I guess I’m done with my doyle challenge April 18, 2009

Just a quick blog to say that I’ll be deleting that category as I logged on last week start working on my .10 stt Doyle’s challenge again and found that they no longer had the .10 stts which is just too bad as I only have $1.89 in my account so only have one chance at a stt as the smallest one I found was for a $1 plus rake.

They do have freerolls for all us old Victory poker players though so I will participate in those when I have a chance.  Beyond that you probably won’t see me write much about Doyle’s room anymore.

Completed my 3rd ft challenge, just a small one April 18, 2009

A new challenge popped up to try the other day and even though it was small and very basic I decided to add it to my list of challenges to complete.  It was called “The Guide to SNG’s” by Phil Gordon and consisted of 3 tasks.

1) Play one 9-handed sng that is not a turbo

Okay, this was actually a challenge for me.  Nothing irritates me more than a non-turbo sng.  They take so long for a little bit of money.  Since it was step one of the challenge though off I went and played a non-turbo sng.  I played a $1 one hoping it would go quicker (give me a break here haha) and the thing lasted an hour and ten minutes.  I did my best to follow the suggestions from the past two challenges and ended up finishing 2nd.  We only played one heads up hand…I had AT vs. his Q6 and the flop came QQA sigh…you can just guess how that turned out lol.

2)  Play one 9-handed turbo sng.

Well this was easy for me as I normally play turbo sngs…I finished 5th though but I was fine with that as you can’t win them all.

3) The Pro Play:  Play one sng that serves as a satellite to a larger tournament.

This one was a little different for me as I normally don’t play sngs that are satellites.  If I play a satellite it’s usually an mtt.  I had a hard time finding one that was within my bankroll management limits (remember I’m strict about that) so I ended up playing in a $1.80 + .20 one that paid three $5.50 seats.  I found I had to adjust my game quite a bit but I’m happy to say I ended up with one of the seats which I quickly changed in for tournament dollars.

This was pretty much the easiest challenge you’ll find on there, worth only 30 points but as with the other challenges I took it for all it was worth and used it to learn something new about me and my game.  My next challenge is “bankroll management” and I’m terrified of the pro play on that one which is increase your bankroll by 25%.  I think I may be working at this challenge for a while lol.

Completed my 2nd ft challenge…”Mastering the Bubble” April 17, 2009

This challenge was actually much harder for me than the first one.  The first one I completed in 28 sngs and this one took me 51 sngs to complete it.  This one was comprised of 5 tasks with some of the tasks needing to be completed multiple times.

They were:

1) Pre flop fold A X (where the “X” is 8 or lower) while 4 handed in a 9 handed NLHE sng that pays 3 spots.

This one took me a while.  I’d get down to 4 players and then not get dealt Ax haha, this was the 2nd to last task I completed.  I only had to complete this task once so thank goodness for small blessings lol.

2) Move or call all in pre flop with Kx or Qx (where the “x” is 9 or lower) while 3 handed in a 9 handed NLHE sng that pays 3 spots.

This was actually the first task I completed.  I moved in with Q4 and won the blinds…very easy task.

3) Play 4 heads up NLHE sngs.

This was the 2nd task I completed.  I played 4 of them in a row.  I chose to do one at a time as you definitely need complete concentration when playing heads up.  I won 3 out of the 4 heads up matches so I was very happy with how this task went.

4) Cash in five 9-handed NLHE sngs that pay 3 spots.

This took me 18 sngs to do.  I went on a really bad run of cards and lost 6 in a row without a single cash and then each of the other cashes had a few non-cashes in between.  This task and the next task is what took me so long to finish this challenge.

5) The Pro Play:  Win three 9 handed NLHE sngs.

This one took me a total of 51 sngs (minus the 4 heads up matches) to finish since this challenge is obviously the challenge that you are working towards from the beginning.  I won a sng within the first 4 I played towards this challenge and then I didn’t win another one for 25 sngs, it was very frustrating.  In all my sngs I had six 2nd place finishes where I could have won and completed the task but I was running so horrible heads up.

All in all I am glad I completed the challenge but it definitely was a very frustrating one to me.  What I continue to love most about these challenges is the pro’s reasoning behind each task in the challenge.  It leaves me coming away from each session with something learned even if that day wasn’t a winning one.  I only had 15 cashes out of the 51 sngs which was disappointing for me and unusual as well.  I’m normally about a 50/50 when it comes to cashing in sngs.  I had 9 bubble finishes during the 47 nine-handed sngs I played which is a better average for me so I guess I learned something about “mastering the bubble” after all.

Bitterly disappointed, sigh April 14, 2009

Was working on my second challenge and saw the daily dollar mtt on ft had started but was accepting late registration so decided to join.  It ended up costing me 200 pts (didn’t know paying in points for this was an option until I did) and there were 5954 players and the guaranteed prize pool was 10k so paying 200 pts was a very good deal.  I doubled up the first hand I played when my pocket kings beat out pocket 8’s.  I didn’t look back from there (until I went out of course lol).

I had pocket pair after pocket pair and connected with about every flop.  I cruised into the money and through the first few money breaks.  We were starting to come up on the better payouts when I was dealt pocket kings in my bb.  I had double the average stack and was the big stack at the table.  There were 5 limpers including the sb and I raised to 17.5k (blinds were 1200/2400) and got one caller.  Flop was ten high and he checked to me and I bet enough to set him in and he of course obliged me with a call with his set of 7’s, sigh.

This crippled me down to 12x the bb and I toiled away until I only had 8x the bb and moved in with AQ and won the blinds and antes.  I won another small pot and was back up to 34k.  I had AT suited on the button with only one other player in (besides the blinds)and I raised and he called, blinds folded.  Flop came rainbow and ten high and he checked and I moved in for the last of my chips and he obliged me with a call with his set of 4’s (insert sigh here).

Instead of cruising in to the good payout area I went out in 241st place for a whopping $5.  I know I did nothing wrong, it’s actually one mtt I can say I made no glaring mistakes that I can think of but all my luck came in the first 3 hours and petered in the last hour or so.  I played my heart out for 4 hours, made it through thousands of players, and turned 200 points into $5 but I can honestly say my heart broke on that one.

I’m glad the next two days I’ll be busy with the end of tax season and won’t have a chance to do much playing.  I think my poor broke-down heart can use a break and reality check lol.

Finished my first “FT Poker Academy” challenge… April 12, 2009

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have been utilizing the FT Poker Academy and decided to try to complete each of the challenges they are offering.  In return for completing challenges you get a set amount of points that you can spend in the soon to be opening academy store.

I started with the “Sit & Go by the Numbers” challenge put on by Aaron Bartley which offered 200 points for completing all the tasks.  There were 5 tasks in the challenge and some of the tasks were multiples meaning you had to finish that certain task a set amount of times.  Since part of the challenge was to play five sng’s with the buy-in not being more than 2% of your bankroll, this left me needing to play $1 stts to be sure not to dip below that 2% mark.  This made it an equally hard task as the $1 stts can be very trying at times to me with their wild nature.

It took me 28 sng’s to complete the whole challenge with the last 10-15 stts only needing to finish the “pro play challenge” part which was to win 2 9-handed sngs.  I won one within the first 7 sng’s and then it took me until the 28th sng to win another one.  Very frustrating but absolutely rewarding when I did win it.

I found my stats for the $1 stts quite improved during this process.   I normally don’t cash well in these and I cashed in 13 out of 28 sngs with a small loss of $4.40 which were attributed to a number of bubble finishes, 9 to be exact.  This brings me to the next challenge on the ft poker academy…”Mastering the Bubble” by Howard Lederer.  I had planned on going with “Bankroll Management” by Chris Ferguson next but after looking over my statistics and seeing the number of bubble finishes that I had I decided that Howard’s challenge was the next logical choice.

I really encourage anyone looking to improve their game to look in to trying these challenges.  I found the first one to be informative and I feel as if I’ve taken a positive step in my game with me from completing it.

Just to give a little sample of some of the tasks I had to complete for the sng one…

-don’t finish in the bottom 3 of four 9-handed sngs that pay 3 spots.

-Fold A-J, A-T, A-9, K-Q, or K-J in early position 2 times while there are 7 players left in a 9-handed sng.

-Go all-in with A-Q, A-J, or A-T while five or six players remain in a 9-handed sng.

-Play five sngs; your buy-in for each can be no more than 2% of your ft bankroll.

-”pro play”…finish in first place in two 9-handed sngs.

Full Tilt promotions… April 7, 2009

I’d received an email from full tilt regarding their “Take 2″ promotion.  I decided it looked interesting enough to go check it out so I signed on to ft for the first time in a long time (I’ve been playing mostly on ps even since before my break).   I remembered my ft account was low as I’d been doing transfers of ft money for ps money.  I did have enough to try the take 2 promotion though which consists of playing on 2 cash tables simultaneously and earning at least 1 ft point a day for 5 days for a $5 bonus (or more if you catch the whole promotion which I didn’t).  So far I’ve completed two of the five days and have only lost like .50 lol.

While looking in to that promotion through the “my promotions” button in the cashier (which is where you need to go to sign up for the take 2 promo) I came across the fact that ft now has a “poker academy”.   I decided it was worth a look-see.  I was quite impressed with the whole layout and am now sold on it.

They have informative videos, blogs, podcasts, lessons, etc.  They have these challenges where the pros challenge you to different tasks and upon completion of all the tasks you get a set amount of points to spend in their (opening soon) ft poker academy store.

I signed up for a few but the one I am currently working on is called “sng by the numbers” which was put together by Aaron Bartley.  There are 5 different tasks and each one he asks you to do 1-5 times depending on the task.  Each task gives you the exact details as well as a reasoning behind the task so it’s not only a challenge (and challenges are fun!) but it’s also a poker lesson and because some of the tasks need to be completed multiple times, it is really ingrained in to your memory.

I’m three short steps away from completing my first task and am looking forward to starting my next one which is by Chris Ferguson and is regarding bankroll management.

Poker School Online now free… April 7, 2009

I was cruising around on Pokerchix the other day and saw a post from a fellow chix who said she received an email from Al Spath saying that PSO (poker school online) was now free to everyone.  I’d played on Bugsy’s Club back when they were attached to their site but had never joined.

I decided to go over and take a look, you can download the software through pokerpages.com so off I went to do so.  After downloading and installing it I started browsing around.  It’s all free play on there, you get 300 pso points a day (if you need it) and each tournament buy-in is either free or in pso points and you can win more pso points for bigger events.

I tried some 5 player freeroll sngs, 3 in all and came in 2nd in all three to win a few pso points.  I tried an 8 player stud one and bubbled (this cost me 100 pso’s).  I also tried a “bankroll booster” freeroll mtt to win pso’s.  There were 61 entrants and after a bit I ended up finishing first.  Top 20 got pso points (even across the board) but the play did not diminish after this goal was reached.  The play continued to be as solid as it had been from the beginning.

I found the play there to be pretty solid all around, quite interesting for a free site.  I didn’t get much chance to browse around at the lessons, blogs, articles, etc on there but what I saw looked interesting and informative and am looking forward to spending more time there in the future.

2k freeroll and more…4/5/09 April 7, 2009

I found myself sitting home on Sunday afternoon with nothing to do so I decided to use one of my 2 tickets for the Sunday afternoon 2k rd 2 freeroll.  It is PL Omaha (or Omahahahahaha at those “stakes”).  I never really put anything together and go out somewhere near the middle of a 5000+ person tournament.

While I was playing in this I noticed my attention was wandering so I decided to play a second game at the same time to help me stay poker-focused.  I chose to try a series of micro limit satellites which led to a seat in the Sunday 1/4 million (10 + 1 buy-in).  All the ones I ended up trying were hyper-turbo…you started with 500 chips and the blinds went up every 3 minutes.  I usually do very well with this style of tournament.

I tried a .33, a .44, a .55, 2 .22 ones, and finally a .77 one.  In all of them there were about 400 to 500 players to start and I’d go out somewhere in the 100+ person range until the .77 one where everything clicked and I won a seat.  It cost me $2.53 to win a $10+1 seat so I was happy.

The Sunday 1/4 million was overwhelming, it started with 29214 players.  You were given 3ooo chips to start with 10 minute blinds.  It was actually a very good structure for such a large tournament, the dead weight went out QUICK.  In almost no time at all we were close to the money (4270 spots were being paid).  The one hand that will stand out to me is being dealt pocket 8’s and laying them down and feeling like I made a chicken laydown when I should have made my move and gone all-in.  It ends up I would have flopped a set and rivered quads but it doesn’t matter as once I decided to fold what happened after meant nothing.

I ended up doubling up with 8’s at a later date to be able to make it into the money.  Once in the money it was another free for all.  4270th place to 1700th place paid $29.21 and 1699 place to 270th place paid $29.22 so essentially 4000 places were being paid the same amount.  This was the chance to double up or go out.  I doubled up time and again and then it got closer to the next pay break and play tightened up and became more solid.  As hard as I tried I just couldn’t make it to the next money break and went out with the best hand in 412th place for $29.22.

At first I was unhappy but after thinking about it I became very happy with my play.  Lately I’ve been making it through massive fields of players and how can I be unhappy or complain about that.

Food poisoning and playing poker don’t mix! 4/1/09 April 7, 2009

Let’s start by saying I really don’t know if it’s such a great idea to play poker on April Fool’s Day.  Every fool truly did seem to be out in droves on this day.  I was fine with this though as I was going to just play small as I was home sick with a case of food poisoning.

I headed back to a couple of my friends, the points freeroll and the round 1 freeroll that gave tickets to the top 72 who qualified for the weekly 2k freeroll.  I did well again in both, kept my patience and on occasion sat out for a few minutes when the food poisoning overtook me.  I ended up finishing in 624th out of 4284 players in the 10 pt freeroll winning .20 and in 25th place out of 9000 players winning another ticket to the 2k freeroll.

Then all hell broke loose haha.  I decided to get all silly (I think it was the food poisoning delerium talking here) and play in one of pokerstars April Fool’s Day mtts…the only fool there was me.  I did well at the beginning, surprising considering it was a rebuy with wacky rebuy rules, you started with 4875 in chips and the blinds started high and then got low and then high again.

Eventually being weak from the fp got to me.  I fell asleep when we were about 200 from the money and got blinded out right before the money.  I ended up in 456th place out of 3214 and wasted $8 because I invested money into a losing situation when I was sick.  Definitely a lesson learned.

Starting back…3/30/09 April 7, 2009

I took a couple months off from poker and even longer from blogging about poker.  I needed this time off as I wasn’t running well both in life and in poker and I know that when both are off it is never a good idea to play.  Things in my life have calmed down and with tax season winding down I felt now was a good time to start again.

I didn’t want to start big as I felt rusty and needed time to get back to thinking poker.  I signed on to Pokerstars to see what was available for freerolls and micro limits.  I found two things that interested me, a 20 pt (1k prizepool) freeroll and a freeroll to win a ticket into a 2k freeroll over the weekend.  I chose to play both.

To my delight and surprise, playing poker is just like riding a bike.  Even with over two months of not having a single poker thought it all came back to me.  I ended up finishing in the 20 pt freeroll in 125th place out of 4647 players for a $1.30 cash and ended up winning a ticket to their weekly round two 2k mtt by coming in 58th place out of 9000 players.

I was very happy with my play for my first day back and was and am hoping that it keeps up.