Monday 5 March 2012

The Run Bad Continues!

Played the MPT Grand Final on Saturday. It was a £50 BI but I was freerolling due to having won an earlier event on the tour. With only 19 players, there was £650-£400-£230 for the top 3, and quite a few juicy spots. 15k start stack, and by level 4 (100-200) I had around 16k. Then the next hand came up:

Adam Smith, who plays online and can mix it up quite a bit, opened UTG+1 to 500. I was next to him with Ac3c and decided to make my first 3-bet of the day to 1250. I was flatted by the button, and then it came back round to Adam who made it 3100. I 5-bet to 5,850 and both players folded, Adam showing AQ off. I tilted him by showing the 3c.

THE VERY NEXT HAND:

Adam opens UTG to 500, I look down at....AdAs! Dream spot. Guess what? I made it 1250. Rather surprisingly Tom Gannon flatted in the seat to my left, which, given he's a great player really limited his range to 99-QQ. It folded round to Adam and he went bigger on his 4-bet this time, to 5k straight. I tanked and made it 8,475, Tom G folded (he had JJ) and Adam shoved his 20k in. I snapped, and Adam had QQ which was pretty sick, I felt like given the previous hand he could be getting it in much lighter. Anyway, after the J on the flop I felt pretty good given that I expected at least one of them to make a set, but in this case it was both as the Q hit the river.

That was for the chiplead, I got my 7bbs in with QJ vs A9 and didn't get there. A good tournament series, with Yiannis Liperis a deserving winner of the final, I just wish I could have been around a little longer!

Friday 2 March 2012

Ah poker. Don't you just love it?
Well I don't.

Week off work, and I decided to invest some capital and grind a decent schedule of Stars MTTs. 5 days, 50 hours and 60 tourneys later and we have nothing to show for it apart from an emotional breakdown, utter humiliation and a huge slice of self doubt! Call it the curse of Asbury Court! One year in my new house and my biggest score remains $300. Gone are the days of 4 figure scores, and I do believe Amy is questioning my own enormous self-belief in my MTT abilities.

"Where's the money?" she asks.

"Variance, sample size...blah blah...running bad...blah".

These are the perils of a part timer. 60 MTTs over 5 days and I've definitely run badly. I have no doubt that the short-term variance will turn around but the problem with having a real life job is that it takes a hefty amount of time to reach a decent sample size. Even in my most prolific year, 2010, I only played 650 MTTs. This figure would be dwarfed by a full-timer, and while downswings are a reality for all good players, the higher the volume the shorter the real-time downswing length becomes.

I did make a 2nd place. Typically it was in the lowest prize-pool of any of the tourneys I regged for. A paltry $60. I even ran terribly in the heads-up where I had him in as a 70% favourite twice without holding.

Moan, whinge, whine! Tomorrow I play live in the Grand Final of the Midlands Poker Tour, a £50 BI that I'm freerolling in having won an earlier leg of the tour. Run good please?