Diary of a MTT Grinder Wannabe

[Coggy]

You retired ?

where's the pics ?

[dreenie]

^^ yeah how u been getting on Ant?, you been winning lately? Hope your well m8

[Ant040689]

Sorry about the delay in updating this guys.

I have been sorting some uni stuff out and have sort of only been playing poker sporadically.

I have had some nice binkages recently though, the best of which included a $2700 up night which has really made my BR somewhat comfortable for the games i would like to play. Progressing carefully though.

Also, I realised that i cannot play a low buy in, say $22 with 300 runners or more that has something like 15 mins blinds. It takes about 7 hours if you do win in taking it down and the amount of concentration you have to give to play these types of tourns could be better invested in playing a higher buy in game with a lower amount of entrants to enhance immediate profitability chances. Plus it kills to have played for 5-6 hours and only get $22 back for your efforts (min cash).

So i have decided to implement a strategy for the time being that i will stick to and then reassess, in playing satellites into tournaments of $100+ knowing that i am good money amongst others i am vying with and also knowing that if i do qualify for the target tournament i will be playing that with all the firepower i have got because i know that serious money is at stake even if i am to min cash. This gives me a massive impetus to stay concentrating all the time and always, hopefully, be sweating a nice cash on a nightly basis.

Along with this I am going to have my bread and butter tourns that I consistently get results in. These tend to be games with blind structures that support action and I am always feeling involved when I play in these. I get annoyed when the game is playing too slow, but as annoyed when it is too quick, but the middle ground is something nice. This is normally 10-12 mins blinds and a starting stack of say 1500 or 2000, normally anything over 3000 chips to start and say 15 mins blinds, makes me want to gouge my eyes out before too long and eventually has me tilting across the board in all tournaments I am in. Perhaps I need to work on my patience, I don’t know! However that blind structure I do absolutely fine in if the buy in is quite high and there is a lot to shoot for. The slow $22 games and below are now well and truly gone from my schedule.

Sorted the setup and I am finally proud of it. I have found a way of making my desk chair good for me to sit on for long hours by having pillows to support, and that means I am in a much better position to use two monitors to grind. I am hopeful I will eventually accustom myself to 16 tables but I have never got around to playing this as I have always had a problem with something. The only problem that remains is eyes with the computer. I have always had a problem with looking at a computer screen for any length of time and noticed that wearing tints or shades help a lot, but sometimes they don’t with my eyes going funky on me. Mainly in getting red and irritable and having to deal with that when multiabling is literally your worst nightmare and ridiculously stressful knowing you have a big outlay on the go but are failing to properly protect and nurture it.

Been trying eye drops for dry eyes, a glare protector for the computer screen, adjusting the brightness/contrast setting, wearing glasses for a very small prescription and having some sort of shades on. I have done all of these things but never at the same time. I am going to prepare for my next grind like a military operation so I can finally not be annoyed that I am not even entering the games well prepared in this way. Hopefully doing all of the above at the same time will quell the eye problem and if it does I will be ecstatic.

Picture of the grind set up I have now is very much like the one I posted previously on here, so I needn’t bother with that.

On the weight loss front I have decided to make a crazy bet with my younger brother who is 18 and a semi pro footballer, with an athletic build and about 14stone and 6’2. I decided to bet him that I will beat him in a 100m sprint 5months from now. I weigh 20 stone plus and have an inch on him, so by the looks of things I need to shed at least 5 stone to have any chance, and I don’t even think that is possible in the timeframe. I have always been an athlete in a fat man’s body though and did have a promising semi pro goalkeeping career ahead of me before injury tainted that at 18 and I basically went on the pies ever since and my weight has yo yo’d since then.

Using it as an impetus to get me out jogging and to really get me fired up to not embarrass myself because I did announce this bet on facebook which was met with so many comments saying I haven’t a chance that I found it inspiring to make sure I prove that I can give my bro a close race. The money I set to lose isn’t important really, I just want to have a noticeable weightloss and I want fitness levels to be improved to something like they were before. My hope is that when I get through the crap early stages of not being able to run for too long without resting, and develop better muscle endurance, I can be using my exercise time to burn more calories quicker, which means if the weightloss starts slowly with me it will probably pick up as I get fitter as I will be pushing my body harder and harder to be primed for the race.

The bet is his £50 to my £25 and as soon as this went up on facebook, Greekstein chimed in with  “you're drawing dead. Want another 50 quid on with me? I'll lay 2/1” Cheeky so and so. I negotiated 2.5/1 and the bet was on with him. Even though realistically this is a 10/1 shot for me anyway, maybe even longer odds, but I want these unfavourable conditions to spur me on even more.

This post is a biggie, but there was a lot of stuff to cover and I always over explain things anyway. Should be more concise with my updates on here but that wouldn’t be me, so if you are kind enough to have actually read the lot then fair play to you and I will try to carry on feeding your weird taste in blog entries.

[GreekStein]

tl:dr

btw Eamon gonna burn you in that race

[Ant040689]

Taking some time off to revise some of the maths involved in tourn poker and looking at shoving ranges and how to be a good loose aggro player. Then hopefully adopting it across around 12 tabs.

Finally got the hud to work but now have to configure it, not going to start a grind again until it is up and ready and looking forward to playing with more info on players.

Had a bit of a shot this last Sunday btw and its forced my hand to take prep more seriously and so starts my overhaul now, trying to leave no stone unturned and gonna see if it helps me at all. Bring on the mad binks imo.

[Ant040689]

Noticed recently despite having a positive ROI in the games I'm playing, I'm still getting annoyed about what to do in questionable spots. When they arise it can mess up the flow of how I am playing on other tables. So I am going to get studying online to see if I can shine light a bit on the maths I need to know in order to be comfortable making different types of moves.

Will give you one for example, how likely is it that I will hit a favourable flop with 78suited? One that has my percentage of winning probably around 45%+ against different types of ranges from the oppo? Or knowing when the percentage chance of me bluffing all in on the turn is favourable according to flop and turn texture, hand ranges, chip stacks and his likelihood to see right through me. Some maths I am foggy over, and I am gonna do some rummaging online to try and put my mind at ease with every spot I can come up against.

I know poker hand calculator will give me an idea about this, along with pokerstove for hand ranges and having the HUD will help build a character profile, but I need to put the revising in to make things easier for myself.

I will put up what I found interesting about anything I have come across. I know this must make me look like a noob but I'm still winning anyway, just want to win more

[Coggy]

What you find sir ?

Anything of interest ?

[Ant040689]

What you find sir ?

Anything of interest ?

Mainly that i am well and truly out of my depth in a lot of the games. What i find myself doing is playing well when i have a deep stack late on in tourns and i only have 3 tables left and i go on to get a high finish in this spot. As i have fewer tables to concentrate on and i am able to make a few mistakes with different moves with my big stack but ultimately i get more chips. I think this sort of scenario is what is getting me my positive ROI, the ability to save the leaks i have when i am multi-tabling, by my play late on in tourns that save the rest.

I lose too many chips early on in a tourney when i get open raising and have about 4 callers behind and see myself having to give away a lot of my cards. As well i don't react well to any sort of 3 bet assuming that it is strong a lot of the time. Mainly because i play a lot of softer tourns where this is the case and other sites where players do this all the time, and its hard to gauge what to do when.

I have the HUD half set up now in that i can finally open HEM, its logging all the histories i have in stock, i just need to sort out the HUD settings. This should be great once i get it going and i also need to watch more training vids because i am still unsure about certain spots. What to do with a 20 bbs stack is a biggun, if i get 88 from mid pos and i can open it is a weird spot, as if i min bet and get three bet, im not sure what to do as the oppo is surely going to call the AI over the top and likely have me covered and adversely what if i get two callers behind, i basically need to make a set.

I don't float nearly as much as i should in position and i don't 3 bet that much in position without the nuts, i don't double/triple barrel bluff too much and also because i don't do it too much i wouldn't know how much i would need at my stack to do all of this effectively with what blinds are in play. I think for me to try out and test what plays i think would be optimum in what spot, i would need to be playing low stakes for me, so i am not too scared about losing and would need to have the HUD set up.

Then i just need to make sure im not playing too many tables and hopefully bob's your uncle and i develop a much better game. The main problem with me is i play too many tables and play too poorly automated on all. I think i can only go back up to 12+ when i actually know how to play tourn poker as well i should, having better knowledge of all different spots and never halting mid game perplexed by a spot.

Looked up the maths in poker and can't believe i was so foggy on them before, namely what are the chances of certain hands hitting by the turn or river. I already knew how to calculate it but i wouldn't be able to do it on the spot with so much going on, so i have put a lot of revision in and now know all from the top of my head to help when multi-tabling. Also it helps me in what sort of hands i should be calling with pre knowing their ability to catch up by the turn or river against the premium cards or what not.

Need to make sure that i don't go back into old routines and just load up all the regular games, because i am not playing them properly. Need to play less tables, try new things out and hopefully learn how to play more effectively.

[paulhouk03]

what networks do u play?

[Ant040689]

what networks do u play?

Pokerstars, DTD, Will Hill, Party mainly.

[paulhouk03]

i see i might start doing something similar to you thats all. grinding aroll on dtd atm and its going well atm


just wanted to see what sites ur grinding on cos i think we might play similar schedules

probs abit lower than u tho

[Ant040689]

i see i might start doing something similar to you thats all. grinding aroll on dtd atm and its going well atm


just wanted to see what sites ur grinding on cos i think we might play similar schedules

probs abit lower than u tho

Ah nice. Had any big scores on there recently?

[paulhouk03]

i see i might start doing something similar to you thats all. grinding aroll on dtd atm and its going well atm


just wanted to see what sites ur grinding on cos i think we might play similar schedules

probs abit lower than u tho

Ah nice. Had any big scores on there recently?

not big big
1k
 lots of 300-500 range

[Ant040689]

i see i might start doing something similar to you thats all. grinding aroll on dtd atm and its going well atm


just wanted to see what sites ur grinding on cos i think we might play similar schedules

probs abit lower than u tho

Ah nice. Had any big scores on there recently?

not big big
1k
 lots of 300-500 range

Well there is only one tournament a week on there where you can get into 5 figures, so you are doing well. My perceiving of big means 500 scores, i only ever play tourns with a max 1st place of at most about 1500. Only ever had a highest online score of $7500, which is pretty small considering i have been playing tournaments solidly for 4+ years, but i think that shows you how much i only ever really play the small fields and with that score anyway i think it was a 140 manner 90 cubed

My confidence is rock bottom at the moment, need to get the enjoyment back from the game, that will only come when i get my head around the changing dynamic of tourn poker. Trying to relive the olden days when things were much simpler, 3 bets meant they had it and the min open bet just never happened. Need to get with the program or be left behind!

I'm prone to throwing the toys out of the pram btw, probably will shut up moaning with a bit of kind variance.

[paulhouk03]

i see i might start doing something similar to you thats all. grinding aroll on dtd atm and its going well atm


just wanted to see what sites ur grinding on cos i think we might play similar schedules

probs abit lower than u tho

Ah nice. Had any big scores on there recently?

not big big
1k
 lots of 300-500 range

Well there is only one tournament a week on there where you can get into 5 figures, so you are doing well. My perceiving of big means 500 scores, i only ever play tourns with a max 1st place of at most about 1500. Only ever had a highest online score of $7500, which is pretty small considering i have been playing tournaments solidly for 4+ years, but i think that shows you how much i only ever really play the small fields and with that score anyway i think it was a 140 manner 90 cubed

My confidence is rock bottom at the moment, need to get the enjoyment back from the game, that will only come when i get my head around the changing dynamic of tourn poker. Trying to relive the olden days when things were much simpler, 3 bets meant they had it and the min open bet just never happened. Need to get with the program or be left behind!

I'm prone to throwing the toys out of the pram btw, probably will shut up moaning with a bit of kind variance.

what tourney gives u 5 fig score? the 50k head hunter thats only 7k FTW but its a good tourney that