September Review - Hard To Describe

My results for September are sort of difficult to qualify. Despite it being my final month with SNE status on Stars I put in extremely low volume (~111k total hands, ~40k of which were on FTP). I ran like complete ass at the Stars cash games, and close to straight up average in every easily quantifiable variance metric on FTP, which isn't surprising at all of course. In terms of cash game results, the month started like August ended - with the latter half of what had to have been my largest downswing ever. Fortunately I was able to recover somewhat in the last two weeks of the month.

I reached 500k VPPs on Stars, the milestone bonus for which rewarded me with $3200 in free money, $4k cash minus $800 in FPP value to purchase it. My final SNE perk also occurred this month: as an SNE I was given a $5200 ticket into the WCOOP ME, along with the option to split the ticket up into small events if I so desired. I decided to split the ticket and played in ten smaller WCOOP events, cashing in four. I very nearly reached the final table of the shootout event I entered, but busted when KK couldn't hold against AK AIPF with three remaining in the second round. Overall however, I feel like I ran pretty well in the events and was able to extract a little bit more cash out of the ticket than the $5200 theoretical equity I started with. I'm definitely happy with the decision to split the ticket.

I imagine my final few months this year will continue to be very low volume "semi-vacation" type affairs. It's mind boggling to think early last year I was putting in 280k hand months - not that the hard work wasn't worth it. I do need to start thinking about what the plan should be for next year.

Anyway, here's the graph from cash games and the numbers following it:



The bottom line:
$6,480.56 cash game table winnings
+$2,957.42 FPP value (36,967.81 VPPs * 5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$2,176.20 WCOOP #9 cash
+$1,925.00 WCOOP #30 cash
+$1,012.50 WCOOP #44 cash
+$477.92 WCOOP #45 cash
+$100 2x $50 knockout bounties from WCOOP #45
+$100 Stars deposit bonus
+$517.50 coaching
+$680.59 FTP rakeback
-$30 WCOOP ticket(s) difference (the buyin for my 10 events was $5230, my ME ticket worth only $5200)
+$3200 500k VPP milestone bonus ($4k - $800 FPP value to purchase)
------------------------------------------------
$19,597.69 USD total profit.

A Good Day

On Friday I had what is my best day at the cash tables in a long, long time. Given the first half of my month was just awful outside of WCOOP cashes, it was a much needed boost. I actually didn't even put in much volume for a Friday, stopping just short of 6k hands.

Here's the graph:


Additionally, I reached the 500k VPP milestone bonus today, so ship another $3200 free money! Quite an encouraging day indeed.

My Wednesday however was not as pleasant. While I didn't play much if any cash, I busted my second to last WCOOP event to a runner runner back door flush draw well before the money (also failed to cash in my final event which was a turbo on Thursday, very happy overall with how my WCOOP freeroll equity panned out though). Far worse however, during the event my secondary hard drive died. After a few reboots running CHKDSK to confirm its death (yup, it's dead Jim), the boot sector on my main drive mysteriously disappeared! Windows repair tool was no help at all (note: I love Windows 7, but a missing boot sector is a problem the Windows repair tool should most definitely be able to handle, epic fail that it didn't get the job done). Thankfully a little advice from strangers on the internet and I was able to repair the damage manually from the command prompt after booting from DVD. Fortunately, there wasn't much in the way of essential data on the disk that died. The biggest loss was my iTunes library, which I was able to restore from my iPod. The other stuff will have to stay lost, as I'm not shelling out $1k for a disk recovery service.

Finally, FTP announced recently that their high volume rewards program, referred to as "black card status" is kicking off at the end of the month. It'll be interesting to see just what kind of additional equity this provides for members who reach that status, if it is good FTP could steal a lot of regulars away from Pokerstars.

Two For Two

Following up on my earlier blog post from today, I did manage to make it into the money in WCOOP #44. At no point during the tourney did I really ever get much going, but when it got down to crunch time I was able to pick up enough dead money jamming a short stack that I snuck into the cash at 252 and survived my way through 9 very minor pay increases from the $675 min cash, busting 131st out of 1989 for $1012.50.

Given how the event felt, I'm really pleased with the result. It's also a nice boost that I cashed in both the events I played today, and am now 4/8 in WCOOP events in general. I've also now generated more real cash value than the $5200 "equity" of my WCOOP ME ticket (which as I outlined in the previous post, could only be taken in the form of the tourney ticket itself or several smaller tickets, I went with the latter) with two events yet to go. The decision to split the ticket is definitely looking like a decent one, and I think my tourney game has improved a lot too.

I should also mention that Episode 2 of my Cardrunners video series comes out tomorrow.

Knockout Turbo, Time To Gamble

As part of my ten WCOOP freerolls, I registered for two events today. The $320 2x Chance NLH event (WCOOP #44) and the $265 turbo knockout NLH event (WCOOP #45). If you've never played a turbo before, the blind levels come and go so quickly it is basically a crapshoot, but as I've been fairly bored grinding out many of the longer events previous, it is a welcome change.

As of this writing, I'm still alive in WCOOP 44 (with a traditional slower structure) with a slightly below average stack. There are 421 players remaining out of the 2k that started. Hopefully I can pick up some pots and reach the money at 252.

I busted the turbo in 263rd place out of 3k entries for $477.92 + $100 in bounties for knocking out two players. I would have had a pretty monstrous stack given the structure had I won the pot where I busted, getting TT in pre vs A5 (for my full stack of around ~15bb) and vs a super shorty with T8 for his ~5bb or so. Unfortunately an ace flopped and it was good game.

I played a little cash during the middle stages of the events today and ran passably, though had I been able to fade a couple big suckouts it could have been a quick $1k in 1000 hand session. During some of these events rather than trying to play cash to make the time investment worthwhile, I've instead been playing games and multitasking that way, mixing leisure and work. It definitely makes the tourney experience far more bearable.

Two more events to go after I'm done with WCOOP 44. With my cashes thus far I've almost generated the cash value of my main event ticket, hopefully I can luckbox a little more value and get there. Either way, given my options were only to either play the ME or break the ticket up into smaller events (you can't take the ticket value in T$ or straight cash), I'm pretty happy with how things have gone thus far. Sure would have been nice to have made the final table in the shootout event though, so close...

How Could I Forget

On Monday I blogged mostly about my cash session, and provided a hand history where a reg spazzed out. Somehow, I forgot to mention the most epic hand from that session, in which I ended up misclick folding postflop in a just awful spot, but in doing so ended up saving myself a stack and what would have most definitely been MEGA-TILT. On the down side, I also cost myself a PTR bad beat badge!

The hand is below. The CO in the hand is a 100/80 maniac whale, while the BTN is a mediocre at best reg who on the flop is definitely going be raising a wide range to try to isolate and get overpairs/draws etc. in against the whale. I unfortunately mislick fold, bink theoretical quads, then whale one outs the straight flush.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed)
Hero (UTG+1) ($100)
MP1 ($100)
MP2 ($50)
CO ($86)
Button ($100)
SB ($100)
BB ($100)
UTG ($100.50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with 2♦, 2♠
1 fold, Hero bets $3, 2 folds, CO calls $3, Button calls $3, 2 folds

Flop: ($10.50) 6♦, 4♣, 2♣ (3 players)
Hero bets $7.50, CO calls $7.50, Button raises to $28, Hero folds, CO raises to $83 (All-In), Button calls $55

Turn: ($184) 2♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($184) 5♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $184 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had 8♣, 8♠ (two pair, eights and twos).
CO had 3♣, A♣ (straight flush, five high).
Outcome: CO won $181

It's worth mentioning that this is my first major postflop misclick in ages, (on Stars, I had a couple on FTP when getting used to table ninja, including calling a river with 9 high and winning in a limped BvB pot) and something that isn't typically a problem for me.

Almost...

Today I played WCOOP-30, my first ever shootout style tournament. I ended up winning my first table, but busted three handed in Round 2 of 3 when I could start to taste the final table appearance and potential big score. I did still take home $1,925 for my trouble.

In round one I had a few eventful hands. I bluff caught a river shove with two pair against a busted straight draw on what was a pretty awful board. I'm not certain at all that it was a good call, but I'm glad he had air! I doubled through the very good pro who I would eventually play HU in a 3b pot when I flopped a set against his aces, giving me a very sexy chip lead over the table. Finally, when I reached heads up against "Iftaari" a young HU SNG specialist with a solid list of tourney success to his name, I won a flip with AQ against his 66 to take down the table. I was pretty happy at the time to bink the $1.925k for taking down the table, especially given these events are all freerolls to me and this is my second cash.

Round two was rather disappointing. I actually ran decently and won some flips, making it to three handed play (starting at 10 handed). I then got KK in against AK for my stack and the board ran out JT7Q9. Busto. It was a large kick in the pants simply because over half the chips at the table were in the hands of a completely awful fish, a guy you'd consider a borderline whale at the cash tables. Had my KK held up, I would have been in excellent shape to take down the table, meaning I would reach the final table and take down somewhere between $7k for 10th and $91.25k for 1st! Unfortunately it was not to be, and while the beat hurts I definitely feel like I ran very well overall during the event.

I played a thousand hands of cash during the early stages of the tourney, booking a modest $250 win. The tables weren't great though so I shut down the cash session fairly quickly and decided to relax instead while one tabling the tourney. An eventful day and a profitable day, but tough to feel good about, which is one of many reasons why tourney poker is the suck! Five more WCOOP events to go. Even if I don't cash again, I won't be too upset with extracting a little over $4k cash out of my WCOOP ME ticket.

Oh, I should also mention Episode 2 of my Cardrunners video series, "Full Ring Theory and Practice" has been officially dated and will be released on Tuesday, September 21st. Episode 2 focuses mainly on abstract postflop theory and how to apply it in the heat of battle.

Was There A Full Moon Tonight?

The cash tables have been a little kinder to me lately, though I still can't run average for a session to save my life. Oddly enough, Monday the games on Stars were far better than they have been in ages, better than on both Friday and Saturday of the past week! I had to double check that it wasn't a US holiday or something (it wasn't) because it didn't make a whole lot of sense, especially since it was the first night of Monday Night Football which surely would pull some casual poker players away from the tables during US prime time. The Full Tilt games were far more of what I expect to see on a Monday. Just as weird, a handful of Stars regulars did some completely ridiculous stuff against me on Monday, the kind of things you'd normally see only a couple times a month at most. Naturally, most of the ones which weren't drawing dead were rewarded for their awful spew, but it still helped me ship a decent 3 hour session. I think the following was my favorite of the instances of regulars going nuts from Monday:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (7 handed)
CO ($630.55)
Hero (Button) ($200)
SB ($478.40)
BB ($368.30)
UTG ($280.05)
MP1 ($223.75)
MP2 ($247.75)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4♣, 4♦
UTG calls $2, MP1 bets $9, 2 folds, Hero calls $9, 1 fold, BB calls $7, 1 fold

Flop: ($32.80) 10♦, 4♥, 4♠ (3 players)
BB checks, MP1 bets $22, Hero calls $22, BB raises to $358.90 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls $168.60 (All-In)

Turn: ($436) 9♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($436) 7♣ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $436 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had 4♣, 4♦ (four of a kind, fours).
BB had J♣, 10♣ (two pair, tens and fours).
Outcome: Hero won $433

The villain who overshoved the flop is perhaps more of a regfish than a true regular (doesn't beat the rake, likely loses even with FPPs), but he's logged over 100k hands and isn't completely insane.

I'll be back playing my fourth of ten WCOOP events tomorrow evening, the $1050 NLH at 8:00 EST. It would be excellent if things went well and I could squeeze further value out of my freerolls, in addition to the $2.2k from my third event.

On a football related note, I hate Matt Forte. That is all.

After finishing Ys 7 for the PSP which was a down right excellent game, I moved on to Valkyria Chronicles 2 which I'd guess I'm about half way through. It is the sequel to what was a very enjoyable and unique PS3 title. It sacrifices the beautiful novel style storytelling of the original for deeper gameplay - which makes sense given they moved it from a console to a handheld. Unfortunately for those of us who prefer console games to handheld counterparts this seems to be a trend lately, as handhelds have equal or larger user bases and significantly lower development costs. Anyway, the game is definitely fun so I'm happy.

Silver Linings

My start to September at the cash tables hasn't been any better than the end of August. Hopefully things turn around soon. I've taken some steps to try and be better prepared focus wise heading into and during each session, and I think my play has improved some as a result.

I ended up splitting my SNE freroll of the WCOOP $5200 Main Event into ten smaller WCOOP events. I like that this reduces my variance, and it means many chances to work on my tournament game. Unfortunately, it also means I have to play ten tournaments!

I busted fairly early in WCOOP #1 ($215, 6-max NLH), outlasting maybe a third of the field. In WCOOP #3 ($215 NLH) I outlasted 70% of the field but couldn't make it to the money. Tonight, I spent 8 hours playing WCOOP #9 ($1050 NLH, 2-day) and got off to a good start. Unfortunately, my situation turned similarly to EPT MC, as after building up a well above average stack after the first six levels or so, I became completely card dead. Things got worse when I lost a flip with AK AIPF for ~22 bbs or so against 99, leaving me with 7bbs. At this point in the event, there were around 210 remaining and 180 cashed. Fortunately, I was able to win one flip and then pick up a lot of dead money jamming, and managed to somehow squirm my way into the money. Technically, I actually made it into the second pay bracket for $2,176.20. Given the freeroll nature of the event for me, that's $2k I didn't have yesterday so I'm pretty happy, especially given I was down to 7bbs at one point closing in on the bubble. I was actually quite surprised at how reckless many players (including a couple PS pros who I believe only play tournaments) with 30-40bb stacks were being very close the bubble - I guess maybe they were in a go big or go home mindset and didn't much case for cashing small.

Anyway, I'll be taking tomorrow off and hitting the cash tables again Thursday. My next WCOOP event isn't until Monday, so it'll be some time until the next tourney grind begins. 7 more to go!

Oh, I should also mention that during the first couple hours of WCOOP #9 tonight I was also busy drafting the 2010 edition of the Nit City Nutpeddlers in Chicago Joey's SSFR Fantasy Football league. I'm pretty happy with my team - notables include: Ray Rice, Pierre Thomas, Brandon Marshall, Hines Ward, Joseph Addai, Kevin Kolb/Eli Manning splitting time at QB, Jeremy Maclin, Zach Miller and the Vikings defense. It would be great to improve on my second place finish from last year!

A Tale Of Two Sites

My start to September at the tables has been as disastrous as the last week August. Had I not put in twenty thousand hands at FTP, I would most certainly be in the midst of the largest downswing of my poker career.

Over the last 25,500 played at Pokerstars, I'm a hair over 1600bbs below AIEV. Here's a Sklansky evaluation graph of said period:


Some of that is obviously caused by the previously mentioned AIEV struggle. To put things in perspective, it isn't like I'm used to running normally or anything. It is complete standard for me to have strings of 25+ consecutive sessions where I'm below AIEV. Getting top set in against backdoor draws five times a session and losing five out of five is completely normal. I'm not expecting miracles. I would however, like to maybe win one AIPF holding aces every couple days. Maybe get to occasionally chop when I get AA in vs AA, or AK in vs AK (yeah, I lost AA vs AA and AK vs AK today, along with AA vs KK twice).

The good news, is that for some mysterious reason when I get top set in against a back door draw at FTP, I apparently have greater than 0% equity. In my first 20k hands at FTP, I'm actually almost a buyin ABOVE AIEV. You heard that right, I said ABOVE. I'm also marginally above expectation in Sklansky evaluation as you can see below: