Tournament Poker and the art of being a grinder

To win in tournament poker, there's so many skills and adjustments that you need to work on, on a constant basis so when people say that I make a living the easy way, they truly have no idea what goes on behind the curtains of an MTT grinder so I will use this post to shed some light on both its ups and downs.

Earlier on this month, I flew to Bali for some personal business, relaxation and of course, the usual, grinding, I went on a cold streak during the entire trip, once back, kept on playing the 2nd season of the Micro Millions and on the first night, had a super deep run in Event 47 which was a NL Hold'em $1 Rebuy 3x Turbo, out of a massive field of 12554 runners, I managed to lose a key coin flip with 55s against China's "Keqiwong" big slick and hit the rail 14th for a $233 cash instead the $10.6K 13 places away, it came with a huge disappointment,  a draining feeling that I don't wish on most people but here's some more...

Endings and Fresh Beginnings

When you're reading an intriguing book, you feel great after finishing each chapter but already very eager to start the next one, that somehow sums up the chapter of my life as I'm writing this, but about 100 times more exciting as I'm ending the chapter of my life where I lived in China and pretty much everything was a hassle as I expected it to be but very happy and excited to be moving back to Taiwan, I miss my friends, the good mix of international food, parties are great and it's damn convenient..really can't wait, 9 days left, I'm in the process of packing my things, the search for a decent apartment and eager to get my life back on track because during the past 9 months spent in China, it was anything but that.

"May" I ship a big one?

May is here and this would be my last month in China, I'm preparing to move back to Taipei and quite excited about it.

In the past 2 weeks, I managed to take down the $3 1K Gtd coming into the ft as the shortest stack and working my way out to the chip lead which I lost again when down to 3 handed, had 6bbs at some points but with some good push fold game and a bit of luck, came back and snatched the title!

A bit of sunshine never hurts!

After months of cold/unstable weather, both literally and poker wise, the sunshine finally showed up and with it some nice scores, although I haven't been running good for the past weeks at Pokerstars, things picked up in my other account at Bodog, I've had several deep runs in mtts, many 10/20$ don cashes and ended up taking 8th place in 11$ 2K GTD and taking down the 2$ rebuy, screenshots below:

 

I'm hoping that this will spread onto my ps account so I can finish the month in beauty, fingers crossed, tables popping up like cherries in spring and finger ready on the trigger (mouse), later folks!

New Diet!

Well here it is:

Just kidding but as an online poker grinder, we do need our fair share of energy drinks, juices and snacks ready for a quick bite during breaks and I'm sure most won't disagree with this.

Micro Millions Half way...

Although the timing for lots of these events isn't quite suitable for players in Asia, I'm trying to play as many events as I can, so started with event 1 which was scheduled for midnight CCT time, I was quite tired that day so I went to bed 2 hours before the event and set up an alarm..

Event 1 attracted a huge field given the extremely small buyin and it was as PS named a rebuy madness 6max event, Pokerstars team online pro Jorj95 and Bryan Huang quickly grinded a big stack and so did I, from the starting 50 chips, I ended the rebuy period with 7000ish and this is how I finished overall:

My next 2 cashes would be in event 25 $1 and 39 $8.8, with respectively, 2 deep runs:

It's been more than half year since my last post and here I am again,  near the end of last year, I started coaching a colleague of mine and it got me back playing seriously, reading a lot of poker related stuff and working on my focus which translated in a great 1st month of January 2012 come back taking it from the basics, slowly but surely, the way it should be done.

Here are the stats for my January sessions:

ITM: 33/175
IMT %: 19%
1-3 Finishes: 17
Finished Late: 13%
Prizes: 132$
Average BI: 0.51$
ROI%: 47%
Profit: 42$

Goals for Feb:

1. Move up to 1.5$ 45/90 man
2. Try to get a seat to APPT Seoul
3. Make the top 10 at least once in the weekly Asian Poker League

That's it for now, wish me luck and good luck on the tables!

Taiwan Poker Series Event 1

Had a great week with my girlfriend as she was back for a week to visit me, took her shopping numerous times, we also ate Italian, Swedish, Mexican, Japanese...but the day the 1st event of the TPS was starting was the day she was leaving so that was a bit of a bummer, so I went to the game and set my mind up on poker and strictly poker.

It was a 70$ rebuy NLHE tourney and after the first hour, I was sitting on a comfortable stack but still made the addon nevertheless.

I won't fo too much into details but it took the field about 7 hours to slim down to the bubble where everyone started tighting up and I turned up the aggression, flipped well a couple of times and we were down to HU with about 1500$ for first and 860$ for second, it only took 1 hand for me to get it all in and it was on the first hand, had top pair and check raised all in, he made the call with mid pair and rivered two pairs, I doubled a couple of hands later on to jam QJs into his JJ preflop, I managed to hit a Q on the flop and while everyone including me thought it was over (for the second time), he managed to hit the last Jack in the deck to win it all, I was disgusted at first but had to let go off the bad vibes, just got unlucky and you have to be ready to accept that if you want to be a good poker player.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning to Macau, for the Macau Poker Cup and I'm very excited to meet my friends, make some new ones and play some **** cards, poker gods, please let me run good, thank you! :) I'll be playing Event 1 through 3 and hitting the cash games when I have time, if I do well then I might stay longer to play the main event, may the poker god shine on you and I'll try to update you on how things goes straight from the capital of gambling in Asia, peace!

TPT season 3 recap

It's been almost 4 months since the 3rd season of Taiwan Poker tour has started, and hundreds of people turned every week to fight for the points leading to the final game (Top 20), and closing on the end of April, with two weeks left in the regular season games, I was ranked 25th and knew had to push myself more in the remaining games if I would ever make it to the top 20, and pushing myself I did, as of the first week of April, I final tabled the online tourney busting 4th following by a win in tourney 20 which I felt, put me back on the right track to go on and make 2 more final tables within the 3 tourneys left, busting 3rd (99vsA10 852210) and 6th and with that, climbed up the ladder all the way to 3rd in the final standings with about 7900 points which will convert in chips for the final game.

The final game was held on Sunday 15th and the cards flew at 2pm with about 23 players competing for 3 top prizes (Trip to Macau for 2+accommodation+3K hk$ event entry/2nd Ipad 32g/3rd netbook) and I managed to steal pots, turn up the aggression and grind my stack to about 20K taking the chip lead as well, about 4 hours later we were down to the final 9 and the blinds were starting to get really high and right after the 9th player busted, I raised with A9s and the Big blind jammed on top, given the odds, I couldn't fold there and was hoping I was against some Kx or Qx, instead he had 10s and the flop came with a 9, turn giving me a bunch more outs with a diamond and I bricked on the river doubling him up and having my stack shrunk to about 10bbs with the blinds at 800/1600 and not too long after that, I went for Jam steal from the blinds but ran into the AJo from the big blind and that was that, I was certainly disappointed but as I'm someone who's always on the move, I quickly kicked away the bad vibes and started contemplating the online tourneys I had scheduled as well as the Macau poker cup starting May 27th which I look forward to!

2011 and the awful swings

It wasn't really the new year's start I was expecting in poker, I've had huge swings, ran bad an awful amount of times but I mean that's poker as we all know, and as long as I stay focused, keep the right state of mind and work hard, I'm confident I can submerse through the cloud and fog that's been around my poker sessions recently.

I've been putting more study and volume into my SNG game, approximately  500 a week, I've also been reading about 6max NL strategy and tactics to improve and finally, I got a prop deal at this new poker room, where I get to play 6max and only that, with a good rakeback deal and softer competition.

Last but not least, the 3rd season of TPT (Taiwan Poker Tournament) started, if you haven't read the older posts from my previous blog, I was the 2nd season champion and got to go to Macau for free with my partner and play live poker everyday which was like heaven! :)

The first tourney had a record field of 71 players, and the new feature of the 3rd season is that it's sponsored by Pokerstars so every week, Pokerstars will give away prizes to the top finishers, early in the tourney I had lost half of my stack with the second nut flush and had nothing going really until I doubled up with Q2 on a 2KQ flop in a limped pot and I'd say the hand of the night was when I open raised utg with AKo, utg+1 snap jammed, the guy next to him flat called and a 4th person moved all in, it was a tough decision for but the blinds were so high and I had to go with my instinct and call, I was against A10o, JJ and KK, the flop came with an Ace which put a fat smile on my face before slapping me with a J on the turn, the set guy screamed out loud before the river gave me a flush amassing an enormous pot, I lost a couple of allins in the final table, btn raise with KQo, I jam from sb with AK, flop comes with 2 queens and so on but managed to finish 2nd and win a Pokerstars Backpack which was awesome, so until my next post, may the poker gods shine on you!

Poker gods lightnings

After a great month of October, my expectations were somewhat high for November, EEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHH (Buzz sound and not the one on those TV game shows where it signals the jackpot for the challenger) I got hit by numerous and continuous strikes of swings and still to this day, here's a lil something something to prove it from my last hand of the last mtt I played today:

MP2: 10,640
CO: 10,265
Hero (BTN): 10,331
SB: 5,651
BB: 5,360
UTG: 9,023
UTG+1: 9,073
UTG+2: 11,685
MP1: 21,968

Pre-Flop: (675) 8 8 dealt to Hero (BTN)
3 folds, MP1 calls 300, MP2 folds, CO raises to 770, Hero calls 770, 2 folds, MP1 calls 470

Flop: (2,985) 5 7 8 (3 Players)
MP1 bets 895, CO raises to 3,000, Hero raises to 9,536 and is All-In, MP1 folds, CO calls 6,470 and is All-In

Turn: (22,820) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


River: (22,820) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Results: 22,820 Pot
CO showed T T and WON 22,820 (+12,580 NET)
Hero showed 8 8 and LOST (-10,240 NET)

As you can tell, put my chips in ahead and boom! but oh well that's poker, you gotta be able to float with its waves, good and bad runs, sorta like how life is, don't you think? The funny thing is that after he turned his hands and I saw 10s, I almost predicted a 10 on the turn and there it was...

Although I had some deep runs in some Mtts such as 5th and 2nd in the $2.20 180 man,  a 3rd finish in the $12 45 man, and a 1st place finish in the $5.50 45 man, It still didn't improve my BR or the way my poker month was going....

Going deep in big field Mtts and getting knocked out by bad luck continuously can be very frustrating at times but I'm very grateful to be surrounded by my girlfriend and a family that shows a ton of love and support for what I do and I'll never let them down so here's some of my November's Mtts deep runs and until the next post, may the gods of poker be kind to you and myself as well :)

$4.40 - 1159 - 135th
$3.30 - 5947 - 835th
$2.20 - 2678 - 90th

What a week!

That might be just enough to describe it, I've been putting a lot of time into studying and analyzing my game and it's a feeling like no other when you can see some of the fruits of your hard work, translation, I had a great week grinding the $3.25/$6.50 45 man, I went deep in a couple of Mtts including a 4th finish out of 2285 in a $4.40 regular with a prizepool of 9K and a 9th place finish in a $2.20 turbo on stars as well, the field was huge, 9365 entrants forming a total prizepool of almost 19K, although I was a bit disappointed with the way I finished since with the 3rd biggest stack in the final table, I certainly could've looked for a better spot to jam all of my stack and have a better finish/cash but that's ok, It's by learning from your mistakes that you improve and that's the golden rule in life as well as in Poker.