Online Poker Tournament Rankings

 It's a bit strange to think that at the beginning of this year I had a BR of only $65 bucks.  Grinding out $2.25 9 man turbo and 180 man SNGs on FTP to build myself up while using up my FPPs on Stars to win enough $T to take a few shots in some $4.40s.  To go from that to finally breaking through and getting my first $1K+ score, then doing it two more times in a 6 week period, coupled with my first ever live FT and first major cash for $50K at Foxwoods, let's just say it's been a pretty good year.  That being said we're now into November and 2009 has nearly come to a close.  In the next 8 weeks I will have 3 full weeks off from school as well so I plan on going out strong in 2009.

Cash game grinding I'm trying to get in 10+ hours a week.  Win, lose, or draw I think it's important to log in the hours and improve.  I do need to get used to playing 25+ hours a week at some point, that way I can grind out the cash games and rely more heavily on them for income.  If I can get 10+/week right now, I can maybe bump that up to 15+/week by the year's end and maybe get myself into the $100NL level.  Ideally that would be the result, to move up to playing for some decent money by year's end.  The process of moving up isn't a quick one for me though.  Usually what ends up happening is I'll make the jump, take an initial hit, move back down, grind up again, and try another jump to the next level.  It takes a few weeks normally but I find that it is certainly doable and the transition usually takes about 2 weeks.  That would give me about enough time to make the jump to $100NL by Christmas this year, which would be a great way to start off 2010.

As far as MTTs are concerned I'm still tinkering with my schedule right now.  Right now I'm looking at a nightly rotation of:

$26 $35K Guaranteed @ 20:00

$3.30 $10.5K Guaranteed Rebuy @ 20:35

$12 Daily Double A @ 21:00

$12 Daily Double B @ 21:02

$26 $5K Guaranteed PLO @ 21:15

$26 $28K Guaranteed @ 22:00

$26 $4K Guaranteed HORSE @ 22:15

There are a few holes in the schdule right now.  First off I need to add in at least one more MTT in the schedule.  I try to play 8-10MTTs/night when I do play so I'd like to find at least one more MTT to get myself into.  Preferably one that starts before 22:30 server time.  I thought about the $55 Fifty Fifty @ 21:30 but I don't think mixing that in and bringing my average buy in up that much is a good idea just yet.  I maye end up still adding it in anyway, but for now I'd like to keep the buy in's more around $26 than $55.  I have been playing in the $26 $2K Guaranteed Razz @ 20:15 but I don't think that is an MTT with a whole lot of value to it.  I could be VERY wrong but regardless my Razz game is a little rusty anyway ATM so I'd like to mix in something else.  I thought about maybe just putting some satties back into the mix and trying to win my way into some $55 and $109 buy ins, still on the fence about that.  For right now my MTT schedule stands at 7/night, but I'll be playing more cash games in the next week so I'll have some time to think of what I'd like to do.

The year 2009 will be my last full year as a student and 2010 will be my first as a poker pro.  I've had a great year so far and moving forward I can make more trips to Foxwoods and Mohegan for live cash and some more $400 buy in events that they will be running.  For arguably the first time in my young poker career, I have plenty of options moving forward.  Right now I just have to plan out my next few moves and really get after it.  Would be nice to hit another $50K sooner rather than later.

As cool as it was to win the $50K at the World Poker Finals, in the grand scheme of the poker world I have achieved very little.  I have only play 3 live MTTs lifetime, I have one WPT prelim FT, and my biggest online score is $1500.  What the $50K really does is allow me to play in some bigger stakes games.  I now have a proper BR to handle the swings of everyday life as a small stakes poker pro.  Now with this start up money the question becomes, how do I put it to use?

I just spoke with a good friend of mine who just so happens to be a CPA.  She walked me through my tax situation and showed me that I owe a grand total of about $12K in taxes by year's end.  That is assuming my gross earnings on the year hit $60K (currently at about $55K).  So I'm going to have about $44-48K left over to play with and plan out my next few moves.  Right away my instinct is to squirrel away as much of this cash as possible, saving the 6+ months of living expenses as well as starting up some savings and investments for later on in life (in case for whatever reason I decide I'd rather not play poker for the rest of my life).  This is still far more money than I have ever had so saving a big chunk won't be too hard, the question is how much to I keep out for poker BR.

My online roll right now sits at about $4.5K.  What I've done is simply keep the money I had on FTP, around $2.7K, and just started played more $26 buy in events in my nightly MTT schedule.  Over on UB I decided to reload $700 more so I could bump up my BR and play the $50NL cash games over there.  I could jump more than that, but I feel like that would be a mistake.  I was playing $25NL and was winning, but not at a terrific rate (about 2.5BB/100 for those with poker tracker).  I'd rather not totally skip the $50NL games for the $100NL just because I have the money, I'd rather do things the harder way, take some bumps and bruises at the $50NL level, then grind my way up from there.  Just because I have the money to burn doesn't mean I should just jump to bigger games.  There are skills that you learn at each level of buy in and as you move up in limits and put in more hours, you become more adept at the game.  Regardless of the money I have, I still need to put the hours in to get better.

Live poker now is really the fun topic of discussion.  My plans for the near future in the poker world had nothing to do with live poker.  The $18K in 8 months challenge I laid out for myself was to build up a $9K poker BR onling and a $9K "life roll" for the 6months of bills.  I never had any real intentions of playing live poker on a regular basis, but now I can not only afford the luxury of playing in these softer NL games at Foxwoods and Mohegan, I have a proper BR for them as well.  I have not totally settled on the number for my BR but whatever stakes I plan on playing at I need to have at least 20 buy ins to handle some of the swings.  I figure I'll play some 1/2NL ($300 max buy in) but I'd also like to take a few swings at 10/20 and 20/40 FLHE (10/20 for a regular game and 20/40 for taking some shots).  The number I have in my head is somewhere between $5K-$7.5K, more likely leaning towards the lower end.  I'm not totally certain about what to do there but I have a week or so before I'll be able to return to foxwoods anyway so it's not a huge issue right now.

All in all things are definately looking up for me.  I'm excited to get started with my new found roll and to grind my way into bigger and better games.  I don't really have a target number I'd like to hit just yet before graduation to replace the $18K in 8 months challenge that I put on myself.  I'd like to just get myself situated at my new stakes before I try to set a goal for myself.  Right now though, I have my eyes on playing in some smaller buy in live MTTs over the next few months and all throughout 2010.  Maybe, if things go well, I can donk my way out to vegas this summer for the WSOP.  I'm a long way away from that being a viable option, but there's pleanty of time to book my ticket.

 We came back from day 2 with 12 players remaining.  After I drilled the "sexy 2-outer" as Brandon was telling me the day before, I had 329K when we returned.  It became clear right from the start that Ryan, who was 2nd in chips at the time, was planning on avoiding people and that Brandon our chip leader was going to be the table bully.  One hand I might have wanted to play differently was in the SB with AhTc.  Brandon raised from the button to 25K (blinds still at 1K/5K/10K).  I reraised to 70K to try and get him to stop raising my SB every time, he shipped all in on me and I was forced to fold.  I understand that the fold there is not spectacular but at this stage Brandon has been the table bully, but he's also been showing down big hands when 3-bet pre, so it's not likely the AT is ahead here.

A few times I pick up AQ and 77 in the SB and BB and when Brandon raised I just shipped it for around 225K.  He started getting a little aggrivated, telling all his buddies there was no way I was ever going to want to play a flop with him now (he's right, but it's because I have no chips and I'm OOP, not because he's been beating up on me).  When we make it to the official FT of 10 players, I was 6th in chips with 248K and the blings just about to increase to 1.5K/6K/12K.  The grind began from there.  My only pots were pretty much just shoving hands with another raiser in the pot to try and chip up.  I just found so few hands and so few spots to make any kind of moves that it was nearly impossible to get any big traction.  It wasn't until we were 4 handed that I got involved in any really big pots.

During this stretch of waiting around for hands I noticed and older woman on the rail behind me.  She was there pretty much from the start of the FT.  I found out later that she had played in the event yesterday and was just trying to learn how to play by watching the FT.  She started asking me some basic questions, she knew terms like M and talked about floating so she had at least read some books on the subject.  By the time play had reached 5 handed, she was the only person in the audience that was actually rooting for me to TID.  I felt very much like Ivey with the Humphry's on the rail watching him play.  Yeah it's kinda lame, but I still think that was really nice of her to start cheering me on and stick around to watch.

The guy that came in 4th, Paul, opened for about 50K with the blinds at 2K/10K/20K.  I looked down at Kc9c and make a somewhat suspect shove.  Paul calls with JJ and I flop top two to end his day in 4th place and give me about 700K in chips.  A few hands later came the turning point of the match.  I am in the SB with 8h8s and Brandon makes it 50K to go.  I raise to 130K and he decides to call.  The flop comes down:

7s7c6c

Pretty solid flop for me so I bet out 155K and Brandon ships it in on me (he had about 2mil to start the hand).  I go into the tank for a few minutes.  I figured he hasn't really tried to play too many pots like this with hands like 99+ so I don't think he has my pair beat by an overpair.  It came down in my head to do I think he has a 7.  I decided he didn't so I made the call and he showed Ac3c for a good old fashioned sweat.  The board bricked off and I raked in the 1.5mil chips.  That hand right there changed the entire MTT.

I has the CL for most of the rest of the MTT.  I lost it for a bit when Ryan hit a 6-outer to really put a hurt on Brandon's chipstack and give himself a slight CL.  He didn't keep it long though as Brandon was calling down bluffs with K-high, I was hitting hands on him, and eventually he bled down to 300K or so.  Blinds at 3K/15K/30K I opened from the SB to 80K with Jc7s and Ryan shipped all in for 253K more.  My thought process was that he's shoving here any pair, most any ace, most Kx, SCs down to 65, and unsuited down to T9.  His range is just so wide here and to add to it if I call and win, I'll have a 1 million chip lead HU playing for $66K and I lock up and extra $15K in prize money.  If I lose I still have 1.6million in chips and am still the CL 3-handed so I opted to make the call.  Ryan showed A9o and was unhappy to see my call, particularly when the board came

7h7c7d

and ended matters with little sweat for me.  Ryan took the $20K for third and I started the HU battle.

Brandon right away came up to me and said he thought he was the better player (I agreed on that one) and he wanted the trophy.  So he asked to chop the money evenly and he gets the win.  I said there was no way I was doing that when I have you covered by 1million.  We played HU for about 45 minutes or so and he cut the gap to 2.1 v 1.7 million when I opted to take his deal.  Yeah I gave away the CL and trophy for an extra $15K locked up but to be honest, I don't think there was really much of an edge for me once the stacks get even.  He was such a tough player that it wasn't work risking the extra cash on trying to go for the win.  I was pretty pissed at myself initially, and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but it's hard to complain after winning $50K.

Cmuparty1 asked in the last blog's comments where I go from here with the money.  To be honest I'm still not really sure.  My tennative plan for now is to leave my FTP BR alone at about $2.7K and just start mixing in the $26 buy in events, I put another $700 onto UB to bump my BR up to the $50NL level and start playing those games, and take $5K out of my winnings to use as my regular live poker BR.  The rest of the money will sit in some form of investments, either savings account or mutual funds, until I need it to pay off bills and whatnot.  I think the harder part of being a pro is locking up the money for those 6 months of bills, so that's where most of this money is going to go.  I don't really see much else changing, or even me buying anything really cool like a nice TV or something (no where to put it being the main reason).  Now that the luster has worn off somewhat, I can get back to playing my regular rotations and finish up at WPI.  My career is now ready to begin, and I look forward to grinding my way to the top.

 I'll just pick this one up right where the last post left off.  So after getting my new found chips the BB from the AA hand looked at me and said, "I thought you had a big hand.  I had MP on the flop, woulda rivered two pair."  Now in most of the cases where someone has said this to me in a live event, I've just brushed it off.  This guy however isn't trying to lord anything over me, he actually is just making conversation.  He and I had about the same chip stack with now around 45 players remaining in the event.  That's when the fun started.

The dude in the BB was Brandon, a 40/80FLHE grinder at Foxwoods (all the dealers verified this for me during the breaks).  He was maybe 30 years old but if I was setting a line I would say the over under would be 27.  He's a funny dude to talk to and play with and from 45 players on down to the final 20 he and I started dueling back and forth.  He would KO someone, then shortly after I got it all in with TT vs 77 and held.  Then he busted a shorter stack, and a few hands later I called a nutball shortie with 33 and held vs his A3 after the KJJ flop.  Brandon looked at me afterward and chuckled, "Every single time I get some distance you just match me."  We actually started keeping score at the table of how many big pots we raked in.

Play like this continued until we were left with 20 players and the floor had us redraw for seats.  I had around 290K when we got to this point, with the average stack around roughly 190K.  Play resumed until we had 13 players left at 2:10AM.  We were supposed to play until 2AM or until the final 10 were reached.  Brandon, the chip leader Ryan, and I all combined at this point for over 1/2 the chips in play (all sitting at the same table no less).  I had about 450K in chips at this point when all of the players agreed to play on for another 20 mins to try and reach the FT tonight.  That decision almost cost me my tournament.

With 12 left Ryan raised UTG 6-handed to 31K with the blinds at 1K/5K/10K.  Brandon raised to 80K with about 275K at the start of the hand.  I looked down in the CO at 9c9s.  I thought about it for a bit, Ryan is only going to call a 4-bet shove here with AA or KK, for certain he folds QQ jut by the way he was playing.  I didn't feel like Brandon was all that strong so I decided to ship my stack for 450K.  Ryan tanked asking how much, which was the first time so far in the MTT where I was legit nervous.  After a few minutes he smirked and laid his hand down, Brandon then snapped off with KK and I lost a big chunk of my stack.  Looking back on it I feel like this was a big mistake.  This was Brandon's first three bet, but since it was 6-handed and he has proven to be a competent player I figured he could be making the move with 77 or something here just as easily.  Ryan later said he had TT, which I didn't figure him to be that strong either.  I then licked my wounds and went back to work with my 175K remaining.

About 5 minutes left before the end of the day and still 12 players remaining I saw 44 UTG+1 (6-handed remember) and shipped it for my last 150K or so.  The guy to my left reshipped all in and flipped his AA proudly.  Flop came down KQ2 rainbow.  The turn was an 8, and then the river I binked the 4 to ship the pot.  I wasn't even really excited to be honest, I was just pissed at myself for getting involved in the 99 hand and then being coolered like that.  We ended the day with 12 players and I had about 329K left behind.  We would come back Thursday and play the 30mins left on the clock at the 1K/5K/10K level.  All I could think was that I needed to put the shitty hands out of my head, I made it to day 2 and the FT was in reach.  Anything can happen when I get to the FT, I just had to hold on from there.

SPOILER ALERT AGAIN: I obv made the FT and even had a very Phil Ivey moment involving an apple, a nearly 1million chip pot, and an older woman on the rail who became my only fan.  Part 3 I'll wrap this up then it's back to the old grind stone.