Brent's Tournament Poker Journal

BrentD22

BrentD22

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Thought it would be fun to log my progress in online and live tournament poker. This year has been pretty good for me and seeing that people like to start keeping track via journals when things are going either really good or really bad I'll start to journal when things are going well!
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Catching up on previous big wins!

Started my year off in March with a very nice $4300 score in a live mega-stk tournament up in Seabrook Poker Room in NH. We did a 3 way chop at the end which was just fine with me seeing over $5K would have screwed me on taxes! That tournament was a 2 day live event with 1000bb starting stk. I do well in deep stk poker tournaments!

Since then I've won another $1500 in much smaller buys ($20 rebuys ect). I've run good in these live soft field private club games. The player pool isn't very good so it's kinda like printing money.

Other than that I haven't play much online this year at all with a few exceptions. I think online I'm probably close to break even if maybe after today slightly up. Lots of deep run runs with mid to high 4 figure pay-outs for 1st, but sadly I've run bad during that time of the tournament where you just need to win a flip. At least I'm going deep on a regular basis!
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Played 12 STT/MTT's and 6 HU SNG

I cashed in 4 of 6 HU matches playing very good, but vs. really bad players so no biggie.

In STT sng's I played 9 and only cashed in 4. The good news was that I cashed in the 4 big ones and didn't in all the small ones. I've been trying to learn to play more tables while online so I've started playing my normal $10-$20 buy in levels and then playing a bunch at the $2.25 level. Funny how I busted out early in almost all the $2.25.

In my 3 MTT's I cashed in 2 going very deep in field larger than 3000. I finished 125 in one and 223 in another for a profit, but a disapointing one seeing how many chips I had in both tournaments 10 mins. before I busted out.

In 1 tournament I made a big bluff shoving ATC in the BB when there was a raise and a call in the field. The 2 players where folding to 3 bets often. I also knew my equity was probably no worse than 35% and only needed villans to fold about 45% of the time to make this move profitable and I thought it was about 75% the guy that opened would fold and if he folded it was almost certain other villan folded. The opener must have got fed up folding to 3 bets so he ended up making a huge call with AQ that crippled my stk. Then I lost a flip and then I had 1bb gg have a nice day.

In the other I was getting somewhat short when I shoved over late position raiser with 99 and he snapped me off with... yup you guessed it the MFer AQ again. I feel like AQ knocks me out of so many tournaments, but I rarely ever over play that stupid ass hand so I never end up busting many others with it. Online jackasses calling with AQ. I can see shipping it with the hand, but I'm hard pressed to call with it unless the pot is laying me 2-1 min vs. a stk that can't hurt me. The rest of those idiots just close their eyes and call.

Oh well I might be the only player that makes money on the day and then bitches about how he ran.

On the year I'm up around $5K let's keep grinding...
 
kmixer

kmixer

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Very nice. Good job. Keep up the good work.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Very nice. Good job. Keep up the good work.

thank man.

Tonight I decided to just load up 9 $5 Turbo HU SNG's. Playing these correctly can be extremely profitable and quickly profitable. I owned basiclly one guy that tilted and just rebought over and over. I was 7 wins with only 2 losses. The best is that I sucked out twice to come back and then to win the first match. Not anything crazy just basic coolers either way. He went off the hook. Played for 1 hour only 2 tabling and then 1 tabling one fish. I asked if he wanted to go up to $10's, but he declined. Too bad.

Lesson learned today/tonight. People like to call and find ways to play fish that are tilting in pots. Realize that reading people, reading hands, great math of the game and not just pot odds, fold equity calculations, implied odds calculations, reflect on decisions and practice situations using ICM. I can't really do ICM during play, but I sure can reflect on past play and analyze if my push or shove was actually profitable or not. All these factors along with just playing hands and getting the experiance has made me finally a good player.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Played 16 quick turbo hu sng's at the $5 level and won 9. It's a good avg. only problem is I need to figure out how to consistantly play 4-6 at a time if I want to make it worth my wild hourly.

I might make the $5 turbo hu sng's my home for a little until I get sick of them and/or move up in stks if BR allows. Really would like to move up to the $10 level quickly with this deposit.

I've always felt good in the HU format especially in nl. I figure I can play 20 of those turbo's in less than 2 hours. If I win 60% at the $5 leve I rate to make around $20 an hour. Playing at the $10 level probably isn't all that different and I can probably double my hourly. Just gotta wonder how much better the player pool is at $10's.

Wish I could figure out how to work table ninja better so I can just 6 table these games to play more per hour.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Played 10 more $5 turbo hu sng's won 6. Currently I'm avg. $1 profit per turbo hu sng I play (extremely small sample size that doesn't matter). I feel like I'm not running good or anything. I feel like these come natural to me :)

The only problem is they are a bit boring and couldn't amagine playing them for more than 1 hour at a time with breaks. In that 1 hour I can play maybe 10 so my avg. hourly doesn't look great. I need to get up to the $10 level!
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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10 games in 35 mins. tonight! I was happy with how many I got in and best of all I lost only 2 and won 8. I ran good, but played proper push/fold poker and picked up small pots with btn min. raises and then min. c-bet, and value bet heavier cause they call with stupid crap. If you flat your btn vs. me you'll never ever win! They flat flop comes Q33 dry I bet min. they fold 66% at least! Then it allows me to lead out with my good hands and get more value oop.

Thank you to all the donkies and hopeless fools!
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Played 8 tournaments tonight

1 $5 T. Hu SNG for a loss

Then I decided to take a shot at a soft spot I've seen playing $5's that I've beat-up on. I think I confuse him.

I played 7 $10.25's and won 5 of them.

Nice little BR booster these things have been. It's amazing I feel like I lost 2/3 flips in these things, but I'm still managing to win at a great rate. Wednesday morning I have about 4 hours of downtime from work.

I need to start setting goals for these kinds of things. I want to play 100 $5 hu sng's and 20 more $10 HU sng's this week. I can get many of them played on Wednesday morning and then again Saturday and Sunday.

If I catch myself being too shove happy I will be forced to play some regular speed 1500 starting chip hu sng's. I know for sure that these turbo's will help my 1500 regular speed game so much. This way I can play small ball and just chip away and either chip away and find a great spot in the bigger ones or just survive until the blinds get large under 25bb's and my edge goes way up from playing so many of these. Either way I give myself 2 chances to win.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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My session tonight consisted of 12 tubro hu sng's at the $5 level.

I won 8 and lost 4 which is very good. In 2 of them I got 2 outed all-in on the flop. Both sick-o suck-outs.

1st - J6 in bb. btn limps I check flop comes 667 I min. lead to induce bluff or I can value own someone with a 7 or over pair. He shoves and I insta call and he shows J7 - river boom a 7.

2nd - JJ I raise the btn and villan flat calls in the bb. Flop comes 992 - he leads I shove he insta calls with 44 and river boom 4.

2 pretty sick hands seeing I had 90+% equity in both situations and lose them both. That pretty much means I lost $18 or so on those 2 hands. Variance is a bitch, but she's welcome in my home anyday if she's being nice to me!\

So good quick session = $18.20 profit in 35 mins. of work! Although then I reveiw my hh's to continue getting better!
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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WOW I played 8 total today and lost them all. I ran as bad as I have in a year. It was gross. This also marks the 1st time in a year I'm actually hardcore tilting after a session. 6 $5 and 2 $10 games and every single won the villan won with 30-40% equity when all the chip went in. I know that means I will lose those situations 30-40% of the time, but to lose all 8 of those situations in a row hurt badly!

I know one thing for sure. People play these games pretty poorly for the most part.

Basiclly most of them play extremely poorly which is good. In all I've played many many different players and maybe 4 or 5 I felt where good. Although even those guys where just super aggressive. I want to start toying with shoving over c-bets that seem weak. I feel that over the long run these villans that are c-beting the flop will only be able to call about 33%-40% of the time. I'm sure I can run some numbers in the fold equity calculator to figure out proper bluffing % being profitable.
 
BrentD22

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Tilt almost gone. At least I am going to work where today I have the tuff tuff task of going to the Red Sox game with some cool teenagers!
 
BrentD22

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The run good are back. I think it's time for a break.

KK<JJ 10th hand of my big Friday night game.

Am loosing tonight in the HU sng's although I can say hole heartly that I'm running like complete dog shit. WTF FML.

I've always said a break is needed when I start runnin' bad.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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EDIT above - Should have said "run bads are back"...

I was well below my expected equity in a butt-load of situations last night. Frustrating to say the least. I did however allow the tilt to effect me in regular life as well as possibly how I played the rest of the night. That being said I did get my chips in good too many times last night and came out behine too many times. Oh well thats poker I feel better today. I just need to reasure myself that run bads is a statement about the past not the future. Over 128 HUSNG's I've won 56%... I know the number should be more like 60% which just about doubles my profit.


Goal today is to play 10 quick HU sng's. I have a party tonight so and need to get my yard and house in shape!
 
BrentD22

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MTT's played today - A lite day

$3+.30 NL KO tournament - 575 player finished 120
$5+.50 NL tournament - 57 players finished 12
$2+.20 NL tournament - 332 players finished 78
$10+1 NL tournament - 2162 players finished 1116 (midnight madness)

During a break I played 1 $5.15 turbo nh sng and won. So at leat I won $5 today and only lost something like $17 all while giving myself a chance to win hundreds. I just need to keep playing well and avoid some mistakes I make in the middle and middle late parts of tournaments. I play very solid until that point and then I get stuck in a gambling flipping situation to win a big pot. I know it's correct to attempt to win flips when I'm getting short, but maybe I've been too impatient with 20bb area.

IDK - poker's fun even when you aren't making $.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Since my last post I've played some game and had results.

$5 - 9 man sng - $0
50FTP - 169 person sattie - sneaked in to a $2 prize
$3 - 90 deep ko - $0 bad finish and bad play by me
$5 - 3 deep HU Sng - won 2 of 3
$10 - 1 hu sng - won

Total Buy-ins = $33
Total Prizes = $47
Profit = $14 not bad

I also played 1 20nl session and won 3.5 buy-ins. Is was a nice session, but it helped that I also ran good vs. people that just can't fold.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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Deep in the Super Stack again

First I would like to say I love this tournament. I think it is one of the best values on the net for online tournaments.

Even though I made the top 30 with well over 2000 runners to start I actually feel I ran like dog poop. With 50 people left I lost an all-in pre-flop KK<AJ when like poker likes to do AJ spiked an ace on the flop. That pot would have given me top 10 chips and the ability to actually play poker instead of just waiting for a hand. $47 is nice, but I had my eyes on the final table. Of course I got it in with JJ and got snap called by AKs (I was short only 16BB's) and the flop came good for me, but the turn brought that dam K.

Someday I'll run a little better and win some flips in end game situations in big field MTT's. Until then I'll just keep grinding.
 
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