Heads Up SnGs

Well, I suffered back to back losses in the Double or Nothing Tournament. I'll still play in these eventually, but I'm finding these games very boring now. 

I browsed around to see which MTTs I should play and settled on a $5, 90 player SnG, top 12 places paid. I played well and at one point I was 15th. During the middle stages, I lost hands with AK and Pocket Fives, and eventually bounced out in 38th place. 

After that tournament, my BR was down to only $6. I contemplated what to play with my last remaining dollars cuz I'd rather not have to deposit and reload. So.....I finally settled on the HU NLHE(Heads Up No Limit Hold 'Em) SnGs. 

I played against a player that was fairly tight; he would fold his little blinds often even though he had the button. So I made it a habit to raise aggressively to pick off his blinds. I'll also win the occasional pots by making the c-bets. A couple of important hands. So I was in the lead when this hand occured....

Hand 10

rnl27 (1740 in chips)

carbide77 (1260 in chips)

I'm dealt Ad 9c. I min raise to 40. He min raises me back to 80. I reraise 220. He goes All-in. 

Analysis: The old me would have called hoping he was bluffing, but I knew he had the goods. I knew I was the better player and would be able to outplay him later on. I folded. Our stacks became even after that. 

Hand 37

rnl27 (1090 in chips)

carbide77(1910 in chips)

I'm dealt Js Jh. Villain raises to 60. I call to disguise the strength of my hand. 

Flop [8s 7c 5c] 

I check. Villain bets 60. I call. 

Turn [8s 7c 5c] [3d]

I bet 120. Villain raises All-In. I call for my last 850. 

River [8s 7c 5c] [3d] [As]

Analysis: Villain shows Qc 6c for a missed flush draw and missed open-ended straight draw. I definitely dodged bullets there. I didn't know he had such a strong draw and with 18 outs. I take a 2-1 chip lead. 

Hand 51

rnl27 (2165 in chips)

carbide77 (835 in chips)

I'm dealt Kh 9c. Villain raises to 60. I call. 

Flop [Kc 7h 6d]

I bet 60. Villain calls.

Turn [Kc 7h 6d] [9s]

I bet 120. Villain calls again. 

River [Kc 7h 6d] [9s] [Ac]

I check. Villain goes All-in. Insta-call. Villain shows Jc Tc. Game over. 

So my first HU NLHE match was a success. I was feeling pretty good about myself so I decided to play another. It was I think the shortest Heads Up match I've ever played; it took one hand to decide the outcome. 

Hand 1

rnl27 (1500 in chips)

OhFaSho20's (1500 in chips)

I'll disclose our hole cards at the bottom. Try to play along and guess if you want. 

So I'm the button and I min-raise to 40. He min raises me 80. I three bet him 240. He calls. 

Flop [2d 5s 3h]

Villain bets 1140 and is All-in. I call. 

Turn [2d 5s 3h] [Js]

River [2d 5s 3h] [Js] [6d]

So what do we have? And who wins the tournament. 

A

N

S

W

E

R 

I

S 

I do with Pocket 10s. Villain shows Pockets 8s. 

So after these two wins, my BR is up to $16. I find that I really enjoy playing these HU NLHE matches. They're not as boring as the Double or Nothings. I can focus on one opponent and immediately know their playing style within a few hands. I see way more flops, so I can practice post flop play. And I can make the same amount of money in a shorter time. I think the HU NLHE games are definitely my preferred game at the moment. (Its where Dario Minieri got his start a couple years ago at Pokerstars. Lets see how far I can take it!)

My 30K Challenge

It seems everyone has heard about Daniel Negreanu's challenge to turn $10 into $100,000 playing the micro limits and working his way up to the high limits. It's a well thought out plan, and I hope Daniel succeeds. Ever since I heard about it, I've been trying to watch him play on Pokerstars and maybe learn alittle, but he's hardly on. Who knows? Maybe I'll even sit down and try to bust him. LOL!

In my own mind, I've always envisioned doing something similar, except I'm not as ambitious as Daniel. For me, I'll be trying to build a $10 bankroll into $30,000(or 3 stacks of high society). Now rather than play the cash games tho(which really isn't my strength), I'll be mostly playing tournaments - SnGs and MTTs. By avoiding the ring games, I hope to avoid the variance that comes from a bad session where multiple buy-ins and a huge chunk of the bankroll can be lost. With tournaments, I'll control my stake, and hopefully hit it big with a high finish here and there.

It'll be a long road ahead to reach my goal, but I know it is possible. About 6 months ago, I followed this formula and built my stack up to $260. But then I squandered it away by playing in the WSOP Main Event Satellites. Nothing wrong with being ambitious, but I dreamt too big envisioning WSOPs, WPTs, EPTs, APPTs, and LAPTs when it wasn't really realistic. From now on, I'm gonna first firmly establish online success and a bigger bankroll before I think about playing in the big live tournaments. 

Double or Nothing

Lately, I've been trying my hand at the $5 Double or Nothing SnG Tournaments on Pokerstars. 10 Players sit at a table; Top 5 double their money and other 5 get nothing. 

I've done fairly well in these types of tournaments. My first try didn't go too well, but I blame the structure being a turbo tournament where blinds go up every 5 minutes. The next three I played, the blinds went up every 10 minutes, so I was able to play poker and be more patient. So far, I've been able to double my money everytime with the better structure, so I'm going to stick with that. 

Harrah's

Not much has gone on recently with me and poker aside from the small tournament we entered at Harrah's. I busted out really early, somewhere in the second level I think. I can't even remember, partly cuz its been so long, and partly because the entire time the tournament was going on, I was kinda in a tired and dazed state. 

I can only remember two hands of interest that I was in. Villain raises(can't remember exact amount or from what position).  I look down at AJs and decide to call his raise, hoping to outplay him after the flop. Flop comes 9 4 3 I think. He checks to me, and I'm thinking he has AK or AQ, or some broadway cards that missed him completely. I lead out hoping to take the pot down, but he calls. I can't remember what happened in between, but at showdown he shows Pocket Nines for trips. Oh well, no way I could have played it differently to win that hand. 

The other hand I remember was the one that knocked me out. Blinds were 25/50 I think.I was pretty short stacked with about 900. Action folded around to Joe who was on the button. LB limps, and I look down at T2 on the BB. I decide to check and see a flop. In retrospect, I could of made a raise to 125 and taken the pot right there preflop. The LB would have folded for sure, but I can't say for sure whether Joe would have. He had a lot of chips to play with and I would be out of position for all the betting rounds. So flop comes and I hit a set of deuces. I open for 100 and Joe raises me 300 with his top pair. I insta-call. We both check the turn. River comes and I check it. Joe bets enough to put me all in( I only have about 500 behind). Not looking at the board or anything, I call thinking my set was good. Joe turns over the flush that he caught runner runner. 

Maybe I could have laid down my set after thinking everything through and seeing the board, but that would have been hard to do. I would not have given him credit for a runner runner flush at all. Not seeing the flush potential on the board, my thinking was that he caught two pair on the river. Either that or he wanted to push me out of the pot with a overbet thinking I had nada when I showed weakness by checking the turn and river. Either way, I lost. 

8001

Out of a field of 26,000 plus players in the Sunday Hundred Grander, I placed 8001. Obviously, I wasn't too pleased with my showing. 

Early on, I was really happy with my play. We all started with 3000 chips, and following the smallball strategy, I built my stack up to 7K, picking up small pot after small pot, without risking my stack. Then I played one hand with an idiot beginner sitting to the left of me dropped my stack to 2K. I had AQ. He had KJ. The flop comes out Q 9 5. He leads out and I check raise him 4x his bet and he insta-calls. 

Turn: K

I wasn't too happy to see this obviously. The only card I was afraid of seeing. I didn't know he had a straight draw, so the 10 didn't scare me. In the back of my mind, I knew I was beat, cuz I observed this guy play and he would only play Aces, Face cards, and pockets. He made small bets and priced me in to see the river, but no Ace or Queen at the river to save me. 

So I was down to about 2K, and was struggling with the blinds to stay afloat. I was then down to about 1400 and picked up pocket 4's. I went all-in and got two callers. Flop 3d 9d 7s. Turn 8s. River 6d. I totally thought I was dead. Any 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 woulda killed me. But neither player had anything and I tripled up to 4500. 

I battled with the idiot beginner(who won many lucky pots) many times and was up and down. At last our table disbanded and I was glad to get away from him because he was just too damn lucky all the time. 

At the new table, there were many "big stacks" with 20K or more who kept applying the pressure with raises. I had only about 4K, so I had to choose when to pick my spot and go all in. Blinds were 300/600 with 50 antes.  I pick up 9c 10c. One of the aggressive raisers only made it 1200 to go. I figured if I called then 30% of the stack is already committed, so I reraise all-in. He calls and shows AA. I don't get any help from the board and I'm eliminated in 8001 place. Thinking back, I should have been cautious of the mini-raise, but didn't give the raiser credit for a hand. So note to self: Be cautious of the mini-raises preflop. 

My only comfort is the idiot beginner who I constantly tangled with earlier finished in 8819 place. Proving my conviction that he was a beginner. Man, if I had his stack of 20K, I woulda went far into the tournament and probably cashed. 

Second Chance at the Sunday Hundred Grander

Just played in an online satellite tournament tonight on Pokerstars. Buy-in: $2.20. 36 Players. Top 6 Finishers win entry into Sunday Two Hundred Grander. I've played this tourney before. Last time there were 20,113 entries, and I finished 63rd to take home $261.47. I was disappointed I didn't win or finish higher up in the money because at one point, I was 4th and had ~$100,000 in chips. In my mind, I was already imagining what I would do with the $18,343 first place prize. Big mistake! Cuz thats when you lose it all.(Just ask Dave!)

I was able to finish in the Top 6 tonight in the satellite, so it looks like I'll have another shot at it. 

Uneventful

So yesterday I stumbled to LC without even planning on it. My intentions was to Christmas shop at Serramonte, but somehow wandered into LC instead. 

I sat down and played for $60 which felt really new to me. What can I say? There really were no memorable hands. I played for 1.5 hrs in what felt like a long grind just to be up $40. I think being short-stacked and being away from the game so long really affected my play, making me too passive and patient the entire time. With my tight image, I figured I wasn't going to get alot of action unless monster hands faced off, so I left. 

Oh yea, my car wouldn't start when I was trying to leave LC, so one of the attendants had to help me jump start my car. I tipped him a couple bucks, so that cut into my winnings. Son of a bitch!

A New Poker Star is Born

A day after Dave presented us with his Poker Blog and the fascinating stories of his poker adventures, I decided to follow suit and create one myself. I'm nowhere nearly as committed to the game as Dave, but hopefully this log will keep me focused and help develop my game more. It can really be an important training and learning tool for me. Having said that, this, my first attempt at a "blog" will mainly just be a recap and analysis of the games and hands I'm involved in. Probably nothing that will thrill the readers too much(if there are any). 

Watch out Scotty! Watch out Daniel! A New Poker Star is Born!