Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Ho Hum Day One

I started the day with 30K and ended with 19.5K. It was a really uneventful day, I played a lot of small pots and my chip stack was always between 19 and 35K. My chip counts were:

Level 3 - 27K
Level 5 - 22K
Level 7 - 26.5K
Level 8 - 34K

I ended up losing about 10K in a hand towards the end where I flopped a flush draw and gut-shot straight draw vs. top pair and failed to improve.

The level of competition in this tournament is very strong. There were several good online players including an EPT champ and Marcel Luske at my table today. It only gets tougher from here but my decisions will at least be easy to start day 2 due to being short-stacked. Blinds will start at 500-1000 and with 20 big blinds I'll be looking for spots to reraise all-in.

I have a day off tomorrow while the second half of the field plays and then Day 2 on Wed., I'll have another update then.

4 comments:

  1. Keep it up! :) I am rooting for you.

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  2. Hi,

    Unrelated to your current post (good luck in Bahamas) I have to say that I really like your blog (just stumbled across today).

    I read that you don't know yet whether you would pursue SNE next year. Why? I'm curious because I wonder why would you try it in the first place if it's not worth it. I see that you are a highly profitable player without SNE anyway. Is it better to just play high stakes HU or SH on different sites?

    How do you avoid tilt? I'm a lazy player, easily losing motivation when hit by a series of badbeats. I've been playing low volume for the last two years, low stakes, profitable on 2-3 sites, nothing impressive due to low volume. My understanding of the game is higher than my results and the stakes I play. I feel like my tilt steps in especially when I keep losing to horrible players (which is the case in the low limits).

    I've read a lot but I don't like the speed and rhythm of the improving process. Should I try the training sites? What else could you suggest?

    Sorry for the long post, lots of luck in your endeavours in 2010 and keep blogging!

    Max

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  3. Hey Max,

    Glad you like my blog. To answer your questions:

    One of the big reasons I went after SNE last year was to have a big goal in mind and something that would force me to play a lot of hands. I do think playing SH on different sites could be more profitable, there's little doubt I'd have a higher win rate and higher hourly earn but I'm not sure I'd be able to get in the hours I did this past year. I also fear that I'll get complacent and not put in enough time at the tables.

    There's no easy way to avoid tilt. It's important to be able to recognize when you're starting to tilt and then having the discipline to stop playing the moment it starts. For me, any time I start making decisions that are not well thought out and reasoned, I'm tilting. So if I'm making any type of emotion based decision or let my emotions dictate my choice of action in close situations I know it's time to take a break.

    Something else that's important is figuring out exactly what tilts you. If you're able identify something, you can address it, and hopefully stop it from recurring.

    Training sites are a great way to learn. StoxPoker is one I'd recommend.

    Good luck

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  4. Thanks,

    Read through your older posts and was quite a good read. A lot to learn from it! Good luck with whatever you do!

    Max

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