What a night

One of the strangest nights of my life.

Around 11 PM I started with a MTT. 72 players were participating and the used the re-buy feature frequently. After one hour I used the add-on possibility which brought my in 22th place.
After 2 hours of playing I was around the 10th place. Normally I would play very conservative on the bubble but after a in-length discussion with MrPink, I decided thatthis was to the moment to start playing aggressively. Most players play very thight on the bubble, which is fine if you are in the middle of the field but when you are short stacked I does not really help you. With this new play style I reached for the first time a Final Table in a paid MTT. To bad that the blinds killed after one bad decisions. Resulting in a 10th place and 13$ profit.


Just after I was finished around 2 a.m. my sister called my that she was in the ambulance with her husband underway to ER. So I got in my car and drove to the hospital. Apparently my brother-in-law had a head injury (a gap in his head (don't know the correct English term for it is)). When the ER doctor was going to close the gap, me the Hero fainted. Whoohoo. One of the strangest feelings in my life. When you get back to conscience you don't know where you are, you start sweating like if you were already a half hour in a sauna. The fainting on itself is strange but is forgotten wihthin an hour but the fall did hurt me. Not actually the fall but the collision with the wall!! Ouch. Severe headache, muscles aches in the neck etc...

But still I was capable of the winning my first official tennis match of this year!!!

Good Luck,
Dremeber

It's going good + buy-in hunter

Had a little set back on Unibet in the 50 SNGs challenge. Had a streak of 6 SNGs not getting ITM. But the streak is over and I'm back in the winning mode. Now busy with a winning streak of 5 times ITM and I won the last 4 of them. Giving my Unibet bankroll a boost. 18 SNGs far in the second set of 50 and currently 61% ITM. First and second place evenly divided. 5 wins, 5 times second.

On Ultimate it is even going better. After not getting ITM for the first 3 SNGs I now found the correct play style for Ultimate. The last 5 SNGs ITM. Two wins and three times silver. Cause these are 5$ SNG this really helps my bankroll here.

I don't know what I'm doing different, which is not a good thing. Probably I play more relaxed and have more patience. Also I'm avoiding the bad beats and if I get one, I know that it is not my fold, cause most of the time I'm rivered.

Unibet started with a buy-in tourny set-up. The buy-in is 2.00$ with a 0.20$ extra for the house. For each player you eliminate you will get his buy-in. I'm going to try it out this evening, I'm curious how it will works. Also curious how people play these kinds of tournaments. So if you ever played this before tips are welcome.

Total bankroll: 96.01$
Unibet Bankroll: 16.50$
Ultimate Bankroll: 79.51$

Good luck,
Dremeber

Won my first 5$ SNG

Don't know what is happening but I'm in the winning mood.

I started my new 50 1$ SNG (5seater) on Unibet and the intermediate results are promising.
I played 9 already. Won 2 of them and got second in 4 others. So 66% ITM. Much better than my first attempt. But know I have to won some more. Last time I won 8 and got in second in 11 occasions. Also had a streak of 6 SNGs ITM. No bad.

On ultimate poker. I played 6 5.50$ SNGs. Got second twice and won once.

Very proud of these results. It is like I'm playing a complete different level of Poker. Curious if I can keep this up. W'll see.

Total Bankroll: 72,86$
Unibet: 12,55$
Ultimate: 60,31$


Cheers and Good luck,
Dremeber

Finished my first set of 50 SNGs

I just finished my first set of 50 SNGs at Unibet Poker (part of the Prima Poker network).
I love to play these 5 seater 1$ SNGs. But I had hoped on better results.
Won: 8 (16%)
Second: 11 (22%)
Third: 12 (24%)
Fourth: 15 (30%)
Fifth: 4 (8%)

Meaning a loss of 9.95$. Disappointing. Luckely I reached the 10$ bonus mark with these
SNGs, meaning a profit of 0.05$. YEAH!
I was hoping to end ITM around 50% but I got there only in 38% of the SNGs. The good part is that it open my eyes!

Some positive points:
- Almost in 50% of the cases where I'm ITM, I will win the SNG.
- Only in 8% of the SNGs I was the real fish at the table.

The negative points:
- Only 38% ITM.
- 30% at the fourth place, which was very surprising for me.

I will do a new challenge. Not setting my goals to high I want to get ITM around 40% and make a small profit.

I have now also an account at Ultimate Poker. My nick there is Dremeber76.

Cheers,
Dremeber

My first bonus

Yeah I received my first bonus gained with VIP points at Unibet Poker.
A well deserved 10$!! Woohoo. Just in time. My bankroll is know 11$ so you can imagine how important it was for me.

Also pretty glad how the poker bloglisting is evolving. Around 200 visitors each day. This off course thanks to some of the quality blogs which are on there.
Trying to address some bloggers to join the club but posting something like: feel free to add your blog to the listing. Looks spammy. So I decided to stop with this.
Once each month I will post an advertisement in some open poker groups. Will see how it will evolve from there.

Cheers,
Dremeber

half way my first challenge

I played 34 5 seaters SNGs (0.9$+0.1$) and the results are disappointing.
Only 12 times ITM. The good news is that 5 times I won the SNGs, meaning that I'm good enough head to head. Unfortunately I don't get in these situations enough. I hoped to get 50 to 60% of the times ITM, but I'm only 35% ITM. Giving me a loss of 8.8$. 16 more to go. After these 16 I have to decide if I will do another chain of 50 1$ 5 seater SNGs or if I will play another SNG. On one side I want to see if I can do better on this level on the other side people tell me to step up a level to avoid stupid bad beats from players who don't know what they are doing.

On the other side, I got 2 times ITM in a freeroll. Once 124th out of 3111 contenders and once 82 out of 4035. Giving me a profit of 0.46$ in the freerolls :). I know it is not much but I see it as a training center for MTT.

Today I played a 1$ MTT. Was ages ago that I played a paid MTT. Only 331 players. So not a big one, with only 36 places paid. I managed to end at place 27, paying out 2.31$.

For the moment I will keep playing on Unibet. They have the cheapest SNGs, only in a few other Poker Rooms you can play SNGs for a single buck. Also I only a few VIP points away from 10 free dollars.
Also created an account on Ultimate Poker. Hoping on my free 50$. I have no doubt that this will work cause it also worked for Absolute Poker.

Do you also want 50$ on Ultimate, Party poker, Absolute or Titan then use this link Your Poker Cash. Be sure to read the condition carefully, most of these offers are also valid for US residents!!!

Good luck,
Dremeber

Play or fold

Today I had a long discussion with some poker buddies.

One of them played a 5$ MTT. At some moment there were only around 70 players left, while there were 60 paid places. To give some more insight info. He had around 6000 chips (around place 50), the SB was 150, the BB was 300 and the ante 250.
His position is in the middle. Everybody before him folds and he raises 900 (3 times the BB). Everybody besides the BB folds, the BB goes all-in for around 6000 chips, meaning that my friend has to risk everything if he wants to call. Eventually the BB had 77 and was saved by the turn.
To make it even worse the River was also a 7.

The discussion started cause I told them that I would have folded the QQ. The risk is just to high so close to the paid places. By folding this QQ he was, according to my 80% sure of getting ITM. In this case the BB also shows that he has good cards, cause it is to late in the MTT to protect the blinds.
His argument was that if he plays MTT, his goal is to reach the final table, while my first concern is to get ITM. Which is absolutely correct.

What should you have done?

In the mean while it is not going good with my goals, bankroll and play.
my bankroll is almost not existing anymore, a lousy 1.58$.
I have played 32 5 seaters (0.9$ + 0.1$) and only ended 11 times ITM. I won 5 of these 11 times. 34% ITM. 24% below my goal.
I played 8 10 seater (0.9$ + 0.1$) and only twice ITM. Twice third.
2 freerolls. One 124th out of 3111 contenders, good for 0.20$.

So probably I need to deposit fresh money. Which I will.
The only question to answer is where?

Good Luck,
Dremeber

Two kinds of tactics for a freeroll

Playing poker again for 5 days and my results are below average.

Suddenly strange things happen with me and the poker room. Always kicked out of the SNG with a better starting hand but my hand is always killed on the river.

Played around 20 SNGs (16 5 seaters and 4 10 seater). Only 5 times I got in the money. Won 2 5 seaters and twice is came in second. In the 10 seater, I only hot in 3^rd once. My SNGs where so bad that I had to deposit another 5$. My first deposit of the year! I hope that with this deposit I can survive the month May, but I doubt it.

Also played 2 freerolls and ended up in the money in one of them. And what a big price it was. Ended 124^th out of 3411 contenders, 0.20$ was my share.

Freerolls are a free learning school, so why not use it. The disadvantage of Freerolls is that getting in the money is a real challenge and the ROI is only profitable if you are within the TOP 3. So it is not the best ROI. My best result, so far in a freeroll, is a 5^th place out of 3224 players, with a pay-out of 20$. It took 3,5 hours before I was kicked out with a bad beat!

In the Freerolls you see 2 very common tactics. Tactic one is to build as quickly as possible a big bankroll, tactic two is playing really strict and with a lot of patience. I dare to bet that none of you have ever seen a freeroll and didn’t see at least an all-in in the first 3 or 4 hands. Within the first 10 minutes of the game 50% of the players using tactic number one are eliminated by the other 50%. 90% of the players using tactic number 2 will still be in the game. The downside of this is that the 50 surviving % of tactic 1 will try to bully the table by constantly pushing all-in. This gives back the mathematical advantage to the players using tactic number 2. Let’s say that 70% of the players using tactic 2 will survive the first hour and only 30% of the ones using tactic one.

My conclusion is that if you are lucky and you are using tactic number 1 it is easier get higher into the money but more difficult to get ITM, the assumption to this is that you have to be able to change your playing style after a while.

By using tactic number 2 I think that it is easier to get into the money but it is more difficult to reach the higher pay-outs.

Don’t be fooled by average stacks which is shown on some poker rooms. More important is your placing. If you are having a though time don’t be afraid to use the stall tactic, meaning that you use all the available time given to you before your make your decision. Why can this help? It will bring you closer to the money without any risk, cause it is possible that on the other tables 2 hands are played in the same period as one on your table and it will frustrate the other players on your table. And frustrated players will easier make bad decision, which they wouldn’t have done without the frustration. Also a couple of players will just play you to try to eliminate you. So if you use this tactic be careful with which hands you are going to play.

Good Luck,
Dremeber