Irunit4times Brantford $120 Trip Report/Advice
tonights bap and trip report as follows.
I leave house for casino. I get to casino and buy in. I am seated and begin to play. I size of competition and think I have good shot. Win a couple of small pots. Player 2 seats to left gets cold decked and goes on tilt. I pick up QQ on button, tilter player SHOVES, I snap call. Player turns over A8. Hits Ace on flop, turns his two pair, severly cripples me. I wait for hand to shove. 40 seconds until next level leaving me with only 5BB then. I shove A4 5 handed, called by AQ and BUSTO. True story guys, I wouldn't make this up. Seriously no lying at all, I swear. Okay maybe one lie, maybe I didn't have good shot, Maybe I knew doom switch would fall lol.
Okay that out of the way, on a serious note though, I know I have been playing well lately, my cash game results recently prove that. Also getting it in good for the most part in tournaments speaks volumes as well I think for my game. I know that tournaments are a high variance game and it can take some time before final tabling a tournament or even binking one, but my question is this. How do you players keep your heads about you when you run like this? Do you start to second guess your plays, are you happy even when you bust knowing that you got it in good. How do you keep the motivation to keep doing what your doing if you feel it is right.
I am feel like I could be making some money if I just focused on maybe cash games for a bit, so my question again to the better player son here, pro/semi pro etc, do I turn and focus on grinding out cash games and take a shot here and there at a tournament? Or do I continue to 50/50 my play building a roll in cash just to piss it away in tournaments and back to square one. I am very motivated to make something in some tournaments, and just want to know how good players feel and take away from their play when they bust. I am far far far past the anger portion and in fact when I get beat like this, I tend to just chuckle in my head like I reeled you in sucker, but you just got luckier than me. it happens.
Any advice on breaking through in the tournament world?
Also, I really am serious about a skype group playing some sngs or something and playing an hour or something then stopping and talking analzying hands and plays etc. Anyone else interested and willing to take a lead on this because I am very bad with computer skype and calculator programs etc etc etc.
I leave house for casino. I get to casino and buy in. I am seated and begin to play. I size of competition and think I have good shot. Win a couple of small pots. Player 2 seats to left gets cold decked and goes on tilt. I pick up QQ on button, tilter player SHOVES, I snap call. Player turns over A8. Hits Ace on flop, turns his two pair, severly cripples me. I wait for hand to shove. 40 seconds until next level leaving me with only 5BB then. I shove A4 5 handed, called by AQ and BUSTO. True story guys, I wouldn't make this up. Seriously no lying at all, I swear. Okay maybe one lie, maybe I didn't have good shot, Maybe I knew doom switch would fall lol.
Okay that out of the way, on a serious note though, I know I have been playing well lately, my cash game results recently prove that. Also getting it in good for the most part in tournaments speaks volumes as well I think for my game. I know that tournaments are a high variance game and it can take some time before final tabling a tournament or even binking one, but my question is this. How do you players keep your heads about you when you run like this? Do you start to second guess your plays, are you happy even when you bust knowing that you got it in good. How do you keep the motivation to keep doing what your doing if you feel it is right.
I am feel like I could be making some money if I just focused on maybe cash games for a bit, so my question again to the better player son here, pro/semi pro etc, do I turn and focus on grinding out cash games and take a shot here and there at a tournament? Or do I continue to 50/50 my play building a roll in cash just to piss it away in tournaments and back to square one. I am very motivated to make something in some tournaments, and just want to know how good players feel and take away from their play when they bust. I am far far far past the anger portion and in fact when I get beat like this, I tend to just chuckle in my head like I reeled you in sucker, but you just got luckier than me. it happens.
Any advice on breaking through in the tournament world?
Also, I really am serious about a skype group playing some sngs or something and playing an hour or something then stopping and talking analzying hands and plays etc. Anyone else interested and willing to take a lead on this because I am very bad with computer skype and calculator programs etc etc etc.
Comments
gl
I'm interested in some kind of study group
I think you pretty much said it there. Be happy knowing you got it in good. When you didn't get it in good, learn a lesson from it so you get some value out of it. If you feel it's right, keep working it.
Shorter answer: play more hands!
I think it helps not to think of it as trying for a big score, but more just trying to extract that one win out of your expectation that covers all the attempts it took to get there, plus a bit of profit. To be fair I'm not speaking from experience as I'm not really comfortable playing high buy ins, but just as an example I'd rather play 10 $120's than a $1090, etc.
Out of pure banroll management and variance it makes more sense to play 10 $100 games than 1 $1000 game. That being said, if you follow proper bankroll management, taking a shot at 1 $1k game instead of grinding your regular $100 games is worth it once in a while provided you have the bankroll that would withstand 10 losses at $100 games, and you do not play any $100 games for said normal period as your $1k game was in its place.
Should I just focus on grinding cash games and moving up levels in that and see how far I can build my bankroll and what level I can bankroll myself up to?
I don't think the 20 minutes away from cash games changed your game too much:)
I got it all in for 2k 92:8 and lost the other night...pokerz
Maybe like stated above I will just grind out cash games and move up and down with the swings and then take shots in tournaments based on bankroll
I don't play for a living...but when I want to torture myself by playing a donkament a few timea a year i will generally used 10-20% broll to play which is not ideal but whatever;)
In a tournament when you are out you can't play again until the next tourney so the volume will obv always be less. I think there is more value in being a winning cash game player because the variance is far less. However if being a tournament player is what you want then you have to be a blondefish and play whenever and wherever you find the tournaments. If you can't do that then you should stick to cash and use tournaments only as a fun occasional outlet.
Heres the thing about live tournament poker, and "breaking through".
Its really about luck. Thats a real answer.
Variance in any form of MTT poker can be quite significant. If youre playing a single MTT a week, a year of negative variance should not be seen as abnormal.
Similarly, people might run hot like the sun over what is really a small sample size and possibly be of lesser raw poker talent.
However, if the game is really soft and there are players giving their money away, I will stay as long as I can.
Table selection is key as well. If you don't like the table you are on, don't be afraid to move. If you are to the right of the maniac of the table, get a seat change to their left when you can.
Don't play tired or tilted and don't play too long.
- Site and game selection, e.g., I have never wasted money buying into Seneca or other US tournament with 30% tax in the past five years.
- Satellites, such as Bill's freerolls. I was probably among the least experienced players on the forum back in 2007 and didn't even play online, but I decided to start taking shots at the Brantford satellites, which later led to a ~$50K week.
- Swaps and BAPs. Swaps have been really good for me this year in that there is a high ITM % where either I or the other swapper cashes so we don't have the usual after-MTT DEPRESSING drive home. A Gold Member has turned into a hveepoker/brianS tho and still hasn't paid me the agreed-upon 10% of gross winnings for the last ITM swap, and has ignored my multiple messages.
- Instead of just waiting for the next live tournament, play cash games with beatable rake and online. In my case, I play many more days online and only play the live tourneys that have a buy-in of >= $220.
- When the eventual long bad runs happen despite all of the above strategies, then I can drop down in buy-ins. For example, if DirtArse and I had not won first place in GBH and had a downward-sloping giraffe, then we would not have bought in directly to the WPT Main Event.
- The mental factors such as tilt and discipline may be the most difficult. In my case, I've learned to deal with everything from racist drunks and online trollers with haterade, so the multiple bad beats I get just like every "unluckiest guy in the world" :bs: is just another day in variance paradise.
Also, when you do play a tourney, play a deepstack event where you have a little more room to use your skill and recover from bad beats. They don't have to be the bigger ones, even the $130 will give you a better edge than a nightly $120.
If the game is good, you should be maximizing the money won from bad players.
If you lose 3 buyins at a soft table but feel you played them all right, all the more reason to put up a 4th. (Side note - you may even be able to exploit that image)
Key is constant evaluation:
Is there money to be made at this table?
Am I playing my A game or my C game?
Am I negatively changing my play due to my losses(or wins?).
Am I negatively chaning my play due to being tired/hungry/etc? (Plan this part ahead and then check in on yourself)
If you honestly answer those questions at regular intervals while playing, you can decide to continue or call it quits. If you can't do that, then maybe a time limit, but I think its very important to look at it as one long and constantly changing game rather than individual sessions with individual win/loss limits.
Side effects include playing Bill's cash game until 5:30AM, etc.