PLO8 MTTs - ABC

We have an old saying in the Lagtard group, ABC - Always Be Closing. For those who don't have a clue what we're on about, you'll want to watch this : 

So what does this mean for us poker players, when you get deep in a tournament, seal the deal and ship that bad boy. Unfortunately, I can't seem to follow my own advice recently.

Now, I love PLO8 MTTs. The skill level of the average player in these is just terrible at best, literally some of the plays you see in these things just boggles the mind. Even the regs who actually do have a clue about how to play the game, just don't understand how to change their game to deal with the MTT format. I don't mean to sound cocky or anything, but provided I don't receive some sort of bad beat early on in the tournament, I believe I can go deep in pretty much any daily tournament. However, that's as far as it goes, because when I get to the final, and most important stages, I can't seem to close it out. In the past week, I've made around 10 final tables, granted not so difficult considering the average field size is around 100, but not even one victory. So far 3rd seems to be my favourite number because my last 4 finishes have all been in this position. Thankfully all these deep runs have kept me afloat financially, however, unless I up my game and take those top spots, it's never going to increase my bankroll to the levels I would like.

So yeah, this has been a bit of a frustrated rant post, but hopefully I can turn this around and make some strides. I'd like to play a few more daily $109s by selling off packages and also I would like to play a few more mixed game tournaments but unfortunately there aren't that many daily tournaments, only a few decent sized HORSE MTTs and the odd Stud8 without a guarantee.

On a side note, good luck to all the Brits over in Vegas and with the upcoming PLO8 events, I hope some 2+2ers and some readers of this blog can make some deep runs, and then come back and put me in some events ;) Take it easy everybody.

Reconsidering the NLHE angle.

So those of you who regularly follow this blog, or those who possess the ability to simply scroll down the page to my last post, will know that I began my summer grind with the intention of learning NLHE cash not only as a way of looking for the dead money but also as a way of breaking up the monotony of grinding O8 constantly. But the more I think about it, the more it just doesn't seem appealing to me.

Over the past few days I spent a fair amount of time grinding NL50 but almost twice as much time discussing NL cash play with a few players who I consider knowledgeable about the game, but for all I know could be complete donks ;) Just kidding guys, thank you for all your help. And although I feel that my game has picked up exponentially even after just a few days, I'm not feeling that spark of excitement, and I can't see myself having the motivation for those long sessions that I do playing O8. So for now I think it's an end to my NLHE cash career.

However, I haven't quite given up on NLHE all together. As all my faithful fans know, I also grind 180s, or I did before I retired for the exam period. I still enjoy playing 180s and in general MTTs, but I know I'm well behind the average player as far as competency in concerned. If only I had a long sustained period of time where I didn't have much to do and could devote a lot of hours towards studying the game. Oh wait, I do :) When I started playing again, the first thing I did was buy a Deucescracked subscription. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision, I had taken the 7 day free trial a few months ago but decided it wasn't good value to purchase the subscription when I was about to take 2 months off. So far I've been using the subscription to watch O8 videos and the odd NLHE cash video that was suggested by friends, (while I'm on it, everyone should watch the Bart Hanson video where he breaks down his own play on Live at the Bike, it's free to watch), but starting tonight I'm going to watch some MTT videos. I know I'm not going to turn into a pro overnight but I'd like to at least hold my own when I inevitably play the odd NLHE MTT.

So let's get a small update going about how O8 has gone recently. I made back to back final tables in my favourite tournament, the $16t 2xChance, but only managed a 3rd and a 5th for around 900$ combined which is still a nice payday, but I would have liked to close another one. I've badgered Stars constantly to add more turbo PLO8 MTTs to the schedule but for now I'm happy to play this one no matter what, it's just the most profitable tournament online in my opinion, maybe eclipsed only by the Sunday Storm. Cash had been going well until today where I ran $500 below EV and dropped quite a chunk but I felt I played well and recognized the spots where I played badly, so I'm taking it on the chin and will be back to the grind shortly.

So I guess that'll be it for now. Thanks everyone for reading the blog, and I'd definitely recommend reading some of the other O8 based blogs listed somewhere on my page. Also, if you're not already there, join the O8 regs Skype group. Good luck at the tables!

Welcome back to normality.

It's a lovely summers day, the sun is shining, and for the first time in 2 months, I am not staring at it through the library window!

Yes, exams are finally over, I think I've done well enough to not have to do resits, and am now a free man! And what would I like to do with my freedom? Ah yes, play poker of course. And when we play poker, we write blogs, isn't that how this shit goes down?

So before I get into a rather long winded explanation about what I hope to achieve this summer and what my goals are, I'll give you a small insight into how the last two months have gone. In a nutshell, brilliant. I'm not sure about whether it was because I was playing a lot less and was able to concentrate more, or the fact that it's short term run good that's just been spread out over a long period because of not playing much at all, but whenever I seemed to sit down at the (virtual) table, I just crushed. Here's a small breakdown of what I've done while "revising" :

-Won the $33 1.5k Guarantee for $750
-Won the $16.50 2x Chance Turbo for $850
-Won it AGAIN for $950
-Cashed the PLO8 Medium SCOOP event for $260
-Broke about even on the cash tables

All in all an extremely profitable period of time in which I was supposed to be playing zero poker but ended up playing very little. What this means for me now is that I can afford to take shots at softer games I pick out at the higher stakes without risking a large percentage of my bankroll, and more importantly, allows me to cash out significant amounts of money in order to pay off my summer. In essence, poker is now my job :) (for the summer......)

So what are we going to do this summer, this calls for another list!:

- Play higher stakes FR O8 cash games. 0.50/1 NL and 1/2 NL
- Grind a lot of O8 MTTs $22+ (and of course the $16t 2x Chance)
- Start playing more LO8 cash (2/4-3/6)
- Learn NLHE cash (0.25/0.50)

I'll make a better effort to keep the blog updated with how I get along with these goals, starting now!

1) O8 cash - Already up around $500 but with few hands and a bit of run good.
2) O8 MTTs - No major cashes yet this month but no serious volume yet either.
3) LO8 cash - Winning a fair bit at 1/2, break even 2/4. Waiting to find a less reg filled 3/6 game before I jump in.
4) NLHE cash - 2k hands and break even. Still learning the nuances of the game.

More detailed breakdowns of my endeavors to come but for now it's a quick update just to scratch my writing itch. Good luck at the tables all!

No, I'm not dead.

Well, kind of.

I'm actually working my arse studying for my upcoming exams. As some of you know I'm a second year Physics student at Kings College London and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I write that it's one of the hardest courses that the university offer. I think most students get their motivation to work from wanting to achieve the best possible grade come the end of their course, my motivation comes from pure fear of failing, because unlike a lot of the essay based subject, humanities, it is all too easy to fail a physics exam. So hence, instead of grinding poker sessions, I've been grinding library sessions, and long ones at that.

So hence, without a lot of poker content, it seemed rather redundant to write in a poker blog for a while. But as we all know, all work and no play make Grim a dull boy, and inevitably I was drawn into playing a little poker last week. After somehow managing to lose my library card in a mess of notes, I decided to do some "revision" at home while messing around with a bit of poker. For some inexplicable reason, probably life tilt from working so hard, I thought 1 tabling a $33 PLO8 would relieve my boredom and thus begun half playing, half studying. This sort of worked well until I made it to the final table, then I had to put a little bit more attention into poker and by the time I was heads-up I'd barely read one page of my notes. But at least I shipped it, so I suppose it worked out for the best :) I'll take $800 over Quantum Mechanics any day.

Apart from that epic bink, if I say so myself, I've just been splashing around in the softer NL100 games just to get my head out of revision for a bit, and thus keeping myself sane. Well that and tweeting absolute rubbish. Been break even so far, but then again 300 hands is barely a sample size. Hopefully I can get a bit of experience in the game and possibly play a lot more hands over the Summer and get back on track for SuperNova!

I hope everyone else had a good April (not aimed at the US players obviously) and I look forward to grinding properly in June.

Peace x

Dude, put in some volume!

So, if I'm honest, the Supernova chase hasn't been going so well. I began the year at PL50 with the easily attainable goal of 300k hands while maintaining a small or breakeven winrate. Well that didn't go quite to plan. As regular readers of this blog will known, and also any Pl50 reg who played with me know, I got crushed, pretty hard. Even with a couple of binks dispersed through those few weeks, I decimated my bankroll. Luckily for me, I managed to get out of the spiral before I went completely busto, however, this meant the end of my Supernova chase. Or did it?

I  recently spoke to another player who's also grinding for Supernova but he's working a little harder than I am. He's grinding PL10 for around 0.08VPP/hand. He estimates he'll need 1.2 million hands this year and he's on pace this year so far at around 100k hands per month, just a sick effort in my opinion. Volume aside, I know how frustrating the PL10 games can be due to their horrific nittiness created by the hoards of weak-tight regs who will undoubtedly never make it past the level, let alone show a profit. I know this player and his game is solid so I have no doubts he'll be moving up soon, but I really admire his determination, not only to play the extreme volume, but also to work on his game in his off time. It's great motivation for me to put in more hands and generally more effort, especially if I ever want to think about Supernova. What's in my favour at the moment is that I'm enjoying my poker and it just doesn't feel like a grind at the moment, so putting in those long sessions aren't as mentally draining as they would otherwise be. I know for a fact that some of the rakeback grinders out there have gotten to the stage where they hate poker, and would love to take a break from the game if only they didn't depend on it for their livelihood, with luck I will never get to that stage.

Anyways, I don't like to make these posts too long, I'm sure they're boring enough as they are. I'm going to post some pretty "lol" hands from the last few days in my next post, and trust me, they will have you in stitches, even if half the time I was crying when they played out. Later y'all.

Sorry for not posting.

Well the title says it all really. I guess in the big scheme of things, 10 days is not an extended period of time, but if I'm going to keep a poker blog, it only makes sense to update it regularly. The reason for my lax approach to making posts is due to real life business to attend to. University work had caught up with me and my lecturers had decided to drop a few deadlines onto me in the past few weeks so writing in the blog took a sideline to writing about Fraunhofer diffraction and Fourier Transforms. (If you're interested in that sort of thing, which I'm sure most of you are not, don't talk to me. I'm not interested either. ;) )

Poker-wise there isn't much to update you on. If I haven't got any time to write, I haven't got any time to play. Thus I have not played. I'm hoping to put in a little volume in the next few days once I'm caught up with all the sleep I lost when working on various assignments and when I have to energy to put in a decent grind. It's actually a shame that I had to work so hard this week because I was running fairly well at the beginning of the month and I was putting in some decent sessions. With a bit of luck I can get my Supernova push back on track and possibly even make some money. I am slightly down this month $ wise but in general EV I'm think I'm doing well enough, and I'm enjoying my poker, which is the main thing.

There's a couple of topics I want to write about in the coming days, e.g. volume, blogging, pot limit compared to no limit, etc. Those will all come in due time, as well as some hand histories from last week that I think will make everyone giggle a little bit.

So for now I'll leave it at that. Just like to say good luck to lincolini in his profit prop bet for March, mainly because I have money on it. And also good luck to Brad in turning around his horrible downswing. Later y'all.

Bye February you heartless bitch!

Ah finally February is over.

Probably a slight overreaction to call Feb a rough month, but psychologically, it's been pretty draining. I've moved up and down from the $12/180s more times than I could count, cash play hadn't really been going that well, more of a steady decline than one would hope for, and I hadn't really binked anything MTT wise. Overall, I was down a little bit for the month but if I'm honest, I hadn't really played that well and I didn't deserve to come out of it a big winner.

But all of this is going to change!! I finally took the time to organise the funds on my account, stake money and personal money, so now I can almost start fresh. So let me tell you what I've done.

1. I worked out exactly how much my bankroll was for the turbo 180s. I won't go into specific figures but I'm not that far off a solid $12s bankroll and I'm more than happily rolled for the $7s. I'll also mention that now because they have been added to the MTT tab and not just the Sng tab, these have been running like crazy so now moving back up to the $12s is a much less painful task.
2. I've left enough personal $ in the account to be rolled for PL25. Now my plan for this money is to refocus my PLO8 cash game, which has been seriously lacking the past few weeks, and run it up to a safe PL50 roll. From there I won't just straight into the PL50 game, but I'll learn NLO8 6max. I don't think this game is quite yet solved and I'd like to learn it as I have been told that the fish quite like the format.
3. Now, if you were reading carefully, you would have seen that I said $ in the previous paragraph rather than just "money". This is because I transferred what was left of my bankroll into Euros. This is because I'm going to play NLHE cash as well. My NLHE cash game is poor at best and I could never consider myself a decent poker player if I wasn't at least average in one of the more basic variants of the game. I've started with a modest 10NL bankroll and will play FR until I'm sustaining a decent winrate. I'm also taking it as an opportunity to gain mass multi-tabling experience, i.e. 20 tables+, by emulating frosty012's tactics. If you haven't seen his video yet, please do, you can find a link in one of my earlier posts.

Anyways, I'll let you guys know how any of this goes, for now, watch this!!

Black and Yellow