Saturday, December 01, 2007
Goals !
Well, I achieved some goals this month, albeit one of them bounced off both posts first and another is still being looked at by the Russian linesman. First of all I put $20,550 in play which was the main aim and of course the one I had most control over. Thanks to a last-gasp third place in the Pokerstars 20/1R/1A I edged over $30K return and $10K profit ($10,020). I also make it 1000.7 points for the month on Pocketfives but as I said the stewards are still looking at that one :-).
That should see me into 8th in the UK rankings for the month, and 13th overall. As I mentioned before, seeing as I didn't get going till the 7th I should be able to put a bit more in next month, and probably January as well, as see where we are then. I'll be making two major changes going into December, as follows.
First of all I have come to the conclusion that I've been too aggressive and gambled too much (especially as a caller) in the early and middle stages of final tables for some time. One might argue that this is what wins tournaments, but I note that in my biggest wins this year, in Tunica I was quite patient until we were three handed ; on Party we went from 10 to 4 handed in about 20 minutes, during which time I think I played one hand ; and of course in Vegas it was Limit which is different. The "bubble factor" [1] as Kill Everyone calls it is pretty high going from 9/10 players down to 3 or 4 on both Stars and Party - as a point of comparison it's the same as it is on the actual FT bubble and clearly higher than on the money bubble. It's often the way you have to do these things to reach the right balance ; instead of approaching from underneath, you have to overshoot and then gradually draw back (in this case in terms of being aggressive around FTs). Does that make any sense ? I know what I mean :-)
Secondly, as I said on Facebook, I'm going to knock the $100 rebuy on the head, except on Sundays when I'm having a spin-up anyway and it gets 400 runners instead of 150, with an obvious dilution of the strength of the field. I still think that it should be a profitable tournament, albeit solely because of the edge you have just by playing sensibly during the rebuy period. But depending on your table it can only take about 20 minutes before most or all of the gamblers spin up to decent stacks that they're more loath to splash around with. People in this tournament can be mad but there aren't too many idiots. The other reasons are more subtle. I find it more difficult to take bad beats/losing flips/coolers in this tournament because I'm emotionally invested in "cracking it" when I shouldn't be really. This frustration can spill over into the other tournaments I'm playing. More insidiously, once the rebuy madness has stopped, I think you have to play this tournament a lot differently from just about all the others (the $50 rebuy has some common ground and is kind of "in between"), because there are so many decent players and fewer weak spots. So because I'm often concentrating on the $100R as the "feature table", it can be difficult to immediately switch to a decision on another table where it's some eggfest on Party or Full Tilt where people have no idea what a resteal is. So I'll probably keep it to a $300 spin-up on Sundays and replace it with something more fishy during the week.
[1] A measure of how much less the chips you win are worth compared to chips you lose. I recommend the book for further info.
That should see me into 8th in the UK rankings for the month, and 13th overall. As I mentioned before, seeing as I didn't get going till the 7th I should be able to put a bit more in next month, and probably January as well, as see where we are then. I'll be making two major changes going into December, as follows.
First of all I have come to the conclusion that I've been too aggressive and gambled too much (especially as a caller) in the early and middle stages of final tables for some time. One might argue that this is what wins tournaments, but I note that in my biggest wins this year, in Tunica I was quite patient until we were three handed ; on Party we went from 10 to 4 handed in about 20 minutes, during which time I think I played one hand ; and of course in Vegas it was Limit which is different. The "bubble factor" [1] as Kill Everyone calls it is pretty high going from 9/10 players down to 3 or 4 on both Stars and Party - as a point of comparison it's the same as it is on the actual FT bubble and clearly higher than on the money bubble. It's often the way you have to do these things to reach the right balance ; instead of approaching from underneath, you have to overshoot and then gradually draw back (in this case in terms of being aggressive around FTs). Does that make any sense ? I know what I mean :-)
Secondly, as I said on Facebook, I'm going to knock the $100 rebuy on the head, except on Sundays when I'm having a spin-up anyway and it gets 400 runners instead of 150, with an obvious dilution of the strength of the field. I still think that it should be a profitable tournament, albeit solely because of the edge you have just by playing sensibly during the rebuy period. But depending on your table it can only take about 20 minutes before most or all of the gamblers spin up to decent stacks that they're more loath to splash around with. People in this tournament can be mad but there aren't too many idiots. The other reasons are more subtle. I find it more difficult to take bad beats/losing flips/coolers in this tournament because I'm emotionally invested in "cracking it" when I shouldn't be really. This frustration can spill over into the other tournaments I'm playing. More insidiously, once the rebuy madness has stopped, I think you have to play this tournament a lot differently from just about all the others (the $50 rebuy has some common ground and is kind of "in between"), because there are so many decent players and fewer weak spots. So because I'm often concentrating on the $100R as the "feature table", it can be difficult to immediately switch to a decision on another table where it's some eggfest on Party or Full Tilt where people have no idea what a resteal is. So I'll probably keep it to a $300 spin-up on Sundays and replace it with something more fishy during the week.
[1] A measure of how much less the chips you win are worth compared to chips you lose. I recommend the book for further info.
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 1:11 AM 
