|
siac0
|
2011 seemed to come and go very quickly. It was a year where I earnt significantly less at poker than I was expecting and where I feel like I didn't really improve as a player, however there were a few big non poker highlights.
Lowlights:
* Poker results, both Live and Online - I really lacked discipline and struggled to find a game I could stick to and crush. I played a huge mix of sites, stakes and games, mainly cash but even the occasional MTT day. Going into 2012 I still don't know what I want to focus on. I'm leaning towards giving online MTT's a shot, but am not sure I can handle the financial swings and variance right now.
* Black Friday - This drastically cut my income, and was awful timing as it happened the same day my house purchase went unconditional. I was a red pro on Full Tilt, hence the income loss. Not to mention Rush 2-4nlh was like printing money even without the Red Pro benefits. If I could of foreseen the FTP situation I wouldn't of put so much of my money into a property, and as a result completly mis-budgeting how much money I should leave as a poker bank roll. There have been a few decent sized live cash games I wanted to play this year, but had to give a miss which was pretty painful as the ROI would of been way better than any house in an overpriced Auckland property market will ever give!
* Spewing off the near chip lead with 21 ppl left in a very weak remaining field in a WSOP 1.5k, I'm still losing sleep over a stupid 3 street bluff I run vs the eventual winner... A long, long way to go but winning bracelets in back to back years in >2.5k player fields would of been sick and I really fucked up a great chance. The fact I'm still upset over this hand, shows why I probably should stick to cash games and not play MTT's...
* General lack of discipline - Too much drinking, not enough exercise, playing poker after drinking, not eating healthy, not getting enough sleep, spending too much money on non essential things, etc etc.. all bad things when you play poker for a job.
* Slackness at keeping up with friends - It was such a busy year, that a few people I consider very good friends I hardly saw or kept in contact with at all. I'll be making a bigger effort in 2012.
Highlights:
* Buying and moving into a house - Despite what I said above about the timing due to Black Friday, I'm still happy with the decision given what I knew about my financial and life position at the time. It's really nice for lots of reasons to no longer be renting, especially with a family.
* Holiday to Los Angeles after the WSOP - This was a lot of fun and a good way to kill post WSOP pain. It was nice to spend lots of quality time and see some new places with my now wife who had never been to the US before.
* Getting engaged/married - My wife Stephanie and I got engaged while in Melbourne for the Aussie Millions in January and managed to organise and get married by September in Rarotonga. The day couldn't of gone better, it was an awesome location and very romantic.
I'm looking forward to 2012 and always feel like a new year is good time for a fresh start and goals. I'm playing a decent schedule of NLH events at the Aussie Millions in January then will probably re-evaluate what games I want to play both online and live for the rest of the year.
|
|
|
|
|
Poker has been very strange since my last update. I deposited $200 on stars to play some hands during the milestone promotion (I had been playing on Party), in a couple of days run it up to 5k, then lost it all playing 5-10hu and cap games in the space of a couple of sessions, the 5-10 session was particularly stupid since I was drunk.
So I deposited another $600, and have since run it up to 12k. I wish I could say it was by crushing cash games, but actually I've just run really hot over a small sample size of mainly low stakes tournaments, including 3 wins and a 2nd in the space of a week or so. The largest cashes been chopping a 215hu tourny on stars for 3k, and today winning a 5r (2r1A) with 2,500 runners for 5k. MTT's are just so insanely soft, that it's tempting to grind them for a while... but I really don't want to deal with the variance and know I should just stick to the steady money of cash games...I always feel like a degenerate gambler when playing tourns online (even live MTT's I guess, since you can never put in sample size at them) and think that grinding them for a job would be bad for my mental health.
After the drunken 5-10 session I got mad at myself and decided that as punishment I was going to grind a ton of hands at low stakes to earn some steady money the rest of November, that didn't go to plan and despite putting in probably 75k hands over 2 weeks was only about break even, I'm not actually sure if I ended up or down at cash games in November since Holdem Manager 2 kept breaking and also I was playing on different computers. At times I tried mass tabling low stakes, through the help of various AHK scripts which I played around with for the first time ever, I now feel confident I can play 18ish tables of 6 max (or 24 at FR) and do okay at low stakes, although at times I was probably over doing it, and misclicking or timing out far too often especially when including Fast tables into the mix.
I'm not sure what games I want to play in December, or even what site I want to play on. Options range from playing a small number of tables at 2-4 on party, mass tabling low stakes (.50-1 and 1-2) on Stars, or even having a go at grinding online MTT's for a month - which Is something I've never really given a decent go at and probably wont due to the fact that I don't enjoy losing thousands of dollars most days that I play poker - but god they are so soft that it's tempting.
One more thing.. do NOT buy Hold'em Manager 2... it's probably the most buggy software I've ever used. The reason I played some MTT's the last couple of weeks is because my HUD stopped working almost every day and It was too hard for me to play a ton of tables at cash... HM2 has been problem after problem since I got it.. I can't be bothered going into more detail, but stay far far away imo.
Anyway that was the most rambling blog post I've ever made and it's only going on and on, so I should stop now.
|
|
|
|
I've decided to resurrect this blog, my last post was way back in mid 2010. I haven't really spent much time on Leggo over the last year, but every month I see the Leggo Poker line on my credit card statement and feel like I'm burning $30 by not getting more involved in the community here. So I'm going to make a bigger effort to: watch videos, post/read hands in the forums, and even blog... which at the least is a good way to rant and burn off steam when I'm feeling tilted.
Over the last year or so a ton has been happening in my life, mostly non poker things. In January I got engaged to my now wife Stephanie. Rather than spending an extravagant amount of money on a single day party (that would likely take a year to plan), we decided to go and get married on a tropical island (Rarotonga) and only invited close family. It went perfectly and even including the air fares it was much cheaper and easier to plan than if we had held the wedding in Auckland.
Photo below (it was a wedding on a beach, hence the casualness):
Shortly after getting engaged we starting looking for a house to buy, and not longer afterwards found one we loved and purchased it (gg 500k). House prices in Auckland are really expensive, in my opinion probably over valued, yet still think it was a good idea as far as life ev goes. The biggest downside of buying a house is that overnight I went from been massively over bankrolled to having a much more normal poker BR for the stakes I was playing online (2-4nlh Rush). Poker wise things have been going okay, but my expected income took a massive hit since FTP shut down (I was a red pro) - suddenly I have to actually win decent money at poker to make a living, the horror! I'm not sure if I would of been so keen to buy a house if I could have foreseen the drop in income, but it's worked out fine, I've generally being winning okay money, and I'm encouraged at how soft games are at low/mid stakes.
I've played quite a few live tournaments this year, with no success. My biggest score was for 20k in a 1.5k event at the WSOP - which didn't even cover my entry fees for the series. I was chip leader with around 25 people left and managed to bust in 22nd in a very weak remaining field after running a terrible 3 street bluff against a Brazilan Stars pro (don't try and make brazilians fold the most top pair can be the moral of this blog post). I still lose sleep over the hand and it shows why I'm more suited to grinding cash games online than tournies; I can easily let go of things like AA < KK, but when it comes to me making mistakes (which I make too many of) the 'what ifs' can drive me crazy for a longer time than they should, especially given how good I've run life time at live tournaments.
I doubt I'll play any live tourns until the Aussie Millions in January, where I'm planning on playing all of the NLH stuff with a < 10k buy in and the Main. Until then I'm going to try and grind a ton online and will be dissapointed if I don't play close to 200k hands at 1-2 and 2-4nlh before then.
October was looking okay at one stage, but ended up been a little dissapointing due to the downswing at the end, stakes ranged from .50-1plo up to 5-10nlh, but most hands were at 1-2nlh. Graph:
Also, I would like more twitter followers, so please feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/#!/simonjwatt
Simon |
|
|
|
Coming 9th (I think) heading into day 3 with 21 people left of 2563 starters. First pays 650k, one time please????
Had CraigTheDeac on my table early on today but he busted unfortunately  Got pretty lucky against him flopping bottom two in a 3 bet pot early in the day in a pretty sick hand.
Can't sleep... |
|
|
|
For the second time in the last 6 months I have managed to negotiate a very good deal in a live tournament.
Down to 3 people in the Lee Nelson Deep Stacked Series Main Event (1.1k buyin, 108 entries) I have roughly a 1.6 to 1 chip lead when one of the other 2 proposes we do a deal, I say I'm not keen as I feel I'm the best player left on the table, then after thinking about it for a few seconds decide there is no harm in asking for something that isn't really reasonable for the others. First pays $32,600, Second pays $22,600 and Third Pays $12,900.. I ask for $27,160, and tell them they can chop the rest, they both snap take it so I could of actually got more if I really pushed it. I'm not good at ICM stuff but instinctively I'm pretty sure this is an extremely +EV deal for me.
I ended up finishing second, the bust out hand I have 57 on 44797, the money goes in on the river and my opponent shows 44 for flopped quads! So results oriented wise it was obviously a good deal 
The other deal, in October last year was during the Auckland APPT final table when 3 handed we agreed to chop 3 way (and left a small arount of the remaining prize pool to the winner) this despite one of the guys having a 2 to 1 chip lead at the time!
The moral of this blog post is to ask for something better than you think you should be really receiving when discussing deals in tournaments, often the other players are scared money and really want to lock in some money even if they are costing themselves a lot of EV.
/ Thinly Veiled Brag Post. |
|
|
|
|
In an effort to entertain myself while bored/depressed in a hotel room in Dubai (see previous post..) I have decided to do one of the most -ev things I've ever done and give away 40% of my action in the Sunday Warmup today.
Criteria:
First two people to comment get 20% action each.
Comments must be made before the tourn starts.
Only small/micro stakes elligible, so if you're a reg at above 100nl the offer doesn't apply to you.
Also, despite the fact I would usually be +ev in the Sunday Warmup I've had 5 beers, and there is still 2 hours (another 4 beers) until it starts so it's likely I will play like a drunken retard, so If I bust 4bet shoving QT you better not complain since it's a freebie .
Gogogo.
|
|
|
|
Fun times.
$1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
MP: $203.75
Hero (CO): $225.20
BTN: $438.90
SB: $206.35
BB: $63.55
UTG: $358.55
Pre-Flop: T  K dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $6, BTN folds, SB calls $5, BB calls $4
Flop: ($18) J Q A (3 Players)
SB checks, BB bets $10, Hero calls $10, SB raises to $200.35 and is All-In, BB folds, Hero calls $190.35
Turn: ($428.70) K  (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($428.70) 4  (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $428.70 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed T K and WON $425.70 (+$219.35 NET)
SB showed T A and LOST (-$205.35 NET) |
|
|
|
|
Never make the mistake of accidently entering a no blinds increase HU sng, especially at midnight.
fml.
|
|
|
|
|
Well not really, but it feels like it....
I busted the Sydney APPT main event (6.3kbi) early on day 2, but not before getting owned a couple of times by Terrence Chan, including him calling 2 barrells on a K high flop with 99, and having him 4bet shove 55 over my first 3bet (I had air and folded).
Anyway on to the part about getting knocked out of the tourn twice by the same guy...
The hand after Terrence 4bet me I pick up KK on the cutoff, I think I have a pretty laggy image and a loose table so I'm pretty excited about this... an early position raiser opens, I 3bet, then Jarred "FlopNutsOnYou" Graham who has a big stack cold 4bets on the button. I felt a bit sick about this as ppl don't generally cold 4bet light in live donkaments, but I have KK so have to get it in. He snaps with AA and I can't get there. Someone at the table comments that it must be nice to run so hot (earlier in the week Jarrod won back to back Sydney APPT high roller events).
Fast foward to later the next day: My friend Joe who I had swapped 25% action with is sitting with an above average stack with 18 people left (first prize is 600kaud), and he is one of the best players left in the field. Jarrod is a massive chip leader and sitting 2 to his right... there is a pretty aggro dynamic going on between the two of them.. amongst other things Jarrod showed Joe a 5 after 4bet shoving earlier on in the day. 6 handed Joe opens UTG, Jarrod 3bets from the SB, Joe shoves QQ and Jarrod snaps with AA. sadfjls;adfkjsal;dfsajfhjk;lsadflk;sadjfld;sakf Run hotter ffs. No Q comes and Joe exits in 18th for just over 16k... and I feel like Jarrod has busted me twice in the space of 2 days... GG anyway Joe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
