`s hoping for a nice xmas present from ther poker gods.
I went over to Vegas 24/7 and played one of their micro sngs and took 2nd place. The money was irrelevent I just needed something to boost my confidence. It worked too, I went on to cash in my next two games and not simply because I hit decent cards, I played well and deserved those cashes.
Fast forward to this weekend and the OFC events. Saturdays freeroll saw me finish 70th from a field of approximately 1,000. No cash but a good result given how few premium hands I had. Sundays buy-in was by comparison a little disappointing. I got off to a great start limping in with 77 and flopping a set. I picked up a thousand extra chips and knew I could afford to play pretty tight and choose my moments. Luck seemed to be on my side as a guy ran his KK into my AA. My QQ held up against AK and for a considerable length of time I was up in the top 5. It was the middle of the tourney where things started to go wrong. A lack of playable hands saw me dropping down the field and if I`m truthful the middle sector is an area of my game that needs work. With 300+ players this was a big field for me to play against, I much prefer games with less than 100 runners. The end came for me against a play I should have recognised and folded too. A limp in which I raised to 4xbb and he re-raised all-in. I had QQ and should have just laid it down even though it was a third of my stack. Instead I called and he had KK. The sickening thing was I flopped a Q but he flopped a K. I was more annoyed with myself about that than I was about my recent run of bad cards.
Tonight has however proved to be a good night. It being xmas eve I knew there was a good chance the sites would be a little quieter than usual. I checked in on the $10 rebuy sat for the $2500 GTD at Poker.com. Sure enough the field was about half its usual size. Only 23 runners for 4 tickets to the main event. I jumped in and knew I stood a good chance when my KK doubled me up after my opponent pushed all-in on a flush draw. That one hand gave me enough chips to play nice and steady and establish a good table image. At the break I had the choice of adding on 1500 chips for $10 and as I was in 5th place decided to add-on. It proved a good decision as did my rock like table image. Raising with A-8s from mid position with 6 players left a fellow leaguer told me he`d laid down 10-10. With 5 players left I can`t remember the last time I`ve felt so nervous about a game. It seemed no-one wanted to go out and we played five-handed for what felt like an age before finally the bubble burst and I`d won my big ticket.
My plan is to play tomorrow`s game because hopefully it will be a smaller than usual field and hopefully a couple of the big boys will be missing from the lineup. Whatever the result I intend to enjoy the game, if I`m lucky enough to cash it would represent my biggest poker win so here`s hoping for a nice xmas present from ther poker gods.
posted by DangerMouse at 10:08 PM
2 Comments:
Wow - good luck. Poker.com used to be my favorite place in 2006, but I didn't have quite as much success there in 2007.
Happy holidays, mouse, and good luck in the coming year.
Confidence is huge in this game Mouse. I had a tough 2007 where I expected bad things to happen and I played poorly for long stretches. Believe in yourself and the results will come.
As far as that middle part of game, I have talked about this with alot of people, it is the hardest part of the game. You have to keep that stack moving forward somehow. Most games when I come up short it can be traced back to this.
Post a Comment
<< Home