Mad Man Poker

Busy, busy, busy! That’s the least you can say about my time now. Whereas some of my friends are in vacation or happily working, I’m left here at home studying. And because I’m not a person that likes staying in, I’m spending a lot of time outside as well, which leaves hardly any time for poker. I didn’t play in the past week if it weren’t for today. But it was a good day.

There were quite some games up today, so I could chose the games I liked. I decided to split my bankroll in 2: $6.10 and $6.40. I know this may sound off limits to some people, but I love playing with my full bankroll on the table. I really think my steam factor is low and my bankroll management is high. Of course, I need to watch out for the miss-click, as some of my friends can confirm. With the first $6 I seated myself at a $0.05/$0.10 9 handed PLO table, the $6.45 went to the $0.25/$0.50 6 handed HORSE table. I’m not going through all the details, but I’ll let the following screenshots do the talking. The first one was taken at the beginning, the second after half an hour and the last after an hour. As you will see, I was quite a bit up so I stopped playing for the day.

So the final count:

Pretty good! Don’t you think?
I realize though that I have been quite lucky to get to the $25 mark so quickly. Scoring 4 out of 4 in the Belgian Freeroll isn’t something I had hoped for in the beginning. Also, in the little Hold’em cashgames I played I didn’t get any mayor bad beat that would require me to start all over again. Combined with this good day, I’m off to a great start and I don’t think I will go broke any time soon. I’m going to keep playing these low limit games until I have a bankroll of $60, before stepping up a notch. Better safe than sorry!

To conclude I am going to walk you through the biggest hand of the day:
We are 9 handed in PLO, I pick up AcTcKs5s Villain 1 in early position makes it $0.45, action is folded to me in the cutoff and I call, button makes it $1.5 to go, Villain 1 folds and I call. I need to call $1 more to win $2.55 so with my holdings a pretty obvious call. Pot is now $3.60. The flop comes Jhqskd. I flopped a nut straight and there’s no flush draw on the board, nice. I lead out for $2 and button calls. Turn: qc Ouch! Not what I wanted to see, if my opponent was on a set before, he’s got me now. I reluctantly check. Button checks behind. River: Jd I now sense I’m probably in big trouble. I check, button leads out for $5 being all of my remaining money. I fold.

In the end I’m happy about my laydown. I really wanted to call, just to see what he had, but I’m pretty sure he had me beat. I did lose a $12.60 pot, but I really wanted to avoid going broke, so I succeeded in that. I don’t think his preflop reraise was a steal, so maybe the best case scenario at the showdown would have been a split pot. I wasn’t going to throw another $5 to that. I moved on to the next hand and left that table with profit, so I’m happy.

I’m hoping to do a few more of these one-hour sessions in the upcoming week, so you’ll hear from me when I’ve got something important to say about my bankroll.
As for now, Merry Christmas!

Building a bankroll: dipping in the pool

It’s been a week now since I started my little project. Time for a little overview! I made the post on Monday and started to work that same day. I registered for the Belgian freeroll. As it has been months since I last participated, I was unpleasantly surprised to see that there are now 500+ players each evening, contrary to the 400 I used to beat some while ago. I was really hoping my old tricks would still work…

They did! I made the money without many problems. Sometimes, it’s just funny. In middle position I picked up AcQd. I limped in and we went to the flop with 5 players. The pot was now around 100. Flop: 3d7hQs. First player checked and I went all-in with 2000 in chips. I got 2 callers behind me, both for all their money: villain 1 with Qh8h and villain 2 with As7c. They both needed a miracle but didn’t get it. I tripled up. From here on, I can do these moves with even more safety, as I’m now a massive chipleader in comparison to the rest of the table. I like this.

This is part one of my strategy; early in the tournament, try to see some cheap flops and when you hit it, go all-in. I’m not saying you will get called all the time, but in some cases you will find yourself an idiot and you will double or triple up. This is mandatory. Now, you’ve tried this and succeeded, what’s next?

Part two: wait for a monster. By now we are a little further in the tournaments and the biggest idiots have hit the rail. This is the part where I normally read a book; watch a movie or such kind of things. Just do your regular evening activities, but check every now and then if you don’t pick up a monster. You don’t want to lose any pot right now.

Part three! You’ve been super-tight for about an hour, now it’s time to switch gears. There should be around 150 players left by now, with you on an average chip stack. By now there are blinds and antes as well. Start playing really aggressively! Since you’ve got your tight image now, players won’t be feeling much like calling you, so get those blinds & ante’s. The goal now is to build up to a chip stack that will last until you are in the money. When it’s around 23:00; I like to have 30K + chips.

So now you’ve made it. Yes, you read that well; it’s over. As you don’t want to win the tournament, why play? Your stack will get you to the money, even though it will look ugly at times. Just trust in your chips, they’ll last. (Actually, as a little bonus, I won a Kerstleffe from Thomas in a side bet where he said I wouldn’t last to the money, I happily accepted.)

So I made the money on Monday. On Tuesday I played again and made the money as well. Rest of the week I wasn’t at home on the evenings, but yesterday I stayed in, played, and made the money for the third succecutive time. So far I’m scoring at 100%. This will not last, but so far it’s pretty cool. Let me tell you what I’ve done on the other days.

Wednesday I went to play a PLO game in Togenblik. We were shorthanded, not something I like in PLO. But I played ok and really had a lot of fun. In the end I lost all my money to Thomas (mickeycpoker.be) when I decided to gamble with AcKcKh10d against what I knew were Thomas’ aces. An Ace on the flop made me go out quietly. But I had fun!

Thursday we had our 2-weekly game with the regulars in which I did ok, especially after losing nearly all my money in the first half an hour. But I grinded my way back up and a late double up made my evening ok. We were shorthanded and Stijn showed us again why he is so dangerous in short handed Hold’em. Great job!

Friday and Saturday I played $0.05/$0.10 PL HA on Full Tilt and grinded my little bankroll up to $7.60. With yesterday’s cash, I’m currently at $9.60. My plan for this week is to maybe cash two or three times more in the freeroll and then I’m going for more HA ring games again. I really like to play PL HA. First of all, these are my two favourite games: PL Hold’em and PL Omaha Hi. Secondly, I know I play too tight in Hold’em and too loose in Omaha, so the mix really makes up for that. It’s just a great game!

More on my bankroll next week!

I guess most of you heard of Chris Ferguson’s “From zero to hero” challenge. For me personally, Chris Ferguson is a real hero and I decided to follow in his footsteps. About 8 months ago, I started playing afreeroll on fult tilt poker every now and then. I went all the way from $0 to more than $200 and back down again to around $80, where I stayed at for quite a while. This weekend I went all the way up again to $170 and decided to cash out. Not only because I do need some kind of money with the festivities coming up, but also, I did it for you guys.

I’m going from zero to hero, again.

My plan is to show you, step by step, how it  can be done. Don’t expect too much from me! The first few weeks I’ll only be able to play once a day in the Belgian freeroll, handing out $2 for the first 18, where the tournaments starts with around 400 players. But I feel like it won’t be too hard to cash in it at least once a week, if I play 2 or 3 of them. Tomorrow will be session #1.

So far for the Zero Dollar Challenge, as I’ll refer to it later on. My poker week has been pretty good, having that huge profit on Full Tilt this week and also winning the first HSOP event, 7 Card Stud Hi. I already mentioned that this isn’t my best game but that I tried heavily to learn how to play it, and in the end it paid off. At one point I was down to one big and one small bet, but I ordered a “Kerstleffe” (Belgian Christmas beer) and that gave me great spirit to knock me back into the tournament. I folded everything ‘till I saw a decent hand, than pushed it all in with only one big bet left, won that all in, the second and the third one and I was back in the game. I did have the right cards at the right time, much to my frustration of my heads up opponent Stijn “Mad Man” Heyens, when I did one major suckout as described below. But I do feel like I was on top of my game, playing the best stud I could. I’m looking forward to the HORSE event!

Hoping to speak to you again soon, with some great news!