Weekend Update

After bitching and whining, I finally cashed in a tourney. To no one's surprise, it was the FTP Nightly $10 rebuy. That is definitely my bread and butter tourney. I'm a little disappointed, but I finished 2nd. I was 4 for 4 in my HU matches for this tourney. Oh well, at least I got off the cashless streak.

Hand #1 aka The Bustout Hand:




I'm also happy that I managed a couple of cashes in Poker Stars tourneys. Back to back cashes in the $10 rebuy. Not much in terms of money, but a big boost in terms of confidence on that site after going over a year without a cash. A win in that tourney would be huge. Not only is the payout usually $13k but the field is about 2000 people. That's 3-4 times the size of the FTP $10 rebuy. I think the Poker Stars field is probably softer than FTP, but it is huge.

On Sunday I played the monthly $1 Million Guaranteed tourney on Full Tilt. There were 2200 people. 1st was over $200k. I had a few big hands early, but overall the tourney was pretty standard. Not much to talk about. Surprisingly, I only had one flip and I lost. JJ held against my AQ. That crippled me and I busted the next hand. My JJ got flushed down the toilet by KJs. Fortunately, this occurred just after the money bubble so I did manage to pad the roll a little.

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming FTOPS. Hopefully, I can win a seat into the $1k and $5k events. I will probably need to win two seats into the $5k in order for my BR Management nazi-side to allow my gambler-side play in the event.

I'm also looking forward to the WSOP ME Sats. FTP has started running WPT LAPC Sats which are nice. Hopefully, this is a new trend given that they are a major sponsor for the WPT now. They are running $200, $300 and $500 weekly sats til the event which is around mid-Feb. I posted a suggestion that they change their sats to $200 or $300, a $500 and a $1k. Makes more sense to me and that is basically what they do for the WSOP ME for an identical prize package. The $500 Sat had 60 players with 2 packages being awarded. A $1k with the same number of players would have awarded 5 seats.

Oh, I was finally picked in the P5s OT Competition. I was picked by Yogiblair in the 2nd round. The comp starts in February. Hopefully, I wont be the weakest link. That would be a nice time to run good. Especially, in the FTOPS events. I think I can settle for bypassing my first 5-figure score and going straight to 6-figures. :)

Later.

Quick Update

This year started off with a bang. Picked up a win and had another session which I final tabled two MTTs at the same time. Wow, what a difference a week makes. I can say that I am well on my way to playing in 1000 MTTs for the year, but not much else has gone to plan this past week. The usual run bad stories. If I'm ahead, I get ran down, or I get coolered or my bluffs run into monsters....blah, blah, blah.

Last night's session was the first since I updated my resolutions, which I really tried to focus on being more decision oriented rather than results oriented. I must say that overall, the session went a lot smoother. There were a few bad decisions and no cash, but it helped me avoid tilting after a few beats. Practice makes perfect, so hopefully this will make for a better year.

Although, I have only had like one baby cash in the past week, technically, I'm up. I won two Sat seats into this Sunday's Full Tilt $1M Guarantee tourney. The buy-in is $535. I used one for the tourney and one for my FTOPS Event #10 buy-in. I hope to win a couple more seats. That would lock up all of my FTOPS buy-ins very early and let me focus on my MTTs for the P5s OT Competition. BTW, the draft is supposed to start today.

Pause

"When we are winning, we feel invincible... When we are losing, we feel like we may never win again... The most difficult aspect of poker is remaining humble and mentally steadfast during highs and lows. This is a lesson I continue to focus on."

-Rex55

After this past weekend, this quote has hit home hard.
(Adding to my New Years Resolutions.)

0) Stop being results oriented and focus on making the correct decisions.
0a)Work on controlling tilt.
1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Grow my bankroll to $100k
3) Win a seat into the WSOP ME
4) Win a 5-figure score
5) Play 1000 MTTs
6) Play 60,000 cash game hands
7) Climb up to $5/$10 6max
8) Reach the Pocket 5s Top 15 MTT players for North Carolina.
9) Develop a regular MTT and Cash Game training regiment
10) Win 10 MTTs

Daily Schedule

I've finally settled on a daily MTT schedule. Since I have a full-time day job, my schedule consists of all evening tourneys. One of my New Years resolutions is to play 1000 MTTs over the course of this year. That averages to about 3 MTTs per day. Here is the list of tourneys which as of right now, give me the best shot at reaching this goal, and hopefully make a lot of money along the way. My plan is to play some combination of these tourneys on a nightly basis. I'll play more on the weekends to offset any light days during the work week.

(Poker Stars, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.......Mrs. Cleo says that the curse is over.)

Full Tilt:
$26 Freezeout at 8pm
$55 Freezeout at 9:30pm
$26 Freezeout at 10pm
$10 Rebuy at 10:30pm

Poker Stars:
$28 Freezeout at 8pm
$20 Rebuy at 9pm
$55 Freezeout at 9:30pm
$11 Rebuy at 10pm
$33 Freezeout at 11pm
$28 Turbo Freezeout at 11:40pm

I'll also occasionally mix in some satties for the Sunday Majors or (FTOPS, WCOOP, WSOP, etc), a $50 cubed rebuy, $100 and $75 freezeouts.

I'm also going to participate in the Pocket Fives OT Team Competition for February 2k9. At least that is my plan. I have to get drafted in order to actually be in the comp. The draft will start on Wednesday Jan. 14th and finished by Friday Jan. 16th. I hope to get drafted because that will add even more fuel to my fire to do well in MTTs. I don't want to be the weakest link. The comp lasts for the whole month. I registered as a mid-stakes player and my new schedule fits nicely within the requirements for the competition. As soon as I know the results of the draft, I'll post the details.

FTOPS XI Schedule

The upcoming FTOPS schedule has been released.

As always, I'm looking forward to playing in the FTOPS. My winnings have increased with each of the past two series. Hopefully, that trend will continue and I can have a GREAT series.

Here is the full schedule. I have bolded the events which I plan on entering and italicized the events that I hope to satellite into.

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XI Schedule:
(Event # Date Time Buy-in Game Guarantee)

#1 2/4 21:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em $1,000,000
#2 2/5 14:00 ET $240+16 PL Omaha/8 Knockout $200,000
#3 2/5 21:00 ET $200+16 Stud $100,000
#4 2/6 14:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em 3x Shootout $200,000
#5 2/6 21:00 ET $200+16 Limit Hold'em 6-max $150,000
#6 2/7 14:00 ET $500+35 PL Omaha 6-Max $300,000
#7 2/7 16:00 ET $100+9 NL Hold'em w/ Rebuys $500,000
#8 2/8 14:00 ET $240+16 NL Hold'em Knockout 6-max $600,000
#9 2/8 16:00 ET $500+35 NL Hold'em Heads Up $500,000
#10 2/8 18:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em $1,500,000
#11 2/9 14:00 ET $200+16 HA (half PLHE, half PLO) $150,000
#12 2/9 21:00 ET $1,000+60 NL Hold'em Second Chance $1,500,000
#13 2/10 14:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em (1R/1A) $300,000
#14 2/10 21:00 ET $500+35 HORSE $300,000
#15 2/10 21:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em Turbo 6-max $500,000
#16 2/11 14:00 ET $200+16 Omaha/8 $150,000
#17 2/11 21:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em 6-max w/ Rebuys $1,000,000
#18 2/12 14:00 ET $200+16 PL Omaha Heads-Up $100,000
#19 2/12 21:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em 4x Shootout 6-max $300,000
#20 2/13 14:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em 6-max $400,000
#21 2/13 21:00 ET $300+22 Razz $150,000
#22 2/14 14:00 ET $5,000+200 NL Hold'em (2-Day Event) $2,000,000
#23 2/14 16:00 ET $100+9 PL Omaha w/ Rebuys $350,000
#24 2/15 14:00 ET $120+9 NL Hold'em Knockout $750,000
#25 2/15 18:00 ET $500+35 NL Hold'em (Main Event) $2,500,000

First MTT Win of 2009

Well, it didn't take long to get my first win of the year. It's amazing how I literally went years without a single final table. The past two weeks I've had 3 wins, albeit in the same tourney, but wins nonetheless. And the past three months I've made a decent number of final tables. I'm very thankful and this is very encouraging for a strong 2k9.

Here are some hands from last night's win:

Hand #1: This hand sparked my deep finish. I was card dead for most of the beginning of this tourney. This was the first spot where I thought I could pick up some good chips uncontested or HU. Well, it didn't end up being uncontested or HU, but this win definitely propelled me for my run. It was kinda funny when the hands were shown, I was calling for the 9, but had no idea I had a lot more outs than just the 9. (7, 8, 9 or T)




Hand #2: In retrospect, and after some discussion with my coach, I realized that my play in this hand was pretty bad. I don't think it was awful because with my style I make a lot of high variance, high risk, reward type of plays that I have learned to deal with. KK+ is in my range for making this play.

I hadn't played with bdybldngpkrplyr prior to this tourney, but I know that he is a successful MTT player and was my biggest threat at the table. So, I was willing to gamble to get him out as quickly as possible. I just didn't think that it was this big of a gamble until the cards flipped over.




Hand #3 aka The Money Hand: We are about even coming into HU play. I had about $1.8M in chips and he had about $1.7M. I was able to grind away at him and get it in ahead for once.

Happy New Year

2008 ended with a bang. Hopefully, that was the start of a white hot 2009. This time last year my main, if not only, poker goal was to use solid bankroll management to build my bankroll.

Here are my New Year's Resolutions/Goals for 2009 in no particular order:

1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Grow my bankroll to $100k
3) Win a seat into the WSOP ME
4) Win a 5-figure score
5) Play 1000 MTTs
6) Play 60,000 cash game hands
7) Climb up to $5/$10 6max
8) Reach the Pocket 5s Top 15 MTT players for North Carolina.
9) Develop a regular MTT and Cash Game training regiment
10) Win 10 MTTs

Wow! Just typing these goals gives me shivers thinking about what if........

Happy New Years!