In an attempt to better organize my thoughts, I’m going to blog every thurs or fri. I’m hoping to really focus on leaks and common pitfalls in regards to my life and career.
Two weeks ago I found myself sitting around contemplating my next move. See once again the WSOP beat me up and in turn left me w/o a pot to piss in. Oddly I never lose much during the series(last year I made about 10k, this year lost about 10k), but the 45 days spent of constant play leaves me burnt out generally taking most of July and Aug. off. For most this wouldn’t be an issue, but for me this is incredibly difficult. See I’ve never been one to play w/in my means, in all honestly since the start of my poker career I’ve never been properly rolled for the stake I was playing. Now is no different, but that is another blog in itself…
Anyway, two weeks ago I found myself staring at 30k online makeup(built up gradually from a years worth of Sundays and lack luster effort) as well as a shortage of life money. Tough situation that I am far too familiar with. My choices are to either grind 2/5 with life money or to try to get outta online makeup w/some scores. Considering that I’ve stayed a float through live play, I went that route. Combine a -$1200 first session with the start of the FTOPS and I was led in another direction.
As I’ve put in a bigger volume online I only have concluded one certainty: Reducing variance is key to over coming strong play. The way I’ve come to do that is by always attempting to stay ahead of the curve and play a manner in which “the field” as a whole considers unorthodox or even weak/bad. 3 years ago when I had a relative amt. of MTT success I noticed myself to not just be the most aggro player at the table, but aggro to the point where I came off as a drunken, reckless idiot…and it worked. Why? Because “the field” was accustom to TAG, TP, and LP play…but no one really knew how to deal w/maniacal play. Fast forward 3 years and in general the field plays an avg. to strong LAG, TAG style. I’ve stopped trying to play the same, w/fewer mistakes than the next guy, no one plays perfectly and its foolish to attempt to…it’s just not as profitable as counter punching w/an exploitive strategy unique to the naked eye.
That being said I started grinding early last week sometime. I quickly had some deep sweats in the $100r, $320 100k on stars, $320 90k on ftp, $150r, as well as FTOPS main closing none of them…However, my hard work finally paid off in the Ante up for Africa FTOPS. I won a ridiculously large pot to give me an early CL w/4k people left and somehow I managed to hang on to it down to 3 handed. I took 2nd for ~$31k my biggest score to date. admittedly I surprised myself at overcoming that makeup so quickly but even more so at the week I’ve had since, including winning the 35k and 40k sunday and monday respectively. It’s nice to put some theories to the test and have success be the result.
By no means do I really enjoy the daily grind of MTTs, nor would I really consider myself a tournament expert. But, I’m really trying hard this time to play w/in my means and build a BR that can sustain the live stakes I wish to play on a consistant basis. If it means subjecting myself to the daily online grind for a while, the so be it. I never want to limit my poker career to being a specialist, so I’ll gladly take success in any fashion. It’s all a means to an end…
On a lighter note we finally got a replacement pedal for Rock Band so can’t really see a reason as to why we wouldn’t make a music video…
For those interested…
Results for past 11 days:
170 mtts 23 cashes 14 Fts 2 wins +~$55k
A Gambler's Fallacy 