Zero To Sixty

Too Much Is… Too Much

I’ve cut down on my poker play, as I’ve been playing just way too much. I still play quite a bit, and I can see my play continue to improve, but I’m not playing six hours a day. I am going to focus on one freeroll every few days.

Progress

While I still haven’t finished in the money in a cash tournament, I can see evidence of my improved play. In the Carbon Poker Sit’n'go tourneys, I’ve made it to the third round in two of my last three attempts. I also am generally well-placed in tourneys heading into the first break. What knocks me out? Almost always a bad beat. For example, tonight I was kicked out of a freeroll on Absolute Poker when my pocket tens got beat by an under pair that matched with a second pair on the river.

Bummer

Earlier today I made it to the final two in the funstep 3 sit’n'go tourney on Carbon Poker. If I won,  I would have earned a full dollar. Hey, it’s something!

Anyway, I was up 5,000 chips to 1,000 and really was moving in for the kill, when I had to leave to do something with the family. So, I’ll take it as a moral victory, even though I had to forfeit my spot.

I feel pretty good despite the fact that my bankroll is still pathetically low. The reason is that I can see some real growth in my play. All of these grind-it-out tourneys against maniacs and loose players seem to be a pretty good training ground.

On example of progress is in the Carbon Poker Funstep sit’n'go tourneys. These are play money sit’n'gos where when you get past the first two rounds, you actually play for $1 in real money in the third round. In the past I’ve had to play about 4 times or more in round 1 tourneys to win and move on to a round 2 one. Now I’m pretty much a lock to move on to round 2.

One of the differences is that I’m getting better at heads up play. Playing heads up over and over again is grueling, but I’m starting to see some real patterns develop and an underlying key strategy. It’s obvious but not easy: Minimize your losses from middling and poor hands and maximize your profits from big hands.

To my mind this often means folding against early raises. I guess if I think about it, favorable pot odds in heads up are hard, if not impossible. So playing for any kind of draw is dubious unless you have an extraordinary number of outs.

One side effect of this is that if I have a much bigger stack it can be incredibly demoralizing playing against me heads up. I just don’t call a lot of bets unless I have a good hand, and them I’d most likely re-raise. As a result, it takes someone a LONG time to make progress against me. I like that.

Anyway, I feel good. I’m getting better, and it’s starting to show in my results.

Had to take care of some family things with school tonight, so I missed the Bodog freeroll. I played in several of the Carbon Poker “Funstep” sit’n'go tournaments, and got past level 1 to level 2. I got busted in level 2 with a particularly bad beat (opponent hit triple kings when I had two pair As and Ks). So it’s back to the drawing board tomorrow.

I’m particularly proud of how I got to round 2, however. I got hit with two bad beats in a row, which took me down to $250 in chips head-to-head against my opponent, who had $5750 in chips. From that huge hole, I climbed out and won! I’ll take this as a good sign–this time I didn’t lose my head or my optimism when I got knocked to the floor. I came back and won.

Still, the nightly result was the same: Total winnings still sit at $0.00.