3rd in 30r

for just over 8K.

Fuck ya.

A score like this has been a long time coming imo. I followed excellent BR management for several months and saw my roll swing up and down time and time again. I knew if I stayed patient my breakthrough would come. Obv Double G's week was the best time for it :)

Chopped 20r

First night of Doubles Week and I chopped the 20r!

I took 4.7K for 2nd and we played it out for $100 as I'm in a Midstakes Team PLB Competition on P5s and needed the points for the team.

I was 36/37 on the bubble and ridic short, down to three blinds, and on an aggro table. I quadrupled thru w/ AQo and ninjad my way to the final two tables as 18/18. Won a flip w/88 against A10dd and picked my spots from there.

At the FT, AJo held against A9o, JJ held against 77, then QQ held against 77 and I found my way HU as about a 2:1 dog in chips. Nadler and I ICM chopped it from there.

There was a ton of talent throughout the entire field. It's really ridic how good players are these days even in the midstakes. The game has def evolved from even one year ago.

K so off to a great start for Doubles Week, a great start for my Team PLB Competition, and a great start to  2010!

Double Guarantees Week Schedule

I'm keepin' it late-night people:

9:30pm $55 

10:00pm $26 

10:30pm $10r

11:00pm $26 6max KO

11:00pm $109 6max

12:00am $75 KO

12:00am $11 

12:30am $20r

1:00am $26

1:30am $30c

1:59am $75

2:30am $22 Turbo Cashout

This is 12 MTTs (all guarantees, duh) at a cost of about $670 (assuming five units in the rebuys).

I'd like to be playing on a 200 buyin roll for this but I'm not. However, I don't see how I can NOT play these tourneys during this insane week. The ev figures to be through the roof. Also, I've won virtually all of these tourneys before at least once and it's been a good while since I've won a decent tourney.

I'd really like to think this is "my week", however I have a difficult time subscribing to that line of irrational thinking. Nonetheless, I feel very confident going into it and expectations are high. I've grinded my roll from a low of $750 in late November to a peak of 7K right now. 

Last night I finished 9th in the 18K guarantee and shipped a late-night $5r. This comes on top of an already successful month and there is no reason to think it should slow down now. I ran like hell for four straight months and the laws of variance allow for equally long periods of run-good. 

So here's hopin' we all run good this week!! (unless of course you're at my table, in which case I hope you lose every pot against me :)

4th in 23K Guarantee

As stated, I got 4th in the $75 23K guarantee the other night for just over 2K. This was very helpful towards having a proper roll for Double Guarantees Week starting on Monday the 25th.

Btw it was sick the amount of talent at the 23K final table. It's a scary-aggressive poker world we live in nowadays.

I'll post my tentative schedule for Double G's week soon.

Also I updated the title and header of my blog to more accurately reflect my current thoughts and feelings.

Mid-January Update

Well there hasn't been a whole lot going on really. I've been playing quite a bit and on a bit of a downswing. The first FT I've made in over 100 tourneys came last night as I got 2nd in a late night $5 1r1a for $700.

I'm obviously rolled to play higher than $5 1r1as but I like to keep tourneys like this in my schedule to bring my average buy in to where it should be since I play $55s and $75s. Also they help cut down variance and keep me motivated to play through a downswing.

My current schedule looks like this:

9:30pm $55 Guarantee

9:45pm $11

10:00pm $26 Guarantee

10:30pm $10r

10:45pm $11 KO

11:00pm $26 6max KO Guarantee

11:30pm $11 6max

12:00am $75 KO Guarantee

12:00am $11 Guarantee

12:35am $5 1r1a

1:00am $26 Guarantee

1:59am $75 Guarantee

2:00am $11 6max

2:15am $33

2:35am $5r

2:45am $11

That's 16 MTTs with a total cost of about $470. This makes my average buy in right around $30 bucks. I see myself grinding this for awhile until I get my roll over 10K.

From Jan 25th through Jan 31st FT is running a Double Guarantee Week where all guaranteed tourneys will have double the prize pools. This is too sick. I'm stoked for this. I'm prbly gonna hit the late night MTTs pretty hard for this as I think they will be the juiciest. I might even play outside my roll a little bit because the EV is so positive.

I'm tentatively thinking I'll be playing basically the same sched as I have now EXCEPT I'll cut out all the non-guarantee tourneys and add in the $20r at 12:30am, the $30 1r1a at 1:30am, and possibly the $109 6max at 11:00pm. Also I may start earlier but I'm not sure.

As promised I'll now be posting my 2010 Sharkscope graph and stats at the top of my blog. I'll update it every couple weeks or when there is a significant change. I will also update it during downswings.

2009 Wrap-up, Twenty-Ten Goals (Part 2)

In my last post I was summing up my 2009 poker results and explaining how I'm coming to terms with my depression.

I was a very inconsistent player in 2009, due to the bipolar I believe. Having said that, it is my main focus to become a more consistent person in twenty-ten, and therefore a more consistent player.

Thinking back, I realize there were some mistakes I was making which kept me from having a better year in poker:

1) Not playing enough, especially when I was winning

2) Focusing more on minimizing my downswings rather than maximizing my upswings

3) Getting too emotionally attached to a big stack late in a tourney then being devastated when I bust

4) Focusing too much on 45-mans to cut down variance

I realize now that for the longest time I've been too worried with avoiding losing. Above all else, I seem to hate losing more than I love winning. This is not good, especially in a game where losing is inevitable and sometimes prolonged.

Currently, I'm on a thirteen day consecutive playing streak. I'm pretty sure thats a record for me. Not only have I played for thirteen straight days but I've played about 260 MTTs in that period of time as well. To me, this indicates a real change in my mindset.

In my last post I mentioned how I've been on an epic four-month micro grind. Well the good news is I've finally busted out of the micro stakes with a series of decent scores over the past week.

On Jan 2nd I took 2nd in a $5 KO tourney with 1200+ for about $850. Then on Jan 4th I took 3rd in a $5 cashout with 1300+ for $650. A couple nights ago I took 6th in the 32K with 1600ish for $1650. Later on that night I took 5th in the midnight madness with 2200+ for 1K.

This nice little run in large fields was the culmination of months of grinding a small roll. I came to Michigan on August 28th with about $3,500 in my full tilt account. I immediately went on a horrible downswing. It was as low as $700 and as high as $3,500 again. It swung up and down in that range for about 2,000 games.

Here is the graph of that time period between Aug 28th and last night:

My roll is now over 6K and I'm pumped to finally be able to play some of the tourneys I used to play. In fact, I'm not only pumped, but I have a very specific goal for twenty-ten.

This is how I figure it: If I made 50K last year grinding midstakes mtts while being bipolar and not really treating it then I should be able to make 100K this year with everything I learned about myself from last year. Phew, that was a mouthful.

I mean, I don't really know what else to aim for. I'm the kind of person who constantly has to be trying to achieve something. My depression got in the way of the 25K project last year and I spazzed out half way through. I will basically consider this a 100K project except a lot of the other parameters won't apply.

It will be pretty simple I think. I'm gonna do a few basic things:

1) Follow the 200 buyin rule

2) Avoid the distraction of 45-mans

3) Be a consistent player

3) Continue to play even when running horribly

That's about it. I mentioned before that I'm my own worst enemy. I tend to read more into things than are actually there. I end up convincing myself that everything is pointless.

But being aware of this horrible thought process, I feel like I'm able to control my thoughts and emotions a whole lot better. This will allow me not to become overwhelmed and devastated when I'm running poorly. I won't stop playing for a few weeks when I'm running like shit like I have in the past.

I can say this for FACT: if I play at least twenty days out of every month this year I will reach the 100K profit mark. Consistency is the key for me.

At some point I'll do the graphs and stuff on my blog for the 100k profit thing like I did the 25K project. I think it will be real exciting for ppl to follow along and exciting for me to see if I can play as consistently as I feel like I'm able to right now.

Let's have a great Twenty-Ten!!

2009 Wrap-up, Twenty-Ten Goals (Part 1)

Wow what a year 2009 was. I mean, I don't really know how to sum it up but I'll try.

It started off amazing. I ended 2008 with a 13K profit month and entered 2009 with high expectations. January met those expectations by being a 40K profit month (between both sites). I was sure '09 was my year to break through.

If you had told me at the end of January '09 that I'd be grinding micro MTTs to start off January 2010 I would have laughed in your face.

The rest of 2009 is basically a blur at this point. These are the only things I can really remember:

a 12K Main Event package win

a deep run in the mini FTOPS main event (11/11,983)

the 25K Project

But the one thing that stands out above anything in 2009 is how it ended. The last four months were atrocious. I ran into a total brick wall. I had to drop down in stakes again and again. I would grind, move back up, get killed, move down, grind, move back up, get killed, move down, grind, etc etc etc.

So this is where I am at the start of twenty-ten. I find myself deep inside an epic four-month micro grind. I'll get more into the future in just a bit.

Here are my OPR results for the year 2009 on both Full Tilt and Stars:

I'm somewhere in the vicinity of 50K profit on the year (not looking forward to paying taxes, but such is life). The disgusting thing is the majority of my profit for the year all came within one month, January. The entire rest of the year yielded only marginal results as far as I'm concerned.

To illustrate my frustration with how '09 played out I'll show my MTT graph from full tilt:

Now, sharkscope didn't track my 12K main event package win because it was basically a satellite tourney in their eyes. So somewhere in the middle of that graph there should be a 12K spike. Either way though, its clear I've been frustrated for a long time.

At this point I'm very glad to sweep 2009 under the rug and move on. However, it would be foolish for me to try to move on without being honest with myself and looking at some of the mistakes I made.

For one thing, and this is most important, I have to come to terms with the fact that I have some form of depression, bipolar most likely. There is a lot of inner turmoil going on inside me and it affects every single thing I do in life and in poker. I consumed a lot of alcohol in 2009 to ease the pain within my mind.

There is no question all this had an affect on my 2009 poker results. Last February I went to a doctor and was prescribed an anti-depressant. I've been on it for all but one month since then and I can say that it helps take the edge off but it nowhere near solves my problems.

I have great difficulty sleeping, racing thoughts, feelings of grandeur and paranoia, intense feelings of hopelessness and loneliness. It's an incredibly frustrating thing. Every single day is a challenge.

I'm tired of pretending like there is nothing wrong with me and being hard on myself all the time. I'm tired of being erratic and feeling like I live in another world. I've got to face up to this and learn to deal with it more appropriately rather than taking drastic, irrational measures when I feel incredibly overwhelmed.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to work this out but I do know three things:

1) I am most definitely my own worst enemy

2) I'm going to try to stop being so hard on myself

3) I'm going to start seeing a therapist so I can get some thoughts out of my head and figure out whats going on inside my mind

Hopefully, through brutal honesty, I can start to make progress with all of this. The more stable I become the better chance I have of being a more consistent poker player, both in terms of profit and consistent playing.

Well I feel this post getting long so I'm actually gonna wrap it up for now. I'll do a post with my thoughts and goals for twenty-ten within the next couple days.