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50k guaranteed, Kings Casino Rozvadov, Czech Republic

Saturday, August 23, 2008

New Cashgame Challenge

Haven't played much tournaments lately but have started a new cash game challenge. If you read my blog from the beginning you may know that I suck at cash games and define myself as a tournament player.

Unfourtunately I know about the big variance of tournament poker and the high value in cash games. So I bought "Harrington on Cashgame" some time ago and now found the time to read it. You have to be open minded as there are some things in the book that might break with your usual play-by-the-book imagination. But I like what he writes and I think it will allow me to develop a successful style for cash game poker.

So I started a new challenge and I started down at the $0.01/$0.02 level. I abandoned my short-stack style of play and turned to a deep-stack style (buying in for $5 per game). My BR for this experiment started at $100 and after 17,5 hours and 15 sessions (which obviously not much statistical significance) I am up almost $4 for an hourly rate of $0.22.

Doesn't sound like much success? ... well, not really. Just imagine you had played $1/$2 with the same success. This would then convert to a $400 win with an hourly rate of $22. Not too shady.

Even those 15 sessions had some interesting observations so far:
- I was down in 6 of them (2 times total loss of buy-in)
- Biggest session was trippling the Buy-In
- I went from a -$7.19 low point to a $5.29 high-point

Especially the last point is interesting. Again converting to $1/$2 that would have been a swing from a $719 loss at the lowest point to $529 win at the highpoint in just that short time. And I think swings can be even worse over longer times!

That's exactly why I start that low. I could have easily put up some money for playing let's say $0.25/$0.50. But I would care a little less about the money for the start. On the other hand I really want to experience the swings that can happen to be prepared if I invest bigger money.

I will "cheat" anyway. With proper bankroll managment I would need a $230 Bankroll to step up to $0.02/$0.05. With the time I can spend for playing (1-tabling) it would take me more than half a year at the current win rate. I know I can't stand that at this level. So after getting comfortable with the level I will probably add some money to the bankroll to boost my way up in the levels.

Will you find me at live cash game tables anytime soon? I doubt it. With my requirement of at least 200 BB's buy-in even a game as low as the $1/$1 game at the Royale in Wiener Neustadt would require $200 for a single buy-in. I'm not prepared for that stuff right now. But if my online experiment suceeds I may be in the near future.

Beside that we now started a nice homegame in Munich with some people I only knew from playing online with them so far. We play SnG's with a good structure and I placed 2nd in one of the four games we played so far - making me almost break even. But beside the money it's just a nice group and a lot of fun to play with them.

I'm not sure were to go mid September. I have won my ticket for the FullTilt Million Euro Challenge long ago and it will be a fun event for sure (although the freeroll tournament has a crappy structure). But at the same weekend the pokertour08.at will stop at the CCC in Innsbruck. Great structured event and the one I bubbled in Wiener Neustadt not long ago. Will decide shortly before the events.

At german PocketFives.com we may have an interesting offer for all our members soon. Can't tell details yet but we are working on it and I will tell you soon ;-) In case you don't know yet: Chrisrokx has moved his famous german written blog to PocketFives.com and we are happy to have him here. Have fun reading his stuff, too.

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Monday, August 11, 2008

ITM in the Sunday Million

After I won a satellite for the Sunday Two Hundred Grand at PokerStars earlier this week I decided to play this Sunday. Unfortunately I wasn't very successfull and received two cruel bad beats ... the second one big enough to bust me from the tournament.

At that time it was 20 minutes to go until the Sunday Million would start and I gave it a shot. Good idea! I had a very good start and made it up to 40,000 chips in the first few levels. That put me into the Top 100 of the 8,236 starters for quite a time.

Little later I lost a big pot with 55 vs. AK. No bad beat here. He was a short-stack and I got the right odds for what I figured was a 50:50 situation. Still had 24,000 Chips at that time (double the average). Made it up to 60.000 later in the game and then back to 40,000 again ... but now this was more or less average.

With around 200 to go till the money I was in a tough situation. The table I was moved to had several big stacks (above 180,000). So my fold equity was very low. On the other hand 40,000 could be enough to sneak into the money as the average should be around 60,000 as soon as we make the money.

Under this circumstances I decided to tighten up and only push the best possible hands or try to fold my way into the money. I know that I have to pay a price for this (usually busting shortly after the bubble bursts) but it looked like the best option here. Fortunately I never had to make a big decision as all I got was absolutely unplayable in that situation.

I made it into the money and down to the last 1,260 players with 36,000 left. Pushed shortly after with the best hand I got for a long time: QJs. Guess who called: KQs! But the pokergoods like me this time and I hit a J on the river.

Wow, 72,000 Chips! I was now back to average and making it deeper into the tournament was a possible option. I reached my highest point a 111,000 chips and kept staying around average for a while. The big stacks had around 500,000 at this time.

But with the blinds at 3,000/6,000 and a 600 ante even an average stack isn't that big. No hands and it went down to 80,000. After I hadn't played a hand for some time I tried a move with an A-x hand with a high kicker and raised to 18,000. Button called. Flop came K-7-2 and I now had the option to check and muck my hand as my opponent would bet for sure or keep the aggression and represent AK or something like that. I bet 25,000 and he immediately raised to 50,000. Hated to let this go but I was sure he had me beaten here. Down to 45,000 I took the next playable hand to push. Unfortunately my A7s ran into AJ. No help and out on 482nd place earning $494.16 for 4.5 hours of play.

I'm not unhappy with the result. O.K. just 80 places more till the next step in prizemoney. But to be fair I could have been out closely after the money without that magic hit on the river. Which was by the way the first all-in situation I had during the tournament! Sure, I was disapointed as soon as it was over ... but you always will be disapointed after you are busted. But a night of sleep and now I can enjoy my first cash in what was the 6th Sunday Million I had played in my pokerlife.

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