I Just Totally Had It Coming

On Sunday afternoon, I was in the middle of writing a post about my future bankroll management, goals and plans for getting there. As you might have realized after reading my previous post on the blog, I was busto.

From what I had already written, it clearly stood out that after I reach a certain level at Heads Up cashgames which would be my primary game, I would start setting aside a separate bankroll for the MTT-s. Furthermore, I would need to have at least 100 buy-ins for the tournaments I wanted to play and that I would NOT play the high stakes+variance tournaments way over my bankroll ever again.

By the way, this is exactly what busted my roll last time – playing a couple of FTOPS events followed by every other high stakes Sunday event … and not cashing in any.

There I was, huge goals and ambitions running through my head and writing up my post. At the same time, I was also reading an article, browsing a few forums and thinking of watching the American Idol Season 8 Finale, which had aired earlier that week. I was having mixed feelings of sorrow and rage about the latter, though. The Season Finale that I’d so patiently been waiting for and some f—ing ad to a stupid idiot gossip webpage managed to spoil the whole show to me, revealing the winner.

It was then that I saw a post on the forums about some people playing the Sunday Million that night. I figured – what the hell, I’d been paid a few days earlier so I’ll just deposit $100 and try to hit a few satellites. Long story short, I obviously ended up depositing $600 total (which is the max on Stars within 24h) and playing quite a few tournaments.

First, I had a fairly deep run in the Sunday Warm-up until this hand occurred. I managed to run the remaining 2BB up to 16-17 BB again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until the final hand which ended my journey. I clearly should have just 3-bet shoved there. I finished 143/3780, scooping a disappointing $794.

Now, having drunk four Red Bulls, calling it a day and going to bed was not an option. Furthermore, after a fairly deep run and nice moral support from all the Estonian railbirds, I was as pumped up as ever. Thus, it was time to look for something else to play. Sunday Second Chance was coming up shortly, where I had an impressive 1205/1206 finish. However, it was the $109 NL Hold’em [$100,000 guaranteed] that soon brought the railbirds out again. This time, it was already down to two tables and I was doing just fine. Sadly, when it was down to 13 players, this hand occurred and I had to settle with $871, finishing 13/1089. Would anyone have played it any different?

Although I had a few other minor cashes on smaller tournaments and was generally quite pleased with my play, the “close but no cigar” feeling after playing all through the night until 12:30 PM the next day was a bit annoying. I decided to stay up to get my sleep pattern right, watched the American Idol Season Finale (which was not as good as last year’s but still damn awesome) and just pretty much chilled until I finally passed out, thinking that I might be playing the Nightly Hundred Grand next morning.

I woke up early next morning with the laptop on my side and the first thing in my mind was: “I’m going to make it happen today”. I started out with a $109 ($50,000 guaranteed) as a warm-up. Didn’t quite make it.

The Nightly Hundred Grand started out slow. I had managed to build an above average stack half way in the tournament. However, after my KK was beat by a JJ in a pre-flop all-in, I was down to 1/2 average. At around 140 players left (99 places paid), I had the smallest stack. Having played quite a lot of satellites in the past, I really think I had a slight edge at that stage of the tournament, though. After some push and fold play, I had secured a place in the money and was sailing towards the final table.

I’d really like to thank the PokkeriProd.com community who started railing me when there was 2-3 tables left. I really feel this helped me maintain my A-game, which I’ve  had serious issues with in the past.

In the Final Table bubble, I was clearly one of the underdogs with my 10BB stack. However, I suppose I had a pretty good run of cards when I needed it most and before I knew it, I was back in business. I was acutally third out of six with a couple of very short stacks in the play when this happened, finishing me off 6th for $5450.63. As you can see from the stack sizes, I could’ve quite possibly folded into at least 4th place, securing an extra $4k. However, I had made the decision of going for the first for $24k.

The SB in the hand had a big chiplead and was 3-betting very light. When I raised my TT from the button, I had no doubt he would re-raise. Thus, I’d decided to call and get the chips in the middle in case of a small flop. The hand went down exactly as planned, except for what the opponent was holding. I’d very much appreciate some feedback on this hand in the comments section.

I haven’t really made the decision yet but I’m pretty sure most of the winnings of the last two days will probably become my MTT bankroll. This is because I won’t be needing much money for my HU cash project as I’ll be starting from the lowest possible stakes and moving up or down (hopefully not) according to the winnings.

As for the HU project and everything else, I will soon  elaborate on and definitely keep you updated. All the best and stay tuned!