schris sng journey(2012 Recap)

You have a database, so get a replayer and review some of your winning games.

Most people just look at the ones where they bust out.

So you find your all ins, and if you have a good sample on villain in your database or if your
good enough to do this yourself now, adjust the ranges and see A) Was your play correct in most cases
and B) Did you suck out on villain after being called or after you called them in times when you did.

This should give you an idea of wether you have been playing bad and running good or playing well
and running like you have the whole rabbit instead of just the foot.

The consenus on the red line seems to be that it does matter but after at least 1.5 to 2k games to get
a more accurate assessment. The official thread on it is long as hell, and once in a while
someone thinks its a thread to whine about bad beats, so there is a bunch of sifting to go through
to get the good stuff out of it.

@tim64 .
Sorry my bad that i didnt include more details.

tourneys : 510
ROI : 11% ev ROI: 1.3%
ITM : 38.8%

For me 1.3% is like struggling to that limit especially when my goal is to climb up to 33-44$ so if u people are right about the ev line i am screwed and i need to improve my game , if not i still need to improve my game cause every improvement is +$$ . ♦

@8979687

Actually i was doing a similar thing . While i play a session i have a paper and write down every all in i play and next to it i write the result , for example AK vs A5 1/2/x , where 1 is the win 2 is the loss and x is the tie . Allthough its not accurated enough and u can't tell about how good or bad was my move by just reading that u can get a clue of how lucky or unlucky i ran . The reason of doing this is just my way to prevent myself of tilting , even on a big suck out because while i write it down i dont have time to think much about that

50 BI > EV is pretty sick. but i agree its probably not all luck. but some of it definitely is.

you should definitely try to get your EV ROI trending up as a confidence booster before moving up imo.

gl with the exams chris

sweet blog, will keep on reading it
Good luck @ the tables and @ the exams

Hello there , at last after almost 3 weeks i am back at poker business but before that i have to say i OWNED at my exams since i passed 5/5 and i am really happy about that . To be honest today it started as a perfect day passed a really hard lab and when i started my session i was getting all the good hands . So while i was owning at my tables and because i am not a very optimistic person i was expecting something bad to happen and .... in the end that shit happened .
I was playing 6 tables and having a top set of QQ in a 3 way dry pot trapping my opponents where one has donked bet the other shoved and i was rdy to call and in the other table i had KK reraised pre flop vs a donk who shoved me and the most unlucky shit happened ...
my gf turned on my second pc and suddently i lost connection to my pc while the other pc was having internet .. problem wasnt fixing so i had to restart that took ages so these monsters were autofolded and lost most of my stack in whole tables cause blinds were high.
The bad luck continued loosing 4-5 dominate hands vs the usuall 3 outs and two flop nuts vs runner runner flush . I managed to overcome my losses and the good thing was that i never tilted on my game . I was shouting , swearing , hitting things but my game remained the same . After my review i noticed i made 2 mistakes ( i ve noticed em right after i made em ) but that was rather bad judge of villains ranges rather than tilt . Despite the fact that i had a nice ITM % i didnt manage to take full advantage of that cause i had many 3rd positions.

tourneys : 17
ROI : 26.2%
ITM : 52.9%
Winnings : 53.40$

br : 1993.35

I will probably not update daily my progress cause i am not playing many sngs per day so you will get tired of reading the same every day ( if u believe u wanna see my daily progress writen here u can say so).

you ready to move up to the 22s next month schris7?

Hello there ! . Time for an update.

I still havent found a rhytm on my play cause i have already said many times before i am still in an exam period( i know u re bored to read the same all the time )but i find some free time to play . So something new is that i ve added 6handed sngs in my sessions . I really find them much easier with almost no regulars , rarely i have a guy multitabling at my tables and the players are sooo bad . They play many pots with many hands and they get eliminated so easy and when its time for bubble they play as tight as they can . Can u imagine a better scenario ? Also i ve tried that new feature of ft called rush poker. Really the guy that thought that is a genious . Full tilt managed to change the whole online poker game with one update !Allthough i havent played cash games for more than 1 year i ve opened two tables 6handed at nl10. I will post my graph and i let u judge if i ran good or not cause i dont have a clue what is good for cash games anymore .

tourneys : 32
ROI : 6.6%
ITM : 37.5%
Winnings : 25.20$

Nothing to add for the cash game . Sample is way too small and i suck.During my play i remembered why i ve stopped playing them ♦

br : 2058.81$
(released a 25$ bonus)

So i need a little more $$ to climb to the next limit . Lessthanthree here i comeeee !!

ahoi there,

A small update for my progress. Actually there is no progress for my sng plans . I still have exams so i changed my goals for that month and my only goal is to achieve the iron man status for this month. Since i wasnt playing for the first half of January i am forced to play every day until the end of the month and earning at least 100 points to achieve that .

The fastest way to accomplish that task with the minimum of swings since i dont want mentally to be affected by poker right now is to play the new feature of full tilt "Rush Poker".
To be honest i really enjoy them since my goal is to win any pot and outplay any opponent so its not like i am just playing abc poker . It also reminded me how funny poker is and how important position is cause with the 9handed sngs i have to admin i got a little bored cause its more like a mechanic play and the action on the flop is rare except if u wanna through away some chips . That of course doesnt mean i will focus on cash and stop sngs. I think i ve invested much time on learning and improving at sngs that isnt worth to retire from them. But i think i ll focus more on shorthanded sngs and mtts rather 9handed since i find them more enjoyable. I ve also played the "Big little tournament" but i didnt manage to go far my 8bb stack with JJ lost to A9 and left me with just 10$ of a prize but that happens when u play turbos mtts.

My cash game graph will follow , its nothing important just not to leave u without a graph

br stands at : 2073 $

Review of the month

Goals of the Month

Achieve >10$ roi : COMPLETED (17.4%)
Achieve >40% ITM : COMPLETED (44.2%)
Volume >500 sngs : FAILED (52)
Achieve iron man month : COMPLETED (Bronze status)

Since i wont play anymore today i decided to make a review of January . On average it was a bad month since my volume was so small , of course the reason for that was (are) my exams since they last really long and for the past years i was really behind for university so i had(have) to put more work there. But from the other point of view even i had a small sample of play it was a winning month so i cant really whine . The last 15 days were really a big test for me cause i really wanted to achieve the iron man month and i was already behind cause i hadnt played the first half of that month. I wanted to play but i couldnt waste 2-2.5 hours per day playing sngs to achieve the points while my exams are still on and didnt want to bother mentally with the swings of that structure. So full tilt read my mind and introduced rush poker .

Allthough i hadnt played cash games for a long time more than 1 year ( and i wasnt even a good player mostly breakeven/little winning player) i decided to 4 table them with only goal to achieve the points each day for the iron man.This little project was really a success for several reasons. It didnt affect me mentaly cause the biggest downswing was 40$ and it was one of the first days . After that i really recovered ,played a better game and had a small(?) proft in the end. Since i havent followed cash scene at all i cant really know whats a good winrate or not , i let u judge that.Most important, i wasnt wasting much time , maximum 1 hour was the time i needed to achieve my goal which was the same as my 2.5hour sng session. Third and last but not less important was that i remembered how fun poker can be , i ve improved my read skills a lot and focused on play in position something that i have really forgot with the sng format.Results and graphs will follow.

br stands at : 2158$

P.S. I have to apologize to my sweat partners since i couldnt find any free time for them(lessthanthree,Tim64)After my exams i will try to cover the time we lost.
Gl to your tables ♦

and the huge EV gap continues to grow.

congrats on a +$ month thats always a good thing

Originally posted by lessthanthreee
and the huge EV gap continues to grow.

talking the guy that whined all about the ev line and made 50 bis to his new limit
(dont worry i am not mean i just jealous your success ♠_love:♠_love: )

Today was one of my "SICKEST DAY IN MY SNG CAREER"...

As you ve noticed from the red letters it wasnt a good day at all..
I think some of you waiting for a long time to see a negative ev graph from me and today is that day ! Allthough i still dont give a shit about that line the truth is that i had one of my biggest downswing ever. For sure the biggest in one day since i ve played 3 sessions and lost like 30 bis . This is the first time i will say it but i actually did tilted today and yes it was a tilt in my game .I did many scary money moves or more precisely i didnt!!
I folded many times in the bubble in spots that in my good days there would be easy shoves,
my aggresion was zero or below that if it was possible. It was like when i moved up for a first time in a new limit.I ve also switched mostly to 6handed tours where i thought i would have less swings but to be honest i loved my play in the first 30 or so sngs, allthough i was getting sucked out one by one , cause the players are sooo bad . My concern with the sngs were that i wouldnt believe i would have a big edge on 9handed later on but in 6h there isnt such an issue , at least for the current limit i play, less regulars and if i spot one i believe that he cant even beat that game at 3$ . At least thats get me motivated to continue , maybe i am wrong and i am just a bad player , i will stick a little bit at these and we will see.

On the bright side i ve managed to end third on a 10+1$ 6handed tour with 223 entrances and took almost 300$ . So i am like breakeven but still that tour should be mine.I was dominating the whole time the final table and then probably GOD decided he wanted to play and united with the guy on my left. The miracles started one by one . I had like 100k chips he had like 80k.He was for sure the worst player in the final table his moves were easily to read he was bluffing all the time and the miracles started.

AK for me raised from bu he called and a fantactic flop of AKJ showed up. I bet he raised all in and with my reads for him it was an easy call. He shows QJ (great play) and the nice GOD ehm i mean river showed him a T for his straight hoorai! 5 ppl remained i was the shortstack with like 4bbs managed to win a coinflip blinds fight Kx vs Qx and GOD started to work again for that guy.He managed to suck out the 2 guys who were in front of me in chips with his 3 outs , hands like A3 vs A7 and A2 vs AK(both preflop all in,he called them both) and while i was ready to make the comeback he wins one more 3 out battle with his A2 (again) to bust my TT.Of course i cant whine since his ultimate luck after my huge hit on my chips managed to win me 200$ more for busting the other 2 guys maybe i sould have waited for him to bust the other guy as well :).

Enough with my long talking , time for some graphs and how bad i ran.

i will show only my stts stats since these are the important ones.

tourneys : 42
ROI : -50.9%
ITM : 21.4%
Winnings : -256.50$

I have nothing to add , my only hope is that it was just a huge variance and just a coinsidence that happened when i ve changed to shorthanded tours (at least sng wiz agrees with me in most of my moves except in the last sngs that i wasnt aggresive enough). I had also great suckouts and unbelieavable moves from my opponents in 2 others mtts but i wont refer them now , maybe if i am not lazy enough i will upload in the next days some of these hands.

p.s. Forgot to mention that yesterday i had a 5 bis up on shorthanded session i had(small sample 18 tours)

br stands at : 2190$

Sorry about your 'swing. I think the 6handed may be swingier that full ring - probably for the same reasons 6handed cash is swingier than FR.

Focus on your game and you'll be back.

Thx tim for your thoughts maybe u re right and 6handed are swingier ,if anyone has any experience or a thought about 6handed he is free to share it.
Today i woke up a little more calm and with a clear mind i was thinking about the previous day.In the end i was thinking about the hand that crippled me in the mtt and still cant find a reason to lay down that hand. I suppose i was just doomed to call and got sucked out .

Anyway today i feel better and in a positive way cause u know when u have a big downswing the next usuall thing to follow is a big upswing :). Since i was playing like 6-7 hours straight yesterday i wasnt in a mood to play sngs today so i just had an 1 hour session of nl10 rush poker 4 tabling just to achieve the iron man points and guess what it was also a nice profit session of 30$ .So 3 bis in an hour is a good rate i believe .

One other thing that made my day a better one is that the result of the lessons i gave at my exams start to pop up one by one and the best is that i pass em one by one ♦ So at the moment 7 lessons have come out and i ve passed all of them some with good grades some with just the average but that doesnt matter , 4 lessons are to go , in 1 i ve already failed , currently waiting 2 more results and i give the last one next friday.That means i have only 1 lesson to read and much free time.Hope i can get some of my sweat partners to work on.

Tim you are a little hard to catch u since u dont use msn and i rarely find you on skype. I hope we will get over this problem :)I find u from time to time playing sngs at ft and obs u and whenever i watch you ,you seem to doing great.

Goals of the month remain the same as the previous month.

Achieve >10$ roi
Achieve >40% ITM
Volume >500 sngs
Achieve iron man month

Maybe i ll tweak some of them since if i focus on 6handed i think i need a better % of itm (45+)and cause sometimes i am just in a mood for cash games the volume of sngs may drop to 400+.

Bad run continues, allthough i have the feeling (and is something more than a feeling) that people at shorthanded sux i still dont get why i loose.I see the worse raises and even the worse calls i have ever seen in a sng format. A guy yesterday snapcalled me on bubble my shove with 89o and we were even in chips and had a ss also left. One other guy in a similar situation (same stack and a ss) mini raised me from sb i shoved him and he called with J9.I am really happy to see such plays but still dont get why i loose.Players have no idea from bubble situation or from odds , i see players with 70%vpip and 0% raise and you cant built an image at your table cause none is observing you.Maybe i am still on a downswing period or maybe i need to make more adjustments.

Last days i am mixing formats so i wont get bored , some sessions are cash sessions(rush poker), some mtts and some single tournaments (6-9ppl).It seems i ll have to delay my move to 24$ since i am beating shorthanded yet allthough maybe i ll give some shots at 9handed.
At least rush poker treats me well having a profit of 200$(including rb) at nl10 in 20k hands.




br stands at :2273$

I became gold (yee.....).Also i am still loosing (yee...)

But.. At least that doesnt make my confidence go down , usually when i am on a downswing thats the first negative it happens to me.I am still positive for my game the only thing that changed is that i dont believe anymore 6handed are less swinger than 9handed ♦ .Fact allthough is that people are bad and worse than full ring games.

Another thing that concerns me is that i am doing well at rush poker allthough sample is small for this month i have a winrate of 21$/h (and i am running under ev as well)while at sngs i have something like 7$/h.Also rakeback/h is more playing cash games than sngs at least at the levels i play and the most important thing is that i believe i have so many leaks at cash games which means a lot of space for improvement and thats so good while i dont feel the same way for sngs.

I am also a bit excited that i managed to persuade a friend of mine to help me with my 6h sngs ,he is beating mid stakes easily and he has much experience.

For the time being i ll continue mixing cash games with sngs and mtts depends on the mood i have.Also i am waiting to finish with my exams and get the schedule of my next semester cause at the moment there is a bit chaos with my free time and i want to make a specific schedule for my poker sessions.

br stands at :2252$


p.s. I am still waiting for that heater at sngs

Time for a small update for my readers ! (if there are any)

Poker wise only few things happened . A little rush poker and some mtts but with no big wins . Allthough i am starting to enjoy rush poker even more i will still focus on sngs for the moment. I will also mix mtts/rush poker so i wont have routine days and get bored and maybe i will decide to move to nl25 for rush poker for actuall a better profit and not only for collecting points for the iron man bonus.From the next week the hard grind will start .

Life wise , my exams were a success since i passed 8 maths , still waiting the results for 2 and failed only in 1 (actually i never gave that last one cause i didnt study it ).


br stands at 2330$

Heloooo is anyone there ?guess not, anyway.


Last days are so-so about my poker results , I am doing great at rush poker running almost 8.3bb/100 on 16k and with rb it is much more but my project on playing shorthanded sngs is like titanic just siiiiiiiiiiinkiiiiiiiiing. I 've already lost 25 bis(20bis under ev) there , it seems i am doing something wrong allthough i am still positive that the ppl are much worse, but i am running good at 9handed and above ev as usuall. Overall i am running 60bis above ev at 9handed and 20 bis under ev at 6h. Also i guess my playstyle doesnt work well at 6handed ,the players there are willing to gamble more ,they easily call any cbet and second barrel with any Q+high and they have no idea about the bubble or they just dont fear the bullies dont know , i believe there are many adjustments that are needed and i dont think i have the time to make them alone .

As far as my cash game experience is really funny atm i am enjoying it a lot and i am seriously thinking of moving some limits there.If any1 have any experience from rush poker at nl10-nl50 i would be thankfull if he can spot me the differences between these limits.
I guess its the first time i am bored to post some graphs..who knows maybe next time i will be bored to update in general .

Ahoi there, miss me? (...)

This week i focused again mostly on rush poker and mtts.I am very happy that i ve managed to have a steady session each day and i just need 3 more days gaining the points for the gold status at ironman bonus.Only disadvantage is that ft made nl5 rush poker tables and lot of fishes moved from nl10 to there and i ve lost some easy money but its still profitable.

My new objective for the next month but its kinda starts from today is to participate in as many as mini-ftops events i can and hope for the best.I have this strange feeling that i will finally get my first win in a big mtt.Also i am participating in the mini-ftops challenges so i play many satelites for these events as well.(i ve already managed to qualify to one event)

One other good thing is that i ve decided to spend my points for joining in the fpt sngs that win a 26$.I ve already won a couple of them and used them for 26$ matrix sng and already had a nice profit from them so even if i spend my whole full tilt points i have left and gain nothing i still have a proft against the deduction of my rb which is great -.-

For my exams (for anyone that maybe wanted to know),the final results are 9/11 lessons which is not bad at all,still waiting the schedule for the new cemester to set up my poker sessions.And yes thats the second time i wont post graphs , maybe u will get some in the end of the month.

br stands at 2620$

Second post in less than 24hours ? Omg something interesting seems to came up !


So the story begins like this. Last night after i got bored playing mass effect 2 (very nice game though)i saw that i needed like 10 mins until a new tv serie i am watching (Spartacus ,really good job by the producers)to be downloaded so i said to myself "lets play some satelites for mini-ftops,how much time they will take me 30 mins ?"

After opening the first 2 satelites i realized that in the first more than 200 ppl had signed up
so i understood that it will take some time .In the meantime early doubles were just starting so i decided to played em as well.One hour had passed i think and i still was doing great so the schedule of watching tv series(wanted to see lost as well ♦ )was gone and i ve opened a 4k guarantee cash out tournament(never again ! ).In the end i was playing for 5 hours straight lost to doubles won a couple of satelites and went really deeeep on that guarantee.
834 people had signed up i was 10 when 25 were left but i decided to cashout.For someone that isnt familiar with cashout tourns of full tilt i will explain em in few words.While register in these tours half the bis goes to prize pool and the other half goes to cashout pool.That means that anytime in the tournament u can "sell" your chips and get money.Someone will say how stupid that can be . True it is but at my case i was very tired and after some thinking and calcs it was the best thing to do cause to take max value of this u have to join final table(it was 6h).If u end 7 u get something like 80$ but the time i cashed out my chips i ve got 130$ and 20$ for the 25 position.I really wasnt seeing myself going to last 6 ppl so in general i ended 25th and got 170$ while if i was busting for example 7th i would get 80$, so it was a good deal.

This is my third nice cash i ve made from playing mtts this month and all of them were in 6handed tables ,weird heeh?..in normal 9handed tournaments it seems i just cant do well,maybe its just luck or its just that the play at 6handed suites me more .I think i give much credit at 9handed tables to the opponents and if i have a bad run of cards push/fold stage is the next .

If something really great happen in these last days of the month u will see a post of mine ,otherwise a big post for february review will follow at the 1st of March,u know goals, results, graphs,thoughts and all these fancy stuffs.


br stands at 2694$