2 SESSIONS - 1 BLOG, BACK-TO-BACK FINAL TABLES

As the title of this blog hints at, I’m running really well at the moment. I’m not sucking out with 3-outers, in fact I’m not really getting myself into bad spots – it’s more ‘running well’ in the all-of-my-70/30-spots are-holding-up kinda way and as I’m sure you’ll agree with, that just creates a yummy feeling deep down inside, hard to compare with anything else.

I’ve bundled two sessions into one blog this time, cause I couldn’t be bothered to write one for each. My latest sessions involved the following activity/results:

a) $6.60 rebuy MTT – 10th place (FINAL TABLE); Profit USD 25.46
b) $11 Freezeout MTT – 10th place (FINAL TABLE); Profit USD 43.00
c) $11 STT, 6 players – 1st place; Profit USD 31.00
d) $11 STT Deepstack, 10 players – 3rd place; Profit USD 9.00
e) $15 Freezeout – 23rd place; Profit USD 21.36
f) $7.70 rebuy – 27th place; Profit USD 19.09


So 4 MTTs and 2 STTs and I made the money in all of them. Total profit was no more than 148 dollars, but it’s evidence enough that I’m doing something right and that the larger payday is somewhere around the – hopefully not too distant – corner.

MTTs (a) and (b) were pretty standard. In the Freezeout I only JUST made the final table, without actually ever sitting at it, when two of us went out at the same time – he having had fewer chips to start the hand with. My shove was pretty standard. Blinds were 1250/2500/a250, we were 5-handed and with a 25K stack I picked up As10d in the CO. Big blind happened to have jacks – so be it.

My exit in the $6 rebuy was a little more questionable though and after reviewing the hand, I think it’s a VERY marginal situation. Next time I might fold. The final table had just formed and on the 2nd hand I pick up KcQs in the CO. Blinds are 2500/5000/a500 and I have the second-shortest stack at 36K. Bear in mind though, that everyone was playing insanely tight leading up to the FT, so the average was no more than approx. 60K. We’re nine-handed and it folds to MP+2 who shoves for 62K, folds to me. What’s correct here? In my experience, as soon as you get to the final table, people loosen up considerably, so I think it’s fair to assume that his range is not just JJ+ here.

I remember clicking call and not liking it very much. Based on the stack-blind ratio it seemed like an insta-call opportunity, yet I wasn’t feelin’ it. My mood didn’t improve, when the dealer snap-called right after. MP+2 flips over two red nines and the dealer showed AsKs. Hmmm… still unsure.

Not much to tell about the other tourneys or the STTs for that sake. One thing did however become very clear. I have failed to adjust properly to bubble-play and late-stages-play in MTTs. Especially one guy in the $15 freezeout was a real pain in the neck, but I was basically letting him walk all over me. It dawned on me when I was reading Annette_15’s blog earlier. She was referencing a few articles on the Betfair site written by Marcus Bateman and in particular one of them was a real eye-opener. Once I get close to the bubble, I definitely try to loosen up my game and thereby take advantage of the weak/timid players – a sound strategy. I simply failed to be aware that someone might be watching me, like I was watching them. Two to my left was this douchebag, who kept coming over the top of me. God, did I feel owned.

Anyway, something I’ll try to be more aware of.

The one last thing I’ll mention is volume. I’m clearly not putting in enough volume right now to make any serious headway towards my goal, so that will need to be rectified. Right now I’m just happy with my results and hope to keep it going.

Starting bankroll: USD 5,024.22
Session result: USD +148.91
New bankroll: USD 5,173.13
Days left until Aussie Millions 2010: 294

More to come. Thanks for reading.