I have to give some of the other players a chance once in a while 
Hopefully I will ship one some day, though.
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Was a little nervous today about starting the 5.50's, but I told myself that it was fine, the 5.50's weren't that different to the 2.25's, and I wasn't going to get absolutely destroyed.
I got absolutely destroyed. By luck and play both. I'm down 60 bucks, which is only an 11BI swing, but it seems much greater. For several reasons, I'm ending the 5.50's after only 3 sets of them.
1) I don't know if I have an edge on this limit at all. I don't think I do.
2) The $ amount is doing my head in: I actually CARE when I get sucked out on or coolered in a 5.50. This is super -EV.
3) I think I need a higher BRM, because of 2.
So I'm gonna go back to the 2.25's, and when I reach 75-80 BI I'll try moving back up again. 400 bucks at the minimum. (About 73 BI) Fortunately, while it was very expensive, it was a big wake-up call to study more, don't rush into moving up the limits, and to have patience. Considering I'm now vastly overrolled for the 2.25's, I'm considering cashing out some money and buying SNG Wizard. I'll also keep playing the ROD's, but if I make a big cash I'll withdraw some of it, or at least not move up prematurely.
Lastly, I need to study more. I've been working on ICM Trainer, doing decently, identifying areas of improvement. In order to move up to the 5.50's again I really need to work on my postflop play too...but I don't know how I'm supposed to do that. Experience?
Poker's certainly had it's ups and downs lately, had my best day of Poker ever yesterday and my worst day of Poker ever today. 
Well, I'm gonna go play some RODs.
Thanks for reading!
Ended up procrastinating on playing Poker too long today. I'm thinking of increasing my number of tables soon, learning to 12-table at these stakes, and so I went through my PC uninstalling stuff, using CCleaner, and defragmenting. Played one set, but I'm tired so it would be -EV to continue. Unfortunately this means now I have to play 3 sets every single day from tomorrow til the end of the month to get Silver Iron Man. I should still make all my start-of-the-month goals though, with the possible exception of watching 15 videos.
PokerStrategy videos, for me, are inconvenient as hell. They take hours to load, and can just stop loading for no apparent reason. I know I should be watching them, but it's just not worth the hassle. It's a shame, as the ones I have been able to watch have been very educational.
I'm still running well at the 2.25's. Here are my stats so far for them:
All speeds:
Tourneys: 417
ROI: 7.8%
EV ROI: 9.3%
Turbos:
Tourneys: 266
ROI: 9.2%
EV ROI: 9.4%
So if I can keep this ROI up, I shall be quite happy. Not sure when I'm gonna try 10-tabling, but it shall probably be before the end of the month, possibly in the next couple of days. This also has the advantage of only requiring 2 sets for the 50 points needed for Iron Man, but I still intend to play 3 sets most days for volume.
Thanks for reading!
Also something I forgot to mention last post: Gonna be playing in the 50K SNG Madness freeroll. Only 2,800 signed up so far, but there's 22 hours to go, but in a tournament like this one where only a ticket lets you enter I'm not sure how many will wait til the last minute. I'm gonna do some ICM training 9-handed to prepare for it tomorrow.
Wish me luck: Hopefully I ship it
Played 3 sets of 8: I'm now 10-11 BI down in EV again. For me, the EV line has been touched by my real line like, twice in 250+ tournaments, and the rest of the time has been significantly below it. Oh well, my ROI is still 6.7%. (My EV ROI is over 10% which is pretty cool.)
There are now about 3,300 entrants, 1.5 hours before the SNG Madness tournament starts. I highly doubt more than 5,000 players will be in it, so I should have a 10-dollar chance, up to 15 dollars worth, assuming a 0% edge. The whole tournament is Super Turbo so it shouldn't last long, so it's very +EV for me to play in it. You start with 15BB, so I intend to be patient and try and double up with a strong hand early on against a donk if I can get one, then play short-midstack poker and last as long as possible. Simple, easy to remember.
I didn't do the ICM I said I would, for obvious reasons. 17 hands in: "Uh...Sal. You DO realise that in an MTT, ICM doesn't exactly WORK right?" "Oh yeah."
So that's about it. Thanks for reading: Shall inform you how the SNG Madness tournament goes soon. (Even though since I switched to SNG's I wonder how many people read my now pretty generic blog)
Played the freeroll. Here's how I went:
Started playing, and people were tight, rather than the all-in fest I was expecting. I quickly realised that most of them were obviously regulars, since you had to win 3 SNG's in 48 hours to get here. A-DURRRR. I got to 585 chips without ever shoving or seeing a showdown, just blind stealing and c-betting. So having found a working strategy, I then broke it, calling a resteal with threes for some reason, going to 280 v KK. Then busted a shortstack (Well, we were all short, but REALLY short) to go up to 430 with QQ.
Went to 260 with a failed blind steal and c-bet, and then the blinds were 20/40. I then lost a flip, AK v 44, going to 70, but then sucked out with KJ to get to 160. Blind stole to 220, then went to 135 getting sucked out on against a super-shortstack. Blinds then became 25/50. Two hands later I busted with K6s vs. QTs, coming 2085th out of about 3,600 runners.
So if I get to play in another eventually, I know how to play it. Blind steal, c-bet, don't get stuck in p/f if you can avoid it. Or just catch a monster and double-up on someone quickly But I did it without ever going to showdown. Had I not been a donk I might have done pretty well.
Thanks for reading!
Played another three sets. Also did a bit of leakfinding, to see if I was stealing too aggressively with certain types of hands. (I wasn't, pleased to say) My EV line is once again seperating from my real ROI by a decent margin (frown) but such is Poker. Not really much else to say, wasn't an interesting day.
Thanks for reading!
Just read your blog and realize that you started the same as me back then thanks to the sponsoring of TSL ♦ Nice read there about your history and hopefully I'll advance on the same path as you (even though I only play ring games now)
Good luck moving up the limits!
Well maybe you'll try and move up to NL10, fail miserably, and then switch to SNG's, just like me! You never know!
i read ur blog (L)
i doooo
can't answer, coz im in skype with u and its much more fun than posting here ♦
Sorry about not being around for the last few days, have been quite busy. I decided Silver Iron Man wasn't worth trying to force myself to play constantly, and took a break from Poker for a few days. However, now I'm back and raring to go. Time for some grinding!
If I play 6 out of 7 days remaining for the month I'll get Bronze Iron Man, but I'm not going to force it. If I don't feel up to playing, I'm not gonna make myself at this stage.
Thanks for reading!
Forgot to make a blog post yesterday. Have played 44 SNG's since then.
Today I tried 10-tabling, and I'm happy because it worked out quite well. I shall keep 10-tabling for a couple more days, and then move up to 12 tables. I'm still trying to make a decision on purchasing SNG Wizard. Maybe I should split it 50/50, withdraw enough money to pay for half of it, and pay for the other half with real life money. The main reason I want it is because of this post: http://www.sickread.com/blog/article/how-to-learn-good-them-sngs/.
I've even come up with a scenario I'd like to go through already, pushing from the first 2 spots when 6-handed at 8-12 BB. In the meantime I just have to as best I can with the ICM trainer, but that doesn't give the kind of variety that real hands do. For example, you cannot make an opponent a big stack. I'm getting quite a lot of 6th place finishes, and I think this is definitely an area of mine that needs improvement.
Given that as I've mentioned previously I have a lot of difficulty watching videos, as it downloads very slowly for me and I often get cut off mid-video because of my connection, I'm gonna have to intensify my ICM Trainer efforts next month. After all, I have to find some way to study.
I'm wondering if I should try the 5.50's again next time, or just go straight to the 6.50's when I have the BRM. I assume that postflop, they would be weaker than the 5.50's due to the structure, and it's easier for me to study ICM play at this stage than to study postflop play. I'm really not sure how to keep studying postflop...maybe play more cash games. That seemed to help last time.
I've lost about 18 bucks in the last couple of days, but my EV is rising quite highly. Because I've now played a total of 509 SNG's, here's my 500-tournament graph:
It's not pretty unfortunately. In total, counting both normal and Turbo SNG's, I'm actually over 30 BI below EV. My ROI is 4.7% and my EV ROI is 10.8%. I can definitely see why you need a lot of tournaments as a sample size now, I've played 500 and have absolutely no idea what my ROI could possibly be. I assume above 4.7%, but I doubt it's as high as 10.8% when I play as many tables as I do. Plus, Turbo is 4.4% real ROI and 11.5% EV ROI, and supposedly you have LESS of an edge on the turbos, so 11.5% seems impossible to sustain.
That's about it for today. Sorry for the long post, but I guess I haven't done a long post in a while 
Thanks for reading!
Hi Sal,
have you read lessthan three's blog? He had a 1000 game break even run.
I think that if you have a good push fold game then you have a better edge in turbos and if you have a good post flop game then regular speed are your best choice.
Good luck and cheers Gordy
Hey Gordy!
I have read the blog, but I don't recall that BE stretch, though I'm aware such things can happen, which is why I'm not raging about it. If I go into the red though, then I might be unhappy!
You have a good point, though I don't know how solid my push/fold game is compared to most 6.50 players, so I guess I'll just have to try it when I reach the BI's needed.
Thanks for the help!
Warning: Long-ass post ahead!
Today's session
Played another two sets today. I now need to complete nine sets over the next four days to achieve my goal of 500 SNG's this month. This ought to achieve my Gold status as well, so that's my goal over the next few days. Then I'll clear my bonus in the few days after that so the entirety of it is cleared.
I'm less below EV now, because my EV has been dropping while my winnings have remained steady. *Sigh*. That's not what I wanted, dammit! At 3.8% ROI for the Turbos now, EV adjusted 9.1%.
Next Month and Beyond
I was talking to a friend yesterday, and he said something rather important, but it requires some background info. Some time ago, this friend was in a crappy KFC job (It's a takeaway place like McDonalds, I'm sure every last one of you knows what THAT is) and slaving away and hating it, and I asked him why he kept doing it. He said that it kept his father happy and that it was good to have money, but he hated it so much that I figured his father would understand and the money wasn't worth it. In the end, I was right.
So we were talking about what we'd ideally like to do, apart from winning the lottery or something, and I said I'd quite like to be a professional poker player, but I'd be happy in childcare. He pointed out that it wasn't exactly a risky venture to take Poker more seriously and to put my efforts into it, and I may as well go for it. I think the exact words, which really resonated, were:
"I'd hate to see the guy who convinced me to pursue what I really wanted settle for second-best."
So next month, I want to take Poker more seriously. My volume is fine, though I will move up to 12-tabling next month. What I need to do is STUDY more, and that will be the focus of my goals next month, so that when I move up to the 6.50's, I'm ready.
ICM Training
So today, because I'd renewed my commitment to study, I decided to do an ICM session, writing down all my thoughts as I went. There's a lot of it, so this is a long section What I did was, as I thought I had a problem pushing in the first two positions 6-handed, is set up an ICM Trainer under the most stringent set of circumstances I could.
First I set it to 6 players and Middle position with no players all-in, then I just clicked Fold every hand to get an idea of the kind of ranges I'd need to know. Then I changed the handrange to make as many marginal decisions for myself as possible. In my case, I removed the top 10% of hands and the bottom 70% of hands, so I had a lot of difficult decisions to make.
Essentially, the idea was to put myself in as many marginal situations as possible, to the point where I can literally say "Okay, I should fold K8s here, but I could push if it was K9s." While scoring highly in general ICM is a nice
boost in confidence, most ICM decisions are very easy if you know a little bit. It's the marginal situations I need to work on. Thus, I should be putting myself into the hardest ICM training I can, using the narrowest ranges that
I can, trying to get almost no hands I can push always or fold always, really having to think about the situation. That's going to be better for me as a poker player in the long run. By far.
Two major leaks I found in my ICM learning were that I was greatly overvaluing Ax hands (I'd be pushing A5o and the range says ATo+ and
I'm like "WHAT!? But I'm pushing the top 20%, how is A5o not in there!?), and even more blatantly, undervaluing suited hands. For example according to ICM trainer, K8s is more valuable than A9o. That's something I never would have thought. Presumably it's because we're getting called tightly, by tight ranges, and Ax offsuit is easy to dominate by a good ace or high pocket pair, which makes up the majority of our enemy's calling range. K8s has a better chance against say, AJ-AK than A9 does, and a similar chance vs. TT-QQ I would estimate.
As I continued, the leaks I was spotting at that particular area became all the more specific, as the same situations kept popping up constantly. For example, I was able to realise I was consistently undervaluing two hands in particular: QJo and J9s. So if in doubt with those exact two hands, I would push them.
As soon as my mind wandered somewhere else, I began to get questions wrong. Every time I had a thought related to the blog, I would write it down, as I like to compose my blog posts in my head while the particular event in question is occuring. I can't stop myself from doing this, but if I write it down I release that thought and stop thinking it. I'm a weird guy that way.
My mistakes also became ever more refined. Instead of "Holy crap, ATo+ is the range!?" by the 350-hand mark, I was thinking stuff like "Well I only have 5 big blinds here, so I think pushing Q9o is correct. Oh, Apparently QTo+ was the range here. Okay."
All in all I did 750 hands of that one particular situation. I got 615 right, for a total of 82%. Considering that a HUGE amount of the decisions were very marginal, I think I did alright.
So now my ICM study is simple.
1. Pick an area I need work at.
2. Do some ICM questions of that particular area and take note of ranges over 50 hands or so.
3. Use those ranges for the handrange parameter to get as many marginal situations as possible, then play 500-1000 hands under those parameters.
Well, that's about it for today, and I've certainly written enough already. Thanks for reading!
Well.
I'm sure you've all heard the news. My BR is gone, for at least a month, probably longer, possibly forever. At least I didn't have as much as some people, especially people who make a living off the site. I feel for those guys.
My goals are basically dead now, as I'm certainly not going to play tonight, probably not tomorrow, either. 2 days from now July starts: A new month, a new start. I have about 17-18 bucks on PokerStars. Unfortunately, I'm not going to get a first deposit bonus there if I play on them, so I have to consider if I want to. I think I do, but I won't get much rakeback, which is incredibly important. Admittedly, the actual rake itself is lessened a bit.
I guess it's time to look into my options. PartyPoker is another possibility, one that I haven't deposited on. I think I may have registered an account for that though, to watch a poker coaching, and not tracked it to PokerStrategy.com.
Part of me wants to go on tilt about this, but my inspiration right now is Tim64. Tim is a professional poker player who had 70% of his bankroll on Full Tilt: About five thousand dollars. He has a blog here on PokerStrategy.com - Liar Dice. And he's just accepting this and moving on. That inspires me so much, that's the kind of guy I want to be. So...thanks Tim. If you can move on, so can I. I can make it, because so many people hit harder than me are picking up the pieces. I can do that too. So, like Tim, I'm going to sleep on it, take a bit of a break from Poker...and look into my options. He's awesome, and you guys should know that.
I'll post a June recap tomorrow, though I won't include start and end BR totals because I've lost track of them. Well...good luck guys. It took me five months to get here, and now I've lost it, but I still have all my knowledge. So if I deposit another hundred dollars, I reckon I can get back to this point in two.
Thanks for reading.
Monthly review
So, it's time to review the month of June. Let's see how I went:
Goals:
Play 500 SNG's: FAILED. I played a total of 431/500, which was still too low, considering that Zero Hour only stopped me from playing for two days. I still might have grinded hardcore and managed it though.
Get confident enough about my ICM to switch to Turbos: SUCCESS. I decided to just go for it, and it was quite a profitable move for me in the end. I did this very early in the month.
Watch 15 PokerStrategy videos: FAILED. The PS videos are very difficult for me to watch. They load slowly, and I often get cut off mid-video. I'm not blaming PS for this, I have that problem on every site except for YouTube, who presumably have servers powered by God and/or Satan.
Get to Gold status: FAILED. This is the most grating. I was really looking forward to reaching Gold and now am 40 points short thanks to Zero Hour. Was looking forward to reading those articles and such. The article about antes and pushing ranges would have been VERY useful if I end up moving to PokerStars.
Graph
Here's my lifetime graph for the 2.25 SNG's. Only the first 119 are not from this month.
The line marked A represents the start of June. The line marked B represents the switch to Turbos.
Next Month
As of now, July is still a little bit up in the air. I can't really set goals until I know where I'm headed, which is likely PokerStars. Full Tilt is no longer an option, PartyPoker has RIDICULOUS, semi-hidden rake on their micro SNG's, which is unethical as hell as well as very unprofitable for me, and William Hill supposedly has a lot of software issues when multi-tabling heavily.
Essentially, my options are to play PokerStars, or play some smaller site and try to get a good rakeback offer. Ideally I'd like plenty of SNG traffic, but I'm not sure if even PokerStars offers plenty of traffic on it's non-Fifty50 SNG's. Ideally I'd like to discuss my options with someone who knows a lot about the different rooms so I could find a room with good SNG traffic and a good rakeback system for micro players, but I don't know anyone like that, and there might not be a room like that since Full Tilt stopped two days ago.
So I'm gonna hold off on assigning goals for myself for a while. In the meantime I guess I need to do some more research. Oh, one other factor: I have a few bucks on PokerStars that I deposited. This means I can't get a first deposit bonus from PokerStars, so unless they offer a reload bonus, I'd rather pick another decent site.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading!
Just a brief update: Gonna take a few more days off Poker, see how the Full Tilt situation develops. I'd prefer to play on Full Tilt again if it's under new management, though I will withdraw most of my roll and only keep like 20 BI + less than the minimum cashout on the site itself at any one given time. I still think it's the best site for a micro SNG player, and it has Rush Poker, which is awesome, and excellent software. Too bad all this shit happened because of some guys up top, but if they do get bought by these investors, and new people are put in charge, I shall gladly play it again.
So I'll see what happens, and if nothing happens over the next few days I'll pick another site to deposit some money on and grind.
Thanks for reading!
Good luck man Have the same problem as you. Had 1,700 on FTP.
Just started playing on stars. I'll never give up. Hopefully, our money is not lost, and maybe i will have an gigantic BR ♦
Will follow!
just to let you know Im still reading your blog and enjoying it!! just dont always post!!!
Roo