Progress Report: 3rd Set

Today was a bad day for poker. Pretty much everything I did went wrong, which especially sucked because I did a lot of it today.

I started with a SNG. We were getting to the point where people needed to start making moves. I was medium/low stacked and had AJ. Flop was AQJ all clubs. The pot was already pretty big, so I went all in because I figured someone would have a club or a king or a ten, and I couldn’t afford to let anyone draw to a straight or flush. Well someone had the king of clubs, and he called. I bet you can’t guess where this ends can you? The turn is a rag, and the river brings a ten, to knock me out. I don’t know that there is much I could have done in that hand that would have resulted in a favorable outcome. I flopped two pair, and there’s no way I was getting out of that hand, so I tried to force everyone else out. Didn’t work. This pattern would repeat itself often throughout the day.

My wife had gone out on some errands, and I was waiting for her to get back, so I figured I’d kill some time multi-tabling the micro limits. I don’t think I could have lost money any faster if I tried. Nothing seemed to go my way. I would hit top pair top kicker on the flop, only to find someone stayed in with garbage and picked up two pair. I would get pocket queens and cap the betting pre-flop only to see a king and ace on the flop. What are the chances that none of the eight callers I have and ace? Yeah. I would hit my straight on the turn only to have someone else catch their flush on the river. It was unbelievable. It was like I had gotten way more than my fair share of lucky breaks recently, and the poker gods decided to even everything out in one session.

So I stopped for a while to lick my wounds, and watch some Illini Basketball and playoff football. My confidence starts to return and I think my luck has to turn around eventually; I’ll try to multi-table some SNG’s and see what happens. Maybe the practice I’ve had at the micro limits will help.

The good news is, I think I am getting better at multi-tabling. I wasn’t nearly as flustered playing two tournaments at once as I was the last time. The bad news is that I still placed in the bottom half of both tournaments. I think playing the micro limits may be hurting my tournament performance as I’m still way over betting when I make my hand. I’m afraid that I’ll get outdrawn so I make sure I win the pot without going to the river. As a result, I’m winning some pots, but they aren’t big enough to sustain a high enough tournament position.

Anyway, the three SNGs that I played today finished off my third set of ten. So, how am I doing? Better than last time, but not nearly as good as I would like. Here’s the breakdown.

Games 21-30:

Total invested $100+$10 Fees ($110 total)
Total winnings $110
Net -$0
Finished in the Money 3/10 times

1st Place 1
2nd Place 2
3rd Place 0
4th Place 1
5th Place 0
6th Place 3
7th Place 3
8th Place 0
9th Place 0
10th Place 0

Average 5.8


Total :
Total invested $300+$30 Fees ($330 total)
Total winnings $320
Net -$10
Finished in the Money 10/30 times


1st Place 3
2nd Place 3
3rd Place 4
4th Place 4
5th Place 3
6th Place 6
7th Place 5
8th Place 0
9th Place 1
10th Place 1

Average 4.7


So after 30 tournaments, I’m down ten bucks. The number of sixth and seventh place finishes that I have are disturbing. At least in this last set, I don’t have any 8th or worse, but I definitely need to improve on my average finish and number of top three finishes.

I think I may stop playing tournaments for a little while, and move back to ring games. I’m getting a little burnt out on tournaments, and I’ve really been enjoying the ring games, not counting today.
There should be some live games to report on next week. There is a big tournament on Saturday, and we may have a warm-up office game sometime in the middle of this week. I’ll let you know how those turn out.

Finally, I think the next blogger tournament is going to be at Poker Stars, so I think I’m going to sign up there. If anyone has a referral code they want me to use, let me know. Otherwise I’ll use Iggy’s.