Moving in and Running Good

So we're finally somewhat situated in the new house, which is nice.  Still waiting on my desk to be built, which will be ready in 2 weeks.  For now I'm playing on my wife's desk which is in the sewing room, so I'm definitely looking forward to moving into my office.

I bought a new computer with a 24" monitor.  I've been playing on a laptop for the last 3 years so it will definitely be a change but I think my eyes will thank me eventually.  I haven't hooked it up yet though because I don't feel like putting it together here in the sewing room in the basement then moving it in 2 weeks, so for now I'm still playing on the laptop.

I will have some pictures of my office and my new setup when I get it ready.

Been running great in this house so far.  Up over $20k in sngs this week plus I got 2nd in the $215 2x chance for $7k last night, then tonight in the same tourney I got first for $23k.  Obviously I had to make up for blowing a big chiplead last night.  :)



Probably won't post again until the baby is born, which should happen any day now.  He's due in 10 days.

5k Bounty Shootout Round 2

Bleh quite a disappointing day.  Lost every pot I played in level 1 and was down to about 11k of the 25k starting stack.  When level 2 started I got AJ in the cutoff and raised to 750 at 150/300, bb raises to 2100, I shove and he snap calls with QQ.  I hit a jack on the flop but got no further help and was likely the first person to bust today.

At least they let me keep 2 souvenirs from yesterday:

 

5k Bounty Shootout Round 1

Here was my starting table for today:

George Lind Iii 1
Lukas Schwartz-Orbach 2
Kent Lundmark 3
Gregory Merson 4
Angel Guillen 5
Keven Stammen 6



Things started off pretty well when I made a flush on the river against Angel in a huge pot and raised him all in after he bet the river, and he called, and I got my chips up to around 45k from the starting stack of 25k about an hour into the tourney.  For the next hour or so I lost a few small pots and didn't win much of anything, and had about 32k on the first break.

After that the blinds started to get higher and I got it all in preflop with TT vs QQ and then with AQ vs 99 and lost them both, and was down to about 8k chips.  By this time the blinds were 400/800 so it was shoving time.  After that I chopped an all in with A7 vs A6, then won one with A2 vs A7 when I hit a 2 on the flop, putting me just over 20k chips.  After that I won a few pots to get to around 30k, at which point we were 3 handed, with Greg having won all 3 of the bounties so far.  So now blinds are 500/1000, Luke minraises the button, Greg folds, and I shove Q9dd with Luke having about 25k to start the hand.  He snap calls with AK of spades, the flop comes 9xx with 2 spades, but turn and river are blanks and so I win my first bounty.

We start heads up with me very slightly behind in chips, maybe something like 85k-65k.  I got the momentum early when I called a checkraise on the river and he was bluffing for about a 35k pot or so, and I took the chip lead for a moment.  He won a few smaller pots after that and then a big pot where I missed a draw, and he took about a 95-55 lead.  Then I won a few pots to inch closer, something  like 78k-72K, when the big hand happened.  Blinds 600/1200, he minraised the button and I called with 44.  Flop came 458 with 2 spades.  I checked, he bet 3600, I checkraised to 10200, he called pretty quickly.  Turn was an offsuit J, I bet 14500, he called fairly quickly again.  River was an offsuit ace.  I went all in for about 45k, he thought for maybe 30 seconds and finally called, and my hand was good.

So at that point I had about a 144k-6k chip lead.  We shoved or folded a few hands then got A2 vs Q8 and I was ahead til the river but he hit an 8 to get up to maybe 15k chips or so.  A few hands later he shoves again on the button and I call with A8, and he flips over KJdd.  Flop is A93 with 1 diamond so I'm way ahead, but the turn is the Q of diamonds to give him a ton of outs.  Luckily the river was a blank though and I won my table!

In total I get 10k for winning the table plus 2k for winning 2 bounties.  We restart at 7pm tomorrow with 36 people left, and if I can win my table tomorrow I'll be at the final table.  I don't know the payouts yet but I'm sure it'd be a pretty decent amount if I can win my table tomorrow.

Busto at PCA

I busted in about 2 hours from the PCA main event.  I tried to bluff in a spot where I'd rarely be bluffing and got called, then called down someone in a spot where I thought he should be bluffing a lot, and he wasn't.  I may elaborate more in later posts but I had a lot to drink tonight.  :)

Still playing the 5k bounty tourney on the 13th, not sure if I'll play anything else before then.

Nice Day Today

Fun session today, second best sng day ever, 30k vpps today too, 68,658 for the year.

I'm actually kind of sad in a way that I have so much going on for the next month or 2, i'm really in the mood to grind some VPPs now.  :)

Swingy Start to the New Year

Broke my record for most games played in a day with nearly 2500 though and got 29k VPPs now.

Was having a great day til I started to add some of the higher limit games, then I ran at -30% in the $357s, which is the 2 big dips shown in the graph.

I should have stopped at about game #1850 though obviously.  :)

2010 Recap and Looking Forward to 2011

So I ended the year just north of my goal of 2.25 million VPP, which is nice.  I really feel like I could have gotten more if I really wanted to, considering I was up to 1 million in March, but I mean I didn't play at all for 6 weeks during the WSOP and after WSOP I was only playing like 1 day a week until WCOOP started (which was probably about another 6 week span).  But between SCOOP in May and WSOP in June and part of July, I had played poker for over 2 months pretty much all day every day and was pretty burnt out on poker at the time.  I picked it up again for WCOOP, but the last couple months I've only been playing 2 or 3 days a week because we always seem to have stuff going on, between getting ready to move into the new house and preparing for the baby.

So here's where I'm at for 2011 so far after 1 short day of playing:

Pretty sad to look at all those small numbers.  :)

It will probably be a slow January and February for me, between moving into the new house and having a baby due in February.  Also I'll be at PCA for 10 days.  This will be my 4th year in a row going, and it's really a great destination for a poker tournament.  The weather kind of sucked last year because it was too cold and windy, but I just looked at the forecast and it looks like highs in the 70s for at least the first few days, so that's nice.

Wife can't go this year because it's too close to when the baby is due, so I'm going by myself this year.  In the previous 3 years I've never played a side event, always just played the main event then lounged and did whatever else at the resort after busting the main event.  But this year I think I'll play some side events if I bust early.  Only side event I know for sure I'll be playing is the $5k bounty shootout on the 13th.  This is a nice once because there's a good chance of getting some TV time, and after barely missing 2 separate chances of getting TV time at NAPT LA, maybe this will be the time.  I've never been on TV for poker except stuff like shots of the back of my head when they were filming another table.  It would be nice for all the non-poker-player people I meet who, when I tell them I'm a poker player, one of their first questions is usually something like "Have you been on TV?".  It would be nice to be able to answer "yes" to it.

Anyway, 2011 goals.  Most important one is to be the best dad I can to our son.  I don't really feel fully prepared for this yet but I'm sure it will all make a lot more sense once he's born.  :)

As for poker goals, it's a near certainty that I'll make Supernova Elite again.  Beyond that it's really hard to even guess.  I really don't know how my poker playing will work with a kid in the house until he's actually born, so it's hard to even fathom a guess now as to how poker will go in 2011.

Also, the hyperturbo sngs that I've played for the last couple years were changed yesterday.  In an effort to help curb collusion, PokerStars decided to change them from paying 2 seats plus a refund for third, to just paying 2 seats now.  Also the buyins are slightly lower now to accommodate the change in payouts.  I'm not sure that I fully understand the change and I do think it will hurt the volume of the games somewhat, and I think win rates in this format will be lower than in the old format just because the strategy is simpler.  But really, the games are satellites to a tournament and were never meant for "grinders" to play in the first place, they were originally meant to try to get more people to play the target tournament.  They just kind of evolved into something that a grinder could play a couple years ago, mostly thanks to myself.

I definitely prefer the old format, but like I've done 10 other times in my poker/gambling career, I'll just have to adjust to something new.  You can never be a successful poker player/gambler if you expect to do the same thing for your whole life anyway.  The games change, people's preferences change, you have to go where the money is.  If I find that these games are unbeatable then I'll just have to find a new game to play.  It's been a nice 2 year run for me in the old hyperturbos, but that's gone now.

It's really hard to say how much this change will affect what I do in 2011.  It mostly depends on whether other people still play them.  A lot of the regulars are threatening to quit playing them but I really think a lot of those are idle threats.  My plan for now is to continue to play them in the new format, but that could easily change in the next month or 2 if I come to the conclusion that these games aren't beatable at a high enough rate.