Set 4: Incredibly bad

Didn't see that coming for sure not after the excellent set 3. But set 4 delivered a loss of $14.10.
The strangest thing is that I reach in 17 occasions the FT. So I can only blame it on variance, not?

In did cash in 6 of them but not victory. Not even 1. 3 of my cashes were 4th places and that's almost the same as not ending up ITM. My average finishing position was 7,64. Almost the same as in set 3.
In 3 occasions I was the bubble boy, add to this 4 six places.

The good news is that in 80% of the cases that I pushed my chips to the middle of the table I was ahead. The bad news is that I did loose these pushes in 80% of the cases. Bummer. Nothing more I can tell about this. Also got my aces cracked twice in this set.

BR now is at $43.95. Set 5 will have to point me again in the right direction.

Cheers,
Dremeber

The way to go?

At the moment I was playing without a real goal. Like everybody the idea is to make some money but this is hard at the 18 seater of $1.75. I know I need to move up a level, but I had no idea when I should move up the level.

I did start playing the $1.75 stakes because my BR simply didn't allow me to play at a higher level. I do understand that the key in these games is simply patience. Even playing ABC poker can cause you to end up in a real mind field. It is not uncommon at these level that players do call a raise and re-raise of 500 chips with 57sm hitting the flop and crushing your mighty high pocket pairs.

Normal BR plans say that you should need around 20 to 30 buy-ins of the next level before moving up. Because I'm playing sets of 25 games I will alter this a little bit and create my own BR management.

First let's do some calculations:
2 sets of the 18 seaters at $1.75 costs $87.50
1 set of $1.75 and 1 set of $3.40 costs $128.75
2 sets of $3.40 costs $170.00

Every finishing a set I will look at my BR. If the BR is below $128.75 I will play at the $1.75 stake, if the BR is above $125 I will play at the $3.40 level. If after this set the BR is again below $125 I will drop back a level.
I know that a lot of people will disagree with this approach and if you do, feel free to post your ideas via a comment.

At the moment the BR is standing at $56. I expect to collect around $30 from the RTR syndicate. Lifting my BR around $90.
I hope that 1 can lift my BR above $125 after I finished 3 more sets. So this will be my short term goal.

And now a chapter with which many of you will disagree. At the moment I still have around $100 left on MB and around $30 on PKR. Besides trying to lift my BR at Stars, I should also try to lift my reserve BR. When I did reach the $3.40 stakes I will bank after each set of 25 games. I will bank half the profit, if made, of the set to MB.
There are several reasons behind this. One is described above, I do want to bank once in a while, and the other is that I don't know if I'm ready to move up another stake. I don’t know if my level is good enough. I know that the only way to find it out is to play at the level but cause I don't feel the urge to do so.

Feel free to spread your ideas about this post.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Set 3: That's more like it

While set 1 and 2 were coolers, set 3 was the complete opposite. It was good for a profit of $29.2, turning my figures from red into green.
On the overall I'm now having a profit of $25.40.

I did cash 10 times out of 25 and reached 15 FTs. I did win 3 of these, besides that I also had 3 second places.
In 3 SNG's I was out in place 17 or 18, which never should happen. All three of them I did get eliminated with high pair pre flop.
My average ending position was 7,48.

I tried to incorperate the advice in the comments, tightened my early game, loosing up when I did reach 10 BB or with only 5 players at the table.

Due to this great set, the BR is getting healthier. A little bit above $60. The mistake I do need to avoid is to move up to quickly in buy-in level. I should not do this without having a BR which supports at least 2 sets at the level, which are 50 buy-ins. Which is around $170. So a long way to go.

So, let's see how set 4 will evolve.

Some stats at the moment (probably all meaningless):
- set 1: -$0.55
- Set 2: -$3.25
- Set 3: $ 29.20
Overal profit: $25.40

Games played: 75
ITM: 28%
FTs: 53%
Average pr0fit per game: $0.34
Average ending position: 8.52

Cheers,
Dremeber

Set 2, did I lost it?

Mmmh, very surprised about this result. Again a loss.
Played again a set of 25 18 seaters ($1.75) and I did record a loss of $3.25. Only 12 FTs, that's 1 less as set 1. One miserable win. And 4 other paid places.

Tried to tighten my game in the early stages. But this brings some problems later on in the SNG when staying card dead, resulting in push fold games. And if then lady luck does not want to support you it becomes really hard. AA crackes by QQ, KK by 99, 999 by a river flush and so on. But this can't explain it all. So I have to lift my game to a next level.

Let's hope that set 3 will be better. The start was promising with 2 cashes out of 4 games, but the next 4 were crap again.

Cheers,
Dremeber

First set of 25, not a success

Surprisingly I did not make a profit in the first set of 25. I did had 6 cashes, 3 times I took it down. Still not enough to make a profit, in stead a loss of $0.55 is recorded. The problem is that once I have a decent stack I start playing to defensive. I know I should be more aggressive but ...
When I decided to increasethe aggressiveness I lost every race I had. So in my eyes a lot of misfortune but don't we all say this.

I should try to increase the number of FTs to around 65%. Thats somewhere around 15 FTs out of 25 games if I then can maintain my ITM of 50% when reaching the FT I should make a profit.

Let's see if set 2 will be better.

Cheers,
Dremeber

syndicate

I joined the $11 poker syndicate at RTR. The idea is that everybody plays 5 $11 MTTs. All the winnings will be put into a pot and shared amoung all the members which did play all 5 games.
At the moment I played 3 and did cash in ione. A great 96the place out of 2702 contenders. Good for $40. I'm glad that I could add some dosh to the pot.

Also trying to play a set of 25 games of the $1.75 18 seater. I need to find out what my best play ground is. I did want to try 6 seaters at a lower buy-in than the $3.40 one but there aren't any. So the 18 seater will be a good starting place. At the moment I did finish 8 of them. Cashing in 2, giving my at the moment an intermediate result of a loss of -$0.5. So some improvement is needed.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Here we go again

Didn't play a lot during the past weeks. The weather was to good and I just wasn't interested.
In stead of playing I was searching the net for a new laptop with a blu ray player. To bad for me but my specs made it to expensive. Let's see if I can collect some dosh with Poker. The target stands on $1000.

In the last 3 days I played 6 6 seaters, cashing in 5 of them. Not bad.
Will this be my new play ground? Don't know yet.

Will keep you posted.

Cheers,
Dremeber