Monday 31 August 2009

Cash or Tournies??????

Hey

Got a dilemma at the moment and as the title suggests im not sure what to do. I love tournies and have loads of time for them but have concluded that they may not be the most profitable route for me as well as the most sinsistently profitable either. The fluctuatuions found in tournies is jarring and if i am to want to take up pro poker after uni i will have to have a deep bankroll to think about playing tournies full time and paying rent and other bills.

That is why i am thinking about playing 0.5/1 cash games, 9 tables for around 50 hours a week. Calulated that if i do this i get a little over £1000 weekly in rakeback so all i would need to do is show a break even game. Now this is a hard prospect to not go for as its guarenteed money at the end of the week and i will have to be unlucky not to be at least break even. However, it may turn out that i could make just as much or more from playing tournies so it is confusing for sure.

This is why i am thinking that i might trial the cash game thing for the next week or so to see if i can maintain a break even game or better, and then have an equally long stint in tournies to see if that is working. If both are working then i would possibly integrate the two playing them at the same time or having days off one and days off the other, possible playing each one of them at their peak fishiest times if this time varies from both fields. It's gonna be an interesting few weeks for sure for me and i hope that my profitablity in this game can just grow and grow.

On an intriguing note, my dad's mates with the mate of a pro Millwall footballer and he revealed to my dad that the starting striker at the club is on £1800 a week wages, which are most probably halved because of tax to £900 a week. It's quite a pleasing thought to think that if all goes well that i can be earning more than a 3rd tier professional football player lol.

Gl at the tables but not against me.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Crushing!

Hey

Had been playing non stop for about 6 days recently for 10 hours a day and found myself averaging around £500 a night which is incredible. Been targeting what i believe to be the weaker euro tournies to achieve this goal and i have been having relative success with this. I particularly love any 6-max tournies going on because shorthanded, i am rather a better player because i find that people really don't appreciate the often deep stacked nature of these tournies and play a lot looser so i just sit back and wait for my spots, because you are given time to wait! This gets me on to another point in that the ultra long structures in online tournies suits me down to a tee! This is for the same reasons given above and that i am beginning to have the patience of a saint in slow playing these fools and maximising profits from the legitimate hands i get.

Starting now to dislike the 10-30$ freezeouts on sites because of how quick the structure rises and how hard it is to maintain a stack when you often get played back at all the time. So i have just given these up on many of the sites in favour of rebuy tournies with slower structures, and also in the rebuy periods the potential to get huge stacks from going all in with AQ-JJ pre flop and getting an ace-rag call is great. In these tournies it is much easier to maintain a stack as you often get more respect for raises as you are often playing much more deep and you also then have room to bluff flops in position that you have missed. It also gives you the opportunity to guage your oppenents liking/disliking of the flop/turn/river and gives you the chance to play accordingly. So safe to say that i am often playing only rebuys nowadays! However, i do play the occasional high value freezeout with lower starting fields, as i believe that people play tighter in these because they think they have a higher chance of success because there are less people to go through which is true and isn't true because i am sure there are expectant sharks that enter these tournies waiting to prey on the nervousness of some of these players.

Have given up for the meantime on full tilt poker and pokerstars on the general conception that they are tougher games, however i am starting to think i have made a broad stereotypical labelling of how good the American player plays and should really back myself in certain tournies. But i was talking to Fenix about this and i said that i plan to load my bankroll up on the euro sites first so that i have a comfortable bankroll to face up to the full tilt and pokerstars high limit tournies from 20r to 100r/300f which could have big value if i learn how to adapt quickly. Will probably set a target of how much i am willing to lose so i can play the tournies relatively care free and hopefully it could be the start of something special. But at the moment i find that i am enjoying playing the 10r, 20r, 25r, 50r and the higher freezout tournies from 25 euros to 100 euros on the euro sites too much to give it up with a massive preference and pretty sick success rate at the 6-max rebuys and the double stack freezouts.

Also incredibly i can say that i am somewhat im my element across 12 tables at a time and feel fully confident i am playing near to my best game on every table. I do have one leak though that i will testify to and this is often in the rebuy tournies mid-late on where i don't open raise enough pots in position with looser holdings to try and play flops and win them without going to showdown, also to develop a slightly looser persona to make it easier to maximise value on the legitimate hands i am likely to get. To be honest i am capable of doing this but i am rather lazy in pressing the auto fold button to make things easier for myself in certain spots and so will look to get more involved where i feel i am at my weakest. The importance of playing 12 tables is HUGE because it enables you to tackle variance on a nightly basis where i have to be really unlucky not to final table anything when i am grinding 12 tables at a time for a 10 hour stint. Normally i get thoguh around 30 tournies in this time and its great to say i am able to play these at a high level at the rate i am, many people can only play a tenth of what i do in a night! Gotta thank Will Hill for my 12 tabling ability really because those small view versions of the tables were great (Pro View) and made it so easy to start on 4 tables and add one daily until you found the comfort zone.

Took a break tonight because i am not feeling quite at my best but i will leave you now with one of my proudest sharkscope graphs, i hope the rate on this bad boy continues! I'm quite liking £500 a day tax free! ROI below at 100%.

GL.

Sunday 16 August 2009

getting on swimmingly


hey

Im loving tournies atm! up £2000 from the last three days of play and i have been on good form. Some shoddy moves have prevented me from better results, and some bad luck also. What i do know is that when i get my resits out of the way i should be killing the games and making in the region of £200 a day. It's a lot to do with the fact that i can 12 table and still play to a high standard. Which is great because you can dispell the nastiness of variance by getting the volume in.

I am a sharkscope shark across 4 sites now but have lost thousands on three sites as well which tarnishes the good work. Ongame has been particularly nasty to me recently in administering really bad luck to the point where i am questioning whether or not i am ever gonna play there again. Saying that i will probs bink a huge win to put myself back into the black on that site anyway so i will wait for my time.

The gym sessions have basically stopped in the past 2 weeks with me being a lazy bugger. I don't know why this has happened really, i am not one to shy away from exercise if needs be. I like to run and do weights but i treat it like school, you don't want to go in the morning but once you are there it ain't half bad. That really needs to pick back up so i can get the bod i deserve and can be physically fit for my football team on the sunday.

Speaking of which i was told that i probably won't be selected because of my fitness. You should see this team! A lot of them are spastics with no technical finesse at all, they are fitter than me but i would be seleceted in front of most of them by any other manager! O well life is a bitch but i just need to get fit really.

Got an exam on tuesday which i hope i get well prepared for (day before revision obv!) and i have four courseworks to do by friday which will be tough and only when all works are done will i return to poker. Couldn't have had a better incentive really, i am bloody addicted to this game!

Btw above is the graph i am generating on one of my favoured sites.

Friday 7 August 2009

Back on the grind



Haven't really been playing that hard recently, but i will be from now on methinks. Gonna be grinding some different euro sites to see what i should be playing on the regular and am starting to feel that i have my touch back and should start to dominate. Time will tell hey.

I have been playing a bit recently and am starting to feel that i can start to crush online tournies again. My graph listed above is from one if the sites i use. I think i will be able to make even more money on there in the near future, which is exciting.

Plans remain for me to crush my uni retakes and for myself to remain relatively tilt free and to enjoy myself which i feel will be easy to do. But could just have jynxed myself!