Monday, May 29, 2006

Deal? Or No Deal?

It's almost 3 AM and I'm about to drop, but the effort was well worth it.



Until about an hour an a half into this tournament, I'd been having one of those weeks. Just beat after beat until I was rendered punch-drunk come 6:00 this evening. 9 straight losing days, the last three reaching my daily stop-loss limit. Today looked like it was going to be the fourth such day in a row.

WhenI busted out of the Full Tilt $19K earlier this evening, after another deep finish (255/1017) but no cash, I remarked to JoeSpeaker on IRC that I didn't seem to have much of a problem finishing deep in MTTs lately, but for the 75% or so of the time I'm getting through 2/3 of the field, I'm only cashing 20% or so of these tournaments. It's a revealing statistic that says a lot about my mid-late stage game. Essentially, I need to grow some stones and steal more pots in the early ante levels even when I'm card-dead. I need to take that tight-ass image I work so hard to build in the first hour and exploit the fuck out of it in the second. I've been playing too much pussy poker.

I've been a fan of these random $22 MTTs Stars runs in the evenings. They're like uber-180s, usually drawing around 600-900 players depending on the night. The quality of play just as bad as in the $22 180 SNGs and the players bust out just as fast, only the prizepool is even further inflated by the huge field. I look at these almost like overlays in a way. Tonight, it finally paid off.

Down to the final five tables, I played one of my most aggressive games in recent memory. I forced myself out of my comfort zone. I'm never going to see bigger money unless I continue to push myself in that direction. I played position more than I played hands the later it got. I wasn't afraid to pop a late position raiser all in if I picked up a premium hand and most of the time they folded to me. I raised with shit like KT and J9 and adopted orphan pots. By the time we got down to four-handed, less than 40,000 chips separated first from fourth, all our stacks in the $300K range with $15-30K blinds. Not a bad time for a four-way chop.

Change100... deal, or no deal?

Uhhhh.... deal!!!!!

When we stopped play, I was third in chips. The deal yielded each of us essentially second place money, and when we played the rest out for TLB points, I still finished third. Looks like I made a great deal.

3rd of 988. $2700. Biggest win to date.

Feels good to say that.

17 comments:

ScottMcM said...

Fun to watch as well! Now you know why you were sitting at my DREAM TABLE with Dan Harrington!

AlCantHang said...

Great job. Congrats!

Pauly said...

Sweet!

BadBlood said...

Awesome cash.

on_thg said...

Very nice!

April said...

Congrats babe!!!

Poker Jones said...

You the woman!

Tony said...

Congratulations! I'm proud of you!

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

Alright Change, wtfg!! Yeah a great weekend for us both. At least you got to make a deal in your tourney. I kept telling our whole final table that we should deal, but nobody would effing listen until it was just me and one other guy, with me up 11-1 in chips. Then the bozo offered me an even split. Whatanass.

Anyways, great work. Let's see if we can follow these up with another big cash just to prove this isn't a fluke.

ps I knew you were an MTT specialist. I can recognize one from a mile away. ;)

Unknown said...

Awesome. Congrats. How do you do it? You really are playing well and should consider maybe a WSOP tourney or a big one this year?

Unknown said...

You are AMAZING! Keep kicking ass!

Garthmeister J. said...

Great stuff! I'll have to check out those bigger field 20+2s, as I love me some 180 SnG action.

drewspop said...

Congrats, hope it starts a hot streak for you.

CC said...

Excellent performance! You need to start looking for WSOP backers now.

iamhoff said...

Good shit! Way to work it!

Tully Moxness said...

You rule! You should be playing the WSOP Freerolls on Party...top 50 gets you to satellite, top 15 pay a seat to main event, 16-24 pays to a $2k preliminary event. With your knack for deep finishes, it should be a snap.

TripJax said...

booya! nice...