$4 180 sit n go win!

I went jogging for the first time in years and it felt great. I was really energized and started two tournaments soon after i reached back home. I think i played some of my best poker during this tournament and made some nice plays.

My strategy in these small stakes tournaments is really very simple; i wait for hands and then play them very aggressively. I open a wide range if its folded to me in HJ to SB including any two. As a result i get played back at often. Most opponents don't seem to be able to adjust to this style. My biggest problems is knowing when to slow down.

Hand 1
Villian in this hand was somewhat loose and i had seen him win a few pots with moves like this. I think he had a weak ace, a busted drw, 2nd pair type hand or air.

Hand 2
Nice chip up before the break... I was among the chip leaders early in this tournament.

Hand 3
Villian had moved to the table about 2 orbits and had been limping alot. I pegged him as a weak player. After just calling my flop bet and checking behind on the turn i thought he was weak and called despite the possible straight out there.

Hand 4
Didn't like this play even though it turned out that i was ahead here. But generally i'd expect to be called by AK and QQ+... still with my aggressive image i guess AQ is not folding...

Hand 5
Push any two. These levels are usually where i seperate from the pack or get busted. people tend to tighten up too much.

Hand 6
Hand 7
My constant pressure usually gets paid off like this

Hand 8
OR had only been at table for about 1.5 orbits and had been opening alot of pots, i had also watched him on another table since we were down to 2 or 3 tables. So i knew he had nothing and the BTN shove likely had a weaker hand also

Hand 9
Short handed at the final table i'm going with A9s vs. a LP raise

Hand 10
A really weak opponent he basically telegraphed what he had all the time

Hand 11
taking advantage of the bigstack

Hand 12
Terrible slow play... still i should've gotten away on the shove

Most opponents seem to be weak at the final table... they just don't play enough hands and i was able to steal with impunity. But sometimes i go overboard and hurt myself.

download entire file here; 1st_20080204.txt

Weekend Results

Since my MTT final table i've been in what i'd term a mini slum... nothing major but i've felt kinda out of it when playing and its lead to some poor play (see last post). I think i've been averaging around 108th place in the pokerstars $4 180 sngs.

So Saturday after more of the same i decided that i was in the mode for some turbo sngs and started playing the Pokerstars $3 45 sngs . I played 24 total Turbos in 3 sessions (morning, afternoon & late evening) on saturday. My results were amazing.

I finished...

1st....5
2nd....3
4th....1
8th....2(bubble)
OOTM...16

Just crushed the games for a whopping 400% ROI. It was a really sweet feeling and a huge confidence builder. My game had gone a bit off and these turbos set me straight.

Today i decided to play in the $5.50 5K guarenteed @ 1pm on stars and the 100K guarenteed at 3:30pm. I was playing the 5k guarenteed and a $4 180 sng when my electricity went out. What a disaster... I was running good in the 5K and had just taken the chip lead with about 26 left in the 180.

My ups only lasted an additional 15 minutes before it started beeping furiously... I also have my modem and router on the ups so when i shut down the computer there was enough power to keep the network up. I burrowed my nephew's laptop and spent about 20minutes installing pokerstars and trying to remember my password. Once i got on i soon realized that the laptop battery was about to go... talk about bad luck. So i just decided to donk it up and try to get a big stack or bust. long story short i made the final table as a short stack and finished 8th... then my pwr came back on.lol.

I fired up another $4 180 sng to go along with the Sunday 100k Gaurenteed. I didnt get deep in the 100K but finished 2nd in the $4 180 sng which was a good result. So two final tables in one day... not bad. Just checked officialpokerrankings and i'm running 20% ITM & 94% ROI over 246 tournys for January, and that is without the 2nd place finish.

$4 180 Sit N Go Final Tables

I've now made two final tables in two days, finishing 7th & 8th. The level of play was astonishing. From my sample of tournaments it is normal for up to 60% to have busted by the first break. However, in one of today's tournaments 70% of players had busted by the break and i had accumulated +10k chips. I was able to make the final table in this tournament but was stuck behind a maniac who eventually busted me with a really bad call preflop.

Here are a few other hands from my other tournies

I'm happy with the way i played this hand... his preflop was really bad and then i guess he put me on AK/AQ.Players always seem to put you on AK at this level.

Trying to short stack ninja in this tourny with about 57 left i think. This has got to be the most ridiculous call i've ever seen. But it shows what these players are capable of.

I'm dissappointed that i didnt win any of the Final tables but i'm pleased that i made the final table in the first place. Thats about 8/8 times of making the FT when i made the money.