[X] Degenerate + Bankroll Management = ...

[CrizzyConnor]

Had to take a few days off to finish up some work and uni stuff, I"m also entertaining a mate who"s over from Canada for the next week so probably very little poker if any until Saturday or Sunday. Actually enjoying the little break though.

[CrizzyConnor]

First game back today, just fancied one-tabling a MTT while watching the football:

$11 NLHE - 1,842 runners. I exit in 133rd place for $23.94 - KK vs. AK (a.i.p.f), Ace on turn *sigh*

BR @ end of session $316.81

Might play some more later.

[CrizzyConnor]

Feeling the urge to play something big tonight to subside the boredom.
The $215 PLO game on Stars at 7pm is calling my name & I"ve got nothing to do between now and 11pm.
Hmmmm, maybe I should resist though - it"s those kind of urges that got me here in the first place

I have a feeling I may stray slightly from the bankroll management tonight and play something a little bigger later on. Probably just a one off game in the $22-$55 range as a treat to myself for sticking with it so far (or does that kinda defeat the point? *shrugs*). I was thinking if I play a $22 and one-table it rather than playing 4 $5 tables i"d have the same outlay. we"ll see what happens, maybe i"ll just go for a pint...

Countdown to busto anyone?

[KarmaDope]

Don"t be a fool. You"re doing well so far. Ignore the urges and keep at what you"re doing.

My recommendation? Go for a pint.

[CrizzyConnor]

Don"t be a fool. You"re doing well so far. Ignore the urges and keep at what you"re doing.

My recommendation? Go for a pint.

I"m pretty skint after my mate from Canada being here all week and I"ve to take the missus to a late showing at the cinema tonight so I skipped going to the pub. I have however reg"d for a game outwith my bankroll but I held off the urges to play TOO big and am one tabling a $22 game right now. It"s a one-off just because I cashed in a game earlier and i"d normally have 4 $5 games going which is the same outlay. Depending how long I last in this I may play some 5PLO afterwards but other than that i"m sticking with one-tabling this at the moment. I"m trying hard to justify this aren"t I?

Cliffs:
[  ] I"m good at bankroll management
[ x ] I kept it slightly under control

[CrizzyConnor]

I got off to a good start and won a good few pots to get upto 4.5k but about 5 mins before the first break I lost most of that with top two pair vs a set. Down to 1.4k with antes and blinds at 10/50/100...

[CrizzyConnor]

Bit of a rollercoaster:

Got back upto 3K squeezing out the SB, then doubled up to 6.5k with AK vs AJ.
Then lost 5k straight away with KK vs AA on 424 board.
1.5k > 3K again with AK vs 22
3k > busto with AQ vs KQ a.i.p.f --- board = AT4, turn = J.

Out 589th from 1,257 runners

BR @ end of session $294.81

[CrizzyConnor]

[CrizzyConnor]

Ok so I played a little more. Decided to load up one table of 25PLO for around an hour to see the quality of the play at that level. The quality wasn"t much different except for being a little tighter, not massively different though. I think money could be made if I was 4-tabling. Don"t have the b/roll for it quite yet, soon I hope I left the table +$6.80 which wasn"t great but still profit, my end total for the session was $290.81

[CrizzyConnor]

Fell off the wagon...

Ok so I decide to play today but I don't know why as I wasn't  in the right frame of mind for it. I really couldn't be bothered grinding out $4 & $5 games so fired up a bunch of games outside my roll and failed to cash in any of them, although a series of bad beats lead to my demise in the $33 game when I was going quite well up until then. So I played and failed to cash in the following MTTs:

$8.80 PLO
$11 PLO
$33 NLHE
$11 NLHE
25PLO Cash - I was up $10 at one point but ended -$2.55

I felt myself losing concentration throughout the session, I was loading up games in one of those robot moods - just clicking games open and not really wanting to play but not realising it until 3 seconds after the game's started then when I inevitably crash out clicking another one straight away before realising yet again I don't actually want to be playing. After crashing out of my final tourney and being slightly down in the cash game but realising I shouldn't be playing I managed to finally hit that little x on the top right hand corner. Looking at the totals for the day I wish I could be more restrained all the time and realise that if I can't be bothered grinding games within my roll then I should see this as a sign that I shouldn't be playing at all.

BR @ end of session $224.46

[CrizzyConnor]

My boiler has broke down so while waiting on the guy to come fix it I decided to fire up a couple of games of poker:

$5.50 Rebuy NLHE - I decided to rebuy straight away and even though I said pre-tournament I was only playing with this investment I did double-rebuy about 30 mins in after being sucked out on. Plus I took the add-on so total investment was $25.50

Anyway I finished 685th from 1,375 runners. AQ vs. 44 on AQ4 board. Two cards to a flush on board and the guy had been playing flush draws like a maniac on previous hands so I thought it was possible he was chasing again or even AK. He was one of those guys with mega-stacks after hitting every draw but I thought I'd go with it anyway, he had 44 and I missed the other A&Q's to boat up.

$11 PLO tournament - finished 1st from 36 players for $136. I overcame a 4:1 chip deficit heads up and it was a long HU match. I was up against a fairly aggressive opponent and decided to keep pots small unless I had something and not go crazy with draws etc. I finally got level in chips then slowly grinded him down before he made some horrendous calls only to suck out on me and get back to level. I just stayed patient kept playing my game and grinded him down until it was 4:1 in my favour then I won the final hand with AJQ9 double suited vs. 9657. GG.

BR @ end of session $323.96

[CrizzyConnor]

I've played a few games since the last entry that I haven't wrote here, a lot of small SNGs when I was at work the other night at the end of the shift and I decided to load up like 8 of them and open shove every time. Done this for about 20 mins until I shook myself and was like "wtf are you doing?" and closed the session. That was a bit retarded but onwards and upwards. My bankroll after this was standing at $295.16  

So I'm back at work on the night shift again tonight and I decided to play some poker. I had decided the other day that I was going to play the mini-million tourney on stars even though it wasn't really within my bankroll guidelines. As you've probably noticed, I've slowly started to lose sight of this bankroll malarky. It's just been hard to motivate myself to play $4 games and stay within my bankroll, yes I'm playing to win money but I'm also playing for enjoyment and as stupid as it sounds - I'd rather sit for 4 hours and bubble a $55 tourney than spend the same time to min-cash in a $4 tourney. I am trying to change though but it's a long and hard process it would seem. Anyway back to the monthly million, so I log on to play and notice it's got over 30k runners and decide to give it a miss and play the $55 Daily Eighty Grand Sunday Special ($200k Guaranteed). There ended up being nearly 6k runners in this one, just over three and a half hours later I finish in 565th place for $117.48 (one ladder up from a min-cash). I feel I should've gone deeper but the cards just fell wrong at the wrong times but that's poker eh.

So after this the bankroll is at $357.64.
I might play another game before the shift is over (finish at 6am :"(), we'll see what happens.

[CrizzyConnor]

So I played another game. An $11 NLHE MTT with 3,065 runners, I finish 4hrs 10mins later in 155th place for $36.78. Not great but better than a loss. My own fault really, I was hovering around 15-20bbs constantly and had been pushing all in on this big stacks raises quite a lot to stay afloat. I finally ran out of luck when I pushed A5 suited into his TT, flop gave me two to a flush but the other spade or the ace failed to materialise, GG.

That"s me for tonight, clocking off at 6am so no point playing anything else and pretty tired.

Decent enough night overall. Must learn to go deeper!

BR @ end of session $383.42

[CrizzyConnor]

Yes indeed, you read correctly - No-Limit Omahahahahaha.

Just played a $22 NL Omaha MTT (500 cap - $2k Guaranteed) on Stars. Once again it"s outside my bankroll but that issue was addressed in a previous post, lol. This tournament though, how juicy is this - the combination of bad Omaha players and it being No-Limit is just amazing. I would play this tournament at any stake (provided the quality was the same), the money was going in like nobody"s business - the all-in value bet was commonplace in my game and got paid off left right and centre. I was cruising along quite comfortably until my set and flush draw was beaten by a bigger flush draw. I was still in ok position, among the upper middle of the pack, when my final hand was dealt:

My cards =        

Two limpers before me and every raise is getting called or re-raised so I decide to limp along and there"s another limper from button. Five players to the flop which is pretty much bingo for me:

   

So I have a made straight, re-draw to bigger straight including an open-ended straight flush draw. The three before me check and I bet half-pot, the button re-raises and it folds back to me. I"m thinking "it"s a bingo"; he"s either got the straight same as me in which case I have open-ended straight flush draw to take it, an A or K high flush draw in which case I have two of his outs in my hand and two others dead with my straight flush draw or possibly a set which could make a house but I insta-push thinking I"ll be back up among the big stacks... He insta-double-fist-pump-snap-calls with...

ad  qh    

He"s dead to another four or five, of which I have one in my hand and another player after the hand said he had one too, but of course you know the idiot is paid off and hits his two outer on the turn and the river makes me a flush but not a straight flush to re-steal I"m out in 75th/180, way off money (top 18) but I still think if I won this hand I was finishing in the money at least.

I"m so annoyed as I think I would"ve romped it after winning that pot but oh well, it"s idiots like that which make this game so profitable in my eyes. I"ll definitely be playing this game anytime i"m on and it"s running! I"ve set myself a goal in my head to final table this exact tournament within the next two weeks, let"s see if I can do it - or maybe lose my bankroll in the process

BR @ end of session = $361.42

[CrizzyConnor]

So I was playing another PLO tournament last night, just a $3 game. There was 839 runners and I go deep in it, the field is horrible except one or two players. So I had just recently lost a pot for half my stack and go from a comfortable 25bbs to 12bbs, I"m still really comfortable playing with this stack at PLO as there"s no antes coming off and you can usually wait for hands or see flops for 1bb etc then start applying pressure once at 7-8bbs by committing yourself pre-flop or punishing limped pots. So anyway I have 12bbs and there are 34 players remaining, I am 25th in chips and all of a sudden the tournament pauses. It doesn"t shut down like tournaments have in the past when they"ve ****ed up, it just pauses and we can still talk in chatbox etc. Other tournaments are still running alright and the site hasn"t crashed. We try calling a moderator and e-mailing support who then proceed to wait 45 mins to reply, their reply is basically "we are aware of the problem, please be patient". Be paitient FFS, we"ve been waiting 45 mins with no reply. Before this reply, after about 15 mins, a few guys in the tournament start saying let"s deal but even though I was only 25th in chips I refuse as I wanted to play on and would"ve rather gone out next than dealt 34-handed. However, after an hour I"ve got to get to bed and have finished up everything else I was doing online so I give in and leave.

So today I get an e-mail from stars saying the tournament was cancelled and we would all be paid the current payout ($11) and the rest of prizepool would be divided based on chipcounts. I end up with $34.25 which some might say is 10 times my buy in and I should be happy but I"m seriously pissed off. Like I said already, I had just lost half my stack, I realise chipcounts is how they do it but an equal share split would"ve been over $60 and first was $500. I honestly would"ve rather played on and went out next for $11. This is twice in the space of three months that this has happened to me on Stars with only a few tables left out of a lot of runners (last time it was 1,200 and at 3 tables). Both times I have just lost a big pot as the tournament has ****ed up, thus reducing my share based on chipcount split. In profit for the session but not happy at all.

/ rant.

BR @ end of session = $392.37