Hello everyone. I'm going to create this journal in an attempt to make myself at least spend a little time looking back over some hands and analyzing my play in an attempt, however futile, to improve my play. First, a little background:

If you are at all interested, please see my introduction. Nothing exciting, just some boring background about my poker playing so far. In December of 2005, I decided to start playing Sit 'n Go's almost exclusively. I have had decent results so far, and here they are:

December

Party Poker $10 - 272 played
9% ITM 9.6% ROI

PP $20 - 3 played
67% ITM 51.5% ROI

January

PP $10 - 114 played
43.8% ITM 26% ROI

PP $20 - 128 played
32% ROI (7%) ROI

PokerStars $15 Turbo - 3 played
100% ITM 153% ROI

February

PP $20 - 149 played
43% ITM 11.6% ROI

PS $15 - 37 played
54% ITM 75.6% ROI

I also played in a few 2000 chip sit 'n go's after Party changed their SNG structure, and was sligthly up in those. A few observations about these results. I was disappointed in my $10 results at Party, although I felt I did run a little bad (of course, that has to be it!). Obviously, when I moved up to the $20's in January, that was a rough stretch. Earlier, in my poker career I would have given up and moved back down after about 50 of them. But now I realize that you really need to play at least 500 of these things at a level to get somewhat of an idea of where you are at. I had a good February, especially at the the Stars $15 turbos. Those numbers are sick, and unfortunately not sustainable. I think after playing in just this small sample size and reading other members' posts here about these, that a 30% ROI is possible. Anyone else's thoughts?

So, on to the present. I debated on what site to play at most this month, and looking at the numbers above, duh, I guess it will be Stars. I'm going to start the month at the $27 turbos and see how that goes. I'm going to try to play at least 140 so I can get SilverStar status in their VIP program, and re-evaluate at that point.

I'm also going to try to post at least one hand a day I found interesting, and ask for opinions on how I should have played it differently. Since I'm lazy, maybe it will be more like two or three times a week, but I'll try my best! I hope at least one person finds this journal interesting. Thanks for reading.

March 2 - Played in 8 $27 turbos tonight, and here are the results:

1 1st
1 2nd
1 3rd

I 4-tabled them, and started off great, whiffing on all 4 in the first set. I suffered a couple of suckouts and lost a coin flip, oh well. I then had a very good second set to finish the night up 9 bucks. Here is a hand I struggled with:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t20 (9 handed)

Hero (t1500)
MP3 (t1490)
CO (t590)
Button (t1390)
SB (t1480)
BB (t2570)
UTG (t1500)
UTG+1 (t1400)
MP1 (t1580)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with , .
3 folds, Hero raises to t60, MP3 raises to t140, 4 folds, Hero calls t80.

Flop: (t310) , , (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets t200, Hero calls t200.

Turn: (t710) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets t480, Hero folds.

Final Pot: t1190

I mean, yuck, could I have played that any more passively? Here are my thoughts. His little reraised scared me a little, it either screams AA or KK but I've also seen people make these strange little re-raises with a smaller pocket pair or A-K, A-Q. The flop is good, no overcards, I probably should have put about a 3/4 size pot bet to see where I stood. If he reraises, I can grit my teeth and fold, if he just calls, I can probably put him on AK or AQ. It just really stinks being out of position on this hand, and I don't like going broke with JJ that early in a SNG. The more I think about this hand and based on later hands I saw him play, I really think he had A high.

Any comments on that hand are appreciated.

I look forward to following your journal

Just a quick update on results of the last two nights:

March 3 - 8 played

2 2nds
1 3rd
3 4ths
Profit - $9

Frustrating night, lost 3 hands with an overpair to an underpair, thems the breaks.

March 4 - 8 played

2 1sts
Profit - $9

Well, at least I'm consistent! $9 3 straight nights. I feel like I did not play well tonight, made a couple of bad calls that I don't normally make. Here's one example:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (6 handed)

Hero (t1255)
UTG (t1276)
MP (t2188)
CO (t4290)
Button (t1593)
SB (t2898)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
UTG raises to t1276, 4 folds, Hero calls t1105 (All-In).

Flop: (t2606) , , (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t2606) (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t2606) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t2606
Main Pot: t2585 (t2585), between Hero and UTG.
Pot 2: t21 (t21), returned to UTG. Villian had 10-10

I usually don't make that call, I put the villian on AQ or something like that. Was it to early to take a coin flip? The reason I don't normally make that call is that at best I'm 50/50 to win, at worst I'm a huge dog, like in this hand.

My other highlight of the night was being called a "luchy retard" after a suckout. Unfortunately, that was not a typo. Well, hopefully I can make more than $9 tomorrow. Although I shouldn't complain, there could be a nice 12 out of the money streak coming up...

Yeah calling with 55 there is too loose IMO, his range as I see it is 77+, AJs+ and AQ+. I'd probably need TT to make that call.

So much for being good about updating this, I've got to get better at that. It's easy to write about running well, but the last thing I want to do is write about running bad, which is what has been happening this week. Here is the damage:

Sunday

4 played
1 2nd
1 3rd
+$4.50

The reason I only played 4 was because I played in a couple of satellites for the Stars $215 on Sunday and I qualified in the $10 turbo rebuy. I couldn't play on that day, but I plan on playing in it on March 19 and have already registered for it. I know I should probably just use the $215 for sit n go's, but what the hell, it's fun playing for $150K plus, even if there's not chance to win.

Monday

$27 Turbos Stars

10 played
1 2nd
- $202.50

That's it, one 2nd. Just not my night. I handle losing this much better than I did in the past, but it still doesn't feel very good! Had a nice 8 out of the money stretch to end the night.
The one positive out of the night was that during this stretch I played in the Party Freeroll WSOP satellite where the top 50 out of 3500 advance to their Saturday Freeroll where the 11-20 finishers get a $2K WSOP entry, 2-10 get a main event entry, and 1st place gets a $50 H.O.R.S.E entry! Really an incredible deal. Wait, did I just compliment Party? That will be one of the few times, trust me. Maybe I'll go into detail about why I dislike Party at a later date... The usual stuff, poor customer support, etc.

Tuesday

16 played
1 1st
1 2nd
4 3rds
- $72
Very frustrating night. Lots of suckouts, and I was up on the night until the last set of 4, when I blanked on all 4.

I'll split this post up here, it's starting to get long.

Here's the continuation of my results:

Wednesday

8 played
2 2nds
2 3rds
+ $9

Notice a pattern here? I just cannot finish first. I really need to work on my bubble play and ITM play. I am not being aggressive enough. More on this later.

Thursday

4 played
zip
- $108

Card dead in 3 of them and had no chance, in the other one lost A-10 to K-10 allin preflop, about 2500 chips, clawed my way back up to 2500 chips and lost QQ to A-2 allin preflop, goodbye. I made a good decision to shut it down for the night, as I was to the point of expecting to lose every hand when I was all in, which does not help you play your best!

I did decide to buy sit n go Power Tools earlier in the day, and I have just started playing around with that. I'm still trying to figure it out, but it looks promising. Anyone else here use this?

Friday

9 played
2 1sts
1 2nd
1 3rd
+ $94.50

Finally, a decent night! And I also had 3 4ths, further evidence of needing to work on my bubble play. Otherwise, it could have been a really big night. So, here are my stats after 75 $27 turbos at Stars:

6 1st
9 2nd
11 3rd
17 4th
13 5th
9 6th
6 7th
2 8th
2 9th

- $247.50

The number of 4th place finishes is puzzling. I've never had a high percentage of 4ths before, I'm usually very good at getting in the money with 4 left. One of my tasks this weekend is to analyze every 4th place finish with SNGPT and see where I missed some +EV situations and how many -EV pushes I made. I think I also need to start calling pushes with a wider range of hands, I don't think I'm calling others' pushes as much as I should, especially at this level where more players understand how to steal blinds late. It's just tough to get yourself to push all in with 10-4 when the situation calls for it!

So, to recap, being down 9 buyins is really no big deal to me, but I hope last night's upswing continues. I'll try to post a couple of hands I found interesting from this week later.

A good night tonight, I'm almost back to even since the beginning of the month:

Saturday

8 played
1 1st
3 2nd
2 3rd
+ $189

I feel I played very solid tonight, I even had a couple of tough suckouts when ITM and heads up otherwise it would have been even better. Also, almost halfway to the Stars reload bonus, so that helps as well! I'll try to post a couple of hands tomorrow.

The only bad thing is that for some reason when I'm trying to import tourneys into SNGPT it's not working. It worked yesterday, that's something I'll have to try to figure out. I also might use my $215 tourney entry to the Stars Sunday tourney tomorrow, turns out I might be able to play. That should be fun to bustout about 10 places from the money!

Well, I decided not to play in the $215 Stars tourney today, hopefully next weekend. Here are the SNG results for today:

Sunday

12 played
2 1sts
3 3rds
+$36

Almost in the black for the month in these $27 turbos. I noticed a lot of multi-tabling players today when I played late afternoon and tonight. Competition seemed tighter, if not better. There were a couple of really good players, however. The 2nd set of 4 I did I did not cash and that set had 2 4ths, so I'm going to review those in SNGPT, I've got that working again. I was a complete luckbox in one of the 1sts I got, I was down to $1000 chips and my comeback included a runner runner straight to crack a flopped set (allin preflop) and a rivered 3-outer. It feels good to be on the other side of those!

I haven't been feeling well the last couple of days so I didn't play last night and I also decided to take it easy tonight and just play a double shootout $11 on Stars for a seat in the $215 Sunday tourney on Stars. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention and signed up for the $10 rebuy turbo qualifier instead. Oh well, I decided that I woulnd't rebuy at all and signed up for the double shootout as well.

It turned out to be a frustrating night. In the turbo rebuy, I finished 27th when 23 places got in and 24th payed $145. I'm pretty sure if I had rebought just once or did the add on I would have gotten in, I was really about 2,000 chips short of being there at the end. Bah.

In the double shootout, I won my first table after an epic heads up match that lasted about 20 minutes, so that guaranteed me $35. At the final table, 2 out of 8 got the $215. I finished 4th. So, I cam extremely close to pocketing $430 tourney dollars, and instead won $14. However, it was a good change of pace and was fun. I'm still planning on using the $215 I won a little while ago to play in this Sunday's tourney, I'm looking forward to that hopefully nothing comes up where I can't play.

It's been a tough week. I'll start by posting the ugly results. I'll just combine the last few days:

$27 turbos at Starts

43 played

2 1sts
4 2nds
7 3rds

30.23% ITM
($351)

Wow, 2 1st place finishes, that's just great. I had some incredible hands on the 15th, I'll have to post some of them later. I'm not liking SNG's right now, I'll probably have to take some time off. What I might do is play some low buyin MTT's, I really enjoy those and I need some stress-free poker.

I did play in the Stars $215 yesterday, and was slightly up through the first 40 minutes, when I donked off all of my chips on this hand:

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t25/t50
9 players


Stack sizes:
UTG: t4185
UTG+1: t2465
MP1: t220
MP2: t3005
MP3: t3100
CO: t3145
Button: t3440
Hero: t2690
BB: t2545

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is SB with
3 folds, MP2 calls t50, MP3 folds, CO raises to t200, Button calls t200, Hero calls t175, 2 folds.

Flop: (t700, 3 players)
Hero bets t300, CO raises to t650, Button calls t650, Hero raises all-in t2490, CO raises all-in t2945.
Uncalled bets: t455 returned to CO.

Turn: (t6330, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t6330)


River: (t6330, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t6330)


Results:
Final pot: t6330
CO showed Jd Js
Hero showed Ks Kh

I mean, that's just terrible. I went into the tourney telling myself not to play scared, but I guess I should have worried more about not playing like a donkey instead. As for preflop, I guess I just wanted to see a flop without an ace before I committed more of my chips. The button was a very loose player, he could have had anything. I guess I should have reraised about 800 to let him know I had a hand. From my reads, I think both would have called anyway and I would have gone broke regardless, but it still would have been the correct play.

After the flop, I really thought he had one of two hands, AA or QQ. I bet out 300, he reraises to 650, almost a min reraise, screams a monster, right? I convinced myself I had him beat, and the rest is history. Hopefully I'll get more comfortable if I play in more of these and can just play poker and forget about how much money can be won.