So I’m a few days into my first 12s shot at the moment, and like a true professional, it’s time to evaluate. I’m almost half way through my 50 buy-in shot and things haven’t been going so well, if the numbers are anything to go by.
So far it’s only been the solitary min-cash but actually I can feel my game improving already and I know this is down to several factors. For one, I’ve drastically cut down on the number of tables I’m playing. As a rule of thumb, I load up around 25-30 $2/180s and within 30-45 minutes I’ve busted enough tournaments to leave me with a core group of around 10 tables where I’m fairly deep and am running up a stack. Because I’m only taking a 50 Buy-in shot this time around, I cannot really afford to spread my attention so thin in order to go for the big scores, I must maximise the value I can extract from each tournament. This is not saying that what I was doing before was wrong, I still believe that is the best way to make money in the long run, but as I’m not yet comfortable playing the 12s and dropping a significant portion of my bankroll in one sitting, it makes cutting down on volume a sound “economic” decision. Most importantly, I’m cutting down on the number of tables so that I can take detailed notes on every $12/180 grinder. At this level, the majority of the real winning players are professional grinders, playing not only my games but levels much higher. When grinding these tournaments for a living, you can be sure that they have thousands upon thousands of hands with the same players and have better reads than I can ever attain through my sporadic play as an amateur. The only way to catch up to them is to closely observe their play and hope to uncover leaks and weaknesses in their game to possibly exploit. A great measure of whether a grind is solid or not is to scope their winnings at this level, and some of the graphs I uncovered and just ungodly. I won’t go into names in case they aren’t comfortable with it, but some of the top winners at this level and maintaining a 25-30% ROI over tens of thousands of games. It’s just mind-blowing to me and can only be a seriously long term goal to achieve this myself.
Anyway, enough of the NLHE talk, this is an O8 blog! I’ve stepped back from the cash grind for a while because I was running quite far below EV and it was causing me to lose focus and tilt a little, so I made the correct decision last week to just take some time off. I am however playing some MTTs on the side, purely for enjoyment rather than monetary gain, but as we all know, the two run hand in hand. I took second in a small turbo the other day for around $200 as well as a few small cashes dotted throughout the week, nothing to report back on. I am however keeping a keen eye on the games and should I find a table too hard to pass hard, no matter what the stakes, I’d happily jump in. Luckily for my bankroll, if any games were to exist, it would without doubt occur at PL50 or lower.
Away from poker, well not entirely, it’s still a degen story, I read Haseeb Qureshi’s account of the Ashton Griffin 70 miles in 24 hours prop bet. Obviously the story in itself is enough to be drawn into, but the way Haseeb writes the account is just brilliant. The man obviously has a talent for telling a tale and although I knew he was a CardRunners instructor, I wasn’t aware that he was a keen blogger. For all of you here’s the link. I think the level of writing throughout the 2 part saga is something to aspire to and I hope he continues to blog in the same manner in time to come.
Well there you have it, and rather long blog post, with even something not entirely poker related. Who knows I may even write a bit more about things regular people give a shit about in blogs to come. For now, good luck at the table everybody.
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