Second loosing day in a row! Auch!

Luckily I did manage to win my last SNG I played or the damage would have been much bigger.
Played 12 SNGs yesterday (10 10 seaters and 2 18 seaters). Didn't cash in the 18 seaters, while I should have in one. But a donk move from my side with AK during the bubble did get me eliminated. Very stuped cause I was atm second in stack.

Did cash in 3 10 seaters but the amount won was not enough to cover all my antes of the day. 1 first and two thirds.

I did replay all my major loosing hands of the day and came to the following conclusions:
A few non cashes were simply my own faults but the red line of yesterday that I wasn't capable of hitting the flop and that my Ax never won a race against small pocket pairs. On the other side, none of my pocket pairs held up against their Ax. Add to that flushes being beaten by higher flushes and then you have a perfect poker misfortune cocktail.

PT is giving some indications of leaks but still to early (not enough SNGs available yet) to form some conclusions. On the other hand I have the feeling that I'm playing more focussed. Don't know if it has anything to do with PT.

I'm confident that I can break my loosing streak this evening.

Note to myself: Third places are worthless, third places are worthless.

Cheers,
Dremeber

A fresh start!

I decided to upload some fresh funds to Stars and I'm not planning to throw it away like the previous one. But that is easier written down than done. For the first time since long I had to upload funds cause the previous BR dried up, normally I'm able to cash my deposit with some profit but not last time.

One of my major BR leaks is that I don't build up a bankroll. I to quickly cash some profit or the initial deposit, which isn't a sign of confidence in myself. I will try not to make this mistake again. The deposit was only a miserable $75. Still plenty left in the poker bank account.
To plan is to wipe out my loss of $80. Again easy to write down, more difficult to acchieve but not impossible.

Like written before I tried to analyse my game with the help of SiTAndGo Wizard. But this tool is not for me. I hate the fact that it gives advice and your % of winning chances but that you can't see the outcome of the hand.Now I have downloaded a trial version of PokerTracker. The downside is ofcourse that it doesn't automatically imports the SNG results but with the POP3 import this isn't a problem which can't be overcome. The only hassle is that I need to restart PT3 after importing them otherwise I don't see the results in the tournament tab.
I also decided that I need to step back to the single table SNGs in stead of the 18 or 45 seaters. There is a much more winning percentage in these and I have the feeling that it should be easier to end up ITM in these.

I'll keep you posted!Dremeber

Tilt

The tittle says it all. Lost $60 in the last few days. With one MTT running, the br is standing on the nice round figure of zero!

I don't know what is happening and why I'm loosing. Have to analyze my game. Perhaps I need to starts playing single tables again.
Reaching the FT enough but I just can't get into the money. Loosing each race, running into sets and so on.

I downloaded a trial version of Sng wizard! Maybe that tool can me give me some insight in what I'm doing wrong!

Cheers,
Dremeber

Uhm?

Nothing much to report.
Stepping down is making me a profit but it is smaller than I hope for!
I still have to much swings in my game not getting ITM for 10 in-a-row and than cashing in the next three.

I have now played 32 games at the $3.40 buy-in and getting a ROI of around 19%. At least 6% below my target. But the good news is that my BR is back climbing. Also cleared 50% of my deposit bonus.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Where did my profit go? Did you see it?

Don't know what happened but I lost it. With IT I mean lots of things. Like my luck, the ability to learn poker, the ability to pick the right moment, my coolness and so on.

Yesterday I lost a staggering 80 bucks, which meant a decrease of my BR with more then 60%. WTF!!!
I tried playing 18 seaters, 45 seaters, 2 in one session, 4 in one session, and single tables. But nothing worked!

I cannot blame variance. I only should blame myself. Making incorrect decisions, using the all-in functionality to much (for sure a new leak in my game), afraid to play some opening hands. On the other side, each flush possibility against becomes a flush, the same with straights but what staggers me most is the number of sets I ran into, failing myself to hit one.

In the end I tried cash tables, where I did see my aces cracked, running into 4-of-a-kinds and so on. With other words: not a success!

So drastic measures has to be taken. Maybe you can compare it with the financial crisis. Maybe I was playing SNGs at a buy-in level where my BR wasn't adequate for. A loosing streak then immediately crushes it. Putting a higher pressure on you to get ITM the next one.
I still have $45 left. (Still plenty poker cash elsewhere but that's besides the point) So meaning that I could only play 6 more SNGs at the $6.50 level. If I step down a level or 2 and move back to the $3.40 level I could give myself 7 attempts more, so I should do that.
This also implies that I have to postpone my challenge at the $6.50 level but I'm confident that I can continue this after the summer holidays. In the old days I always started with a BR of around $50 and always played at this level and always made a profit in the end. The strange thing is that I'm still making a profit at the $6.50 level. $27 during 82 SNGs. I hope that stepping down will increase my confidence, my profit per SNG and in the end my overall profit.

But I have to put this beside me and focus on the game. Not playing more than 2 SNGs at the same time. Back to the basis!!

Cheers,
Dremeber

Blame it on the Stars

Well I'm recently undergoing a down swing. So as a result I didn't play a lot in the last few days. Probably a wise decision cause the Tilt monster was trying to catch me. Due to this down swing and a $50 withdrawal my BR decreased to a miserable $120. So less than 19 buy-ins left.

In stead of playing I did replay my last 8 SNGs to see if the down swing was caused by bad play or the RNG of Stars. Well I think I can blame it on the stars.

2 twice my Queens were beaten by a set of threes. 2 times well hidden and with a flop with all cards lower than my pocket queens. Maybe I should have discovered some signs but I didn't. The question which arise is if this is a bad beat or not. Personally, while my feelings do have another opinion, I don't think so. Most of the stack was pushed into the middle of the table post flop, when the set of 3s already were a fact. So my bad!

Other SNGs were destroyed due to donkey calls of the villains. With 6 people left at the table (so around 12 to 13 players left in the SNG) I got dealt AK. Cause my stack was less than 10 buy-ins I decided to push, to see some asshole calling with 67s. This call should have left him behind with a stack of 100, but he doubled his stack when the flop was 667, sigh. Okay, it is a race but still how can you call a push of a tight player (didn't play more than one hand before this) with 67s.
The other one did even hurt more. Situation is almost the same as above but this time I got called with a fucking 23s. Come on, get real. Stars should close down accounts for calls like this. A fucking 3 on the river sealed my faith.

I'm in a situation were I just can't win races, where the hole cards are rubbish and the donks get rewarded for their stupidity. 3 and even 2 outers are no exceptions. AQ gets beaten by Q2, with a 2 on the river and so on. I can say that I lost faith in the RNG of Stars.

I hope that lady luck thinks that I have been punished enough.
After 2 weeks I did clear some 30% of the FPPs needed to clear my bonus. 120 SNGs more to go before I get rewarded. Plenty of time left.

Maybe better the focus some more on the 18 seater, cause stats indicate that I should end up more ITM in these compared with the 45 seaters!

Cheers,
Dremeber

Slowly making some progress

While I stated in my last post that I probably was going to stick with the 18 seaters and put my investigation between the 18 and 45 seaters on hold, I did play 4 45 seaters yesterday evening and I'm glad I did. Only cashed in 1 of them but this was a second place so good for an overal profit of 34 bucks for the evening. Which is great for an amateur at my level. It could have been more but in 2 occasions I ran into AA with my queens. Bugger. Also in the SNG were I came in second I lost against a runner-runner-runner-runner flush. But it eases the pain when these happens heads-up and a second place is alreasy a fact!

This results also lifted my br above $200 at stars, long time that I did see such a figure there. Also a good thing is that I didn't bank any of these winnings. I probably will do when the BR raises above 250, but first I need to get there.

Besides the profit I cleared around 15% of my bonus. So that free $26 is coming closer. I know it is not a lot but for me its at the moment more than 10% of my BR.

I updated the stars on the right side. It is good to see that I made a profit of $122 in 53 SNGs. That's more than $2 per SNG. I can live with these figures. But with some hand of hand analysis, playing when I have time enough and stuff like that I should be capable of increasing this.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Did I find a leak in my game?

Well I hope so and I also hope that I closed the leak. After looking at my stats I came to the conclusion that I didn't reach the final table enough and you can't get ITM when you aren't sitting at the FT. Now what was the problem? I maybe took the play tight in the beginning of an SNG a little bit to strict. Now I try to loosen up my play when we are only with 5 peeps left at the table. And it appears to be working.
The intermediate goal now is to increase the percentage of FT finishes. At the moment it stands at 51.32% I like to increase this to a figure between 60 and 65%.

This evening I played 5 SNGs and the results were great, not super cause I failed to take one home one, but still great. The results: 5, 3, 10, 2, 2 (again) and 9.
Still a lot of SNGs has to be played to get a good idea of the my results on the 18 seaters but If this line continues it is ok for me. The stats on the right are updated!

The only thing is that I doubting now to switch to the 45 seaters. The idea was to play 50 of both of them and then decided where my results were best. Maybe now or then I will play a 45 seater to see if I can collect some decent data, but for the moment I have the feeling that I should stay at the 18 seater.

So maybe I did learn something by analyzing my play. Glad I did!

Cheers,
Dremeber