Online Poker Tournament Rankings

i played 3 live tournys since i last wrote a post. these were it:

$340 WSOP Circuit event in Atlantic City

$1100 Aussie Millions Event #1

$1650 Aussie Millions Bounty Tourny

in the wsop circuit event, i made it all the way to the last hand of the day. we had been playing for 15 hours and were already in the money, with 23 ppl to go.

blinds 2k/4k with an ante

there was an early position limper and everyone else folded around to me in the big blind. i had AQo. i ship all in, and the limper snap called me with A7s. my analysis of his thought process on this hand was this: "i have A7. i am sooooted. i think i'm going to limp and hope someone shoves all in so i can get instacall them." haha, he obviously won, and i finished in 23rd.

the wsop circuit event fields are so soft, especially in the $200-500 buy-in range.

next up is the aussie millions. in event #1, there were 3 day 1's, with a total of a little over 1000 entrants i think. i finished my day in the top 5 of chip counts. so i was feeling pretty confident going into day 2.

day 2 started with 196 players, with the top 108 paying. i lost every single pot i played, and ended up finishing around 115th. pretty disappointing day.

i then played the $1650 bounties event. there were around 400 ppl in this one, and we played down to 32 ppl on day 1, with the top 40 paying. once again i had a top 5 chip count going into day 2.

with this tourny, when there were 32 ppl left, they made 4 tables of 8 and had a shootout format for the final table. the last 2 ppl at each table moved on.

day 2 started out well for me. i had about 180k in chips, and had the 2nd biggest stack at my table. xxmonsterdongxx was the chipleader.

on the first hand, blinds 1500/3000 w ante, the guy utg went all in for like 75k. i had AKs so i reshipped. he has AKo. i rivered a flush and won, which was kinda dirty but i'll take it.

when we were 6-handed i got into this hand:

blinds 2k/4k w 500 ante

first 3 ppl fold

button (xxmonsterdongxx) raises to 10k

small blind (stefan huber) reraises to 26.5k

big blind (me) makes it 62.5k with QQ

the table dynamics were this: those 2 guys were the only 2 names i recognized at the table. monsterdong was basically raising 80% of hands that folded to him, and i figured he could be raising a wide range, and stefan could be 3-betting a wide range. i had about 175k total when i 4-bet, with the intention of snapping off any all in. i mean i did have QQ and over 35% of my stack in the middle.

monsterdong ends up shipping (he had us covered), and huber calls. huber had about 90-100k to start the hand. i tank for like 5 minutes and end up folding. it was a pretty gross spot, but it was a good fold. i was up against AA and JJ.

when we get 4handed i lose a flip with AQ vs JJ and now have to grind the short stack.

we get 3handed (the final table bubble), and i ship ATo from the button. the small blind calls me with A9o. the bb says he folded a nine too, but the door card was a nine and i bubble the final table. im pretty good at bubbling final tables....for now anyway.

monsterdong basically owned that table i was at. he went on to win the tourny too.

i seen a lot of terrible plays at the aussie millions. older people (40+) make some of the most retarded folds i've seen. they'll raise like 25% of their stack preflop, then fold to a shove, and they'll show AK and say "i dont want to gamble." its pretty bad, and pretty funny. i think the most appealing factor of live poker to me is the humour i get from how bad people play (the lines they take, their senseless reasoning, etc.).

i'm gonna play a lot more live tournys starting in april. 50% for humour, 50% because i want some live titles and bling (rings and bracelets).

im in atlantic city right now to play a few wsop circuit events. im just here for 5 nights and am playing 3 events, 2 of which i already played.

yesterday i played a $1600 deep stack event. starting chips were 20k with 60 minute blind levels. it was pretty good structure with lots of room for play. the field was small (around 180 ppl), and i thought that most of the players seemed solid. i played for about 7 hours before busting and only really noticed 2 terrible players. they were constantly getting rewarded for their bad play and were 2 of the chip leaders at my table, which was good for me because i knew eventually i would pwn them. i was on track to pwning both of them in 2 separate hands, but they both ended up donking me on the river for 2 huge pots. they both played the hands real bad. real bad. i ended up busting at 200/400/50 ante level when i was in the BB with 22. the button, some pokerstars pro, opened to 1000, and i shipped 8k. he instacalled me with AQo and won the flip.

today i played the $230 event. 8k starting stack, and 25 minute blind levels. i liked this structure more since it was faster and played more like a turbo. the field in this tourny was a lot different than the $1600 deep stacked. this tourny was filled with bad players. it seemed like no one had a clue what they were doing. there was around 550 ppl in it, i finished around 70th i think. my AQo in the sb ran into AA in the bb. but the level of play was so bad. i dont play live very much, but i think i will be playing a lot more live events in 2010, especially wsop circuit tournys since it seems like not very many good players play them (at least at the $200-300 level).

in january im going to australia to play 1 or 2 prelims at the aussie millions. ill be spending a lot of the first half of 2010 travelling, so i wont be able to put in much volume online, which sucks because it makes it difficult to set poker goals for 2010. i wanted to set a very challenging goal like making 200k profit, but that'll be very difficult to do without A LOT of volume, unless i lucksack my way to winning some major tournys.

on another note, at least i can still play some poker while travelling. i think that is 1 of the biggest perks of playing online poker as a job. u can work wherever u want and whenever u want, as long as there is an internet connection. i plan on spending a few months in australia, asia, and europe before coming home. for most ppl this would cost them a bunch of money, but since ill probbaly play 1 or 2 sessions a week, i think ill probably have more money to my name at the end of the trip than at the beginning. ahhh the greatness of online poker.

 so apparently i haven't updated this blog in a long time. i was a on a looooong downswing last time i wrote an entry, but taking a little break fixed that.

since i got back from vegas at the end of july, every month has been a 10k-15ish month, which is closer to my expectations. i still haven't had any big scores yet in 2009, although i've gotten deep in a TON of big tournaments but just haven't had things go my way in any of them. this won't deter me tho, as i am sure some monster days are in my future if i keep playing the way i'm playing.

ive had some success in the super turbo tournys on fulltilt. i final tabled the $117 ST nightly tourny a bunch of times altho i havent taken it down yet (chopped it heads up tho once).

ive also had some success in 90mans on ftp. sharkscope tracks them on their leaderboard as long as you have 500 games. as soon as i played my 500th game i debuted at #1 on their leaderboard for the highest average profit in any game over 6 tables at any stake at any site, in the world. basically what that means is that i was the most profitable 90man player alive, which didnt really surprise me since i kind of suspected that was the case (yeah i got a poker ego). im almost at 1000 games in 90mans so i will post graphs on that in the future. its always nice to know that i have the option (or back-up plan) to make a 6-figure annual salary by grinding 90mans 40 hours/week. altho i think i'd rather shoot myself in the face than grind 90mans for 40 hours a week for a year.

since i got home at the end of july, pretty much every week has been a winning week, altho ive been a on a little downswing the last few. the downswing started after a 15k+ profit week so this downswing was probably due.

my next entry will probably be mostly about 90mans and why they're so easy, including some graphs with my analysis of them. and if i take down any mtts before then i will post some hands up from them as well.

Seat 1: Daponk (39,104)
Seat 2: outoni (43,657)
Seat 3: serbie (83,943)
Seat 4: Highcheck (273,928)
Seat 5: BUBBALUCH 8 (48,332)
Seat 6: rostinology (71,433)
Seat 7: 1BroadStBully (84,568)
Seat 8: Gossu (73,918)
Seat 9: instinkt poker (177,543)
outoni posts the small blind of 1,500
serbie posts the big blind of 3,000
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to serbie [Ad Kh]
Highcheck folds
BUBBALUCH 8 folds
rostinology folds
1BroadStBully raises to 7,768
Gossu folds
instinkt poker folds
Daponk folds
outoni folds
serbie raises to 83,543, and is all in
1BroadStBully calls 75,775
serbie shows [Ad Kh]
1BroadStBully shows [Ac 4d]
*** FLOP *** [4s Td 5h]
*** TURN *** [4s Td 5h] [Jh]
*** RIVER *** [4s Td 5h Jh] [Kd]
serbie shows a pair of Kings
1BroadStBully shows a pair of Fours
serbie wins the pot (172,186) with a pair of Kings

this was in a $10 cubed tournament, down to the final two tables. i think this call with the A4o is so horrible. this is why poker tournaments will always be profitable. i dont know how he called this: was he hero calling my possible KQ? unfortunately i didnt end up taking it down, but i got a 3rd place finish which is always the 3rd best scenario.

anyway, i noticed another terrible play over and over again in the past week. i call it the "slowplay trap", although they are actually trapping with a pretty mediocre hand. a lot of people limp in early position or middle position with hands like KJo, A8s, etc, and they instashove if someone raises behind them. they are always behind when they get snap called, because they do this with a stack of like 8 - 15 BBs. it seems pretty stupid to me. why not just openshove instead of waiting for someone to show strength and then shove when you have no fold equity against their hand that is obviously ahead?
although i am against the AA or KK early position limp, at least that play has some merit to it.

i have been playing a lot of smaller tournaments lately ($20-100 freezeouts and $10-30 rebuys). this is to cut down on the swings, as i dont like 10-15k swings with my bankroll. rather than investing 1k-1500 on an average day, i now spend about $500-1k on buy-ins. the exception is sundays, where i usually invest around 1500 to 2k. too many sunday majors = too many bad players that need to be exploited.
the skill level in these tournys is also pretty poor compared to tournaments like the $100 rebuy or the 1k tournys, which are stacked with thinking players.

i was gonna post some hands from titan poker, where the play is more weak than any other site. i couldnt narrow my choice down to a few hands, so i'll just say that everyone should play on titan because poker doesn't get any easier than titan poker. at a final table this past week in a $50 freezeout, i had 18k on the button. the blinds were 1.5k/3k, so i raised to 7.5k with AA after it folded to me. the BB with about 25k chips shoves all in on me with K4o. the reason i made a small raise here (with obviously no fold equity to the blinds), was so they would shove on me, which unsurprisingly the BB decided to do. i can't imagine any thought process being used here by this guy. obv he hit trip 4s and i busted out, but this is how easy titan is. titan is a pretty garbage site overall, but i continue to play on it because of all the bad players. of course there are a lot of skilled players on the site as well, but it's definitely a site worth playing on.

i just remembered an interesting hand that happened in the friday $100 rebuy event on titan:
Table Friday $150,000 Guaranteed R/A, 246648831, -2135344615 (Tournament: Friday $150,000 Guaranteed R/A Buy-In: $100+$9)
Seat 1: Pershad ($62,186.50 in chips)
Seat 2: Tini56 ($7,700.00 in chips) DEALER
Seat 3: dudulll ($27,790.00 in chips)
Seat 4: couderle ($11,415.04 in chips)
Seat 5: shotlybridgefox ($62,913.28 in chips)
Seat 6: citlec1 ($60,182.50 in chips)
Seat 7: Darknezz ($51,723.70 in chips)
Seat 8: PLAYCOM1 ($11,240.00 in chips)
Seat 9: asdewqr3 ($39,528.02 in chips)
Seat 10: pokerking133 ($12,117.25 in chips)
dudulll: Post SB $1,200.00
couderle: Post BB $2,400.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Pershad [Ah Kc]
shotlybridgefox: Fold
citlec1: Raise (NF) $7,200.00
Darknezz: Fold
PLAYCOM1: Fold
asdewqr3: Fold
pokerking133: Fold
Pershad: Call $7,200.00
Tini56: Fold
dudulll: Raise (NF) $27,790.00
couderle: Fold
citlec1: Raise (NF) $48,380.00
Pershad: Allin $54,986.50
citlec1: Allin $11,802.50
*** FLOP *** [3c 4c 8h]
*** TURN *** [7d]
*** RIVER *** [5c]
*** SUMMARY ***
dudulll: Shows [As Qs]
citlec1: Shows [10c 10s]
Total pot $152,559.00 Rake $0.00
citlec1: wins $150,555.00

there was like 70-some people left (the top 80 paid). i think i was in 4th, and citlec was in 5th. i should've reraised him preflop, instead of letting him be the aggressor. i think i could have laid down the hand and still had a top 10 stack to work with, but i put him on a hand like TT or JJ and decided with the money already in the pot that i could flip. the winner would get a monster chip lead stack, and since i only wanted the 34k for 1st place i elected to call. a nice isolation 4bet by him, and a standard(?) call by me. 54k call to win 96k with AK. there are no antes on titan, so thats why i gave some consideration to folding as i still had a lot of time left to pick my spots, but whatever. go big or go home.