Speaker Of The House
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Speaker Of The House
Don't know why, but I decided to play some larger buy-ins (for me) today and ended up with mixed results. First, I played a Maui SNG at Titan which is $23 total, but ended up bubbling when I overplayed my Aces and chump filled his straight on the river. I then decided to roll over to PokerStars and give the 180 person $22 buy-in SNG a try. I had never played this SNG before, but had really been wanting to so today was the day. You can click the pic to enlarge, but I'll go ahead and tell you now that it's not too impressive. In the money, but not by much. I'm looking forward to posting one of those really nice pictures where I win it, but today is not that day. As for the tourney...I hovered at my starting stack for a while, but chipped up when I got a set of 5's twice within 5 minutes near the end of the 1st hour. I said 5 thank yous, slapped wifey on the tail 5 times, then turned the TV to Hawaii Five-O. Erm, strike that last sentence from the record. Halfway into the 2nd hour a guy minimum raises and another player pushes all in for about 3 X more the raise. I held QQ and had them both covered so I pushed. The minimum raiser folded and my QQ held up against 88.
This put me well above the average and I was able to hold that stack for quite a while. I chipped up to about 10k, but hit a real bad run of cards with around 60 players left. I didn't see another playable hand until we were around 25 players left. I didn't even get a chance to loosen up as the chip leader was at our table raising virtually every hand. He was taking players out left and right and I didn't want to be one of those guys. I was not going to push chips in the pot with him still to act unless I held a monster.
Down to 22 players left I made what I feel was my 1st mistake. I had about 6000 in chips and held A 10 in the big blind. It folded around to the small blind who had about 3300. He pushed all-in and I made the call which turned out to be a good one as he held K 9. Unfortunately a K hit the flop and we traded stacks. I could have easily let my hand go, but I felt like I had him, and did, but didn't need to risk my stack like that with just a few players to the money. I know I need to stay aggressive and take chips at that point, but I don't need to be calling all-ins with mediocre hands.
From there I went down to 19th in chips with a stack of about 1200 chips. There was one other player with about 1500 in chips and I was hoping he would push or someone at the other table would get knocked out putting me in the money. I was no longer in a position to force the action and just wanted to get in the money. Pussy poker, yes, but when you're down to 1200 in chips you are just hoping for the best.
Luckily, 1500 man pushed and 2 players called him. One of the players hit his hand and I was in the money. From there I ended up pushing with A 10 and thought I was going to get a nice 4k pot when an A hit the flop, but one of the other players held AA. He severely underplayed his hand which caught me off guard. All in all, since it was my first attempt, I am happy with my result, but very disappointed that I couldnt' bring home the bacon by making a run for the final table. I didn't play the SNG to come in 17th place, but under the circumstances, I'll take the double up of the buy-in.
With both SNG's played I actually finished the day down $1.80. Oh well, I feel like I have a better idea of the 180's now so I'll take that for what it's worth.
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On a side note, and to clarify the title of this post, I kept Speaker's Low Buy-In Online Tournament Manifesto Version 1.0 up in the background as a reminder and I think it really helped me. My only problem with sticking to the code was being unable to pound the smaller stacks when it was close to bubble time. Though I was still in the top 20, my stack relative to the others at my table was paultry and the extreme raising coupled with my crap cards made for a sit and wait game. Regardless, Speaker, you wrote a damn good piece their and I am very thankful for the knowledge gained. A lot of what you wrote is common sense, but when you bring it all together the way you did, things just start to click. Thank you.
Luckily, 1500 man pushed and 2 players called him. One of the players hit his hand and I was in the money. From there I ended up pushing with A 10 and thought I was going to get a nice 4k pot when an A hit the flop, but one of the other players held AA. He severely underplayed his hand which caught me off guard. All in all, since it was my first attempt, I am happy with my result, but very disappointed that I couldnt' bring home the bacon by making a run for the final table. I didn't play the SNG to come in 17th place, but under the circumstances, I'll take the double up of the buy-in.
With both SNG's played I actually finished the day down $1.80. Oh well, I feel like I have a better idea of the 180's now so I'll take that for what it's worth.
******************************
On a side note, and to clarify the title of this post, I kept Speaker's Low Buy-In Online Tournament Manifesto Version 1.0 up in the background as a reminder and I think it really helped me. My only problem with sticking to the code was being unable to pound the smaller stacks when it was close to bubble time. Though I was still in the top 20, my stack relative to the others at my table was paultry and the extreme raising coupled with my crap cards made for a sit and wait game. Regardless, Speaker, you wrote a damn good piece their and I am very thankful for the knowledge gained. A lot of what you wrote is common sense, but when you bring it all together the way you did, things just start to click. Thank you.
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This was a rare weekend post and I have Monday off for MLK Day so I don't plan to post again until Tuesday. Until then, go sign up for the H.O.R.S.E. tournament I have detailed up in the announcement section.
posted by TripJax @ 2:57 PM,
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