Improv Blog

Didn't plan on writing this, as I have a lot of other writing that I'm behind on, but I figured I'd give a quick update.

As most of you know, I won the 50+5 25k Guarantee on Stars yesterday for just under 11k. It was a nice win, and I've gotten nothing but props from the FCP crew and others and for that I thank you. I also final tabled the 5r 25k Guaranteed and came in 7th earlier this week.

I will be posting blogs on both of those tournaments soon, and there will be a special blog for the win in the 50+5. As a result of my new record-keeping system, I have recorded every hand I played in the tournament up until the final table. I think my record-keeping at the final table got a little spotty because I was focused on the table and the chat with all of my railbirds, plus I'm pretty sure a lot of the people who are reading this blog were railing anyway, so they saw how I played.

I will, however, give a detailed summary of the entire tournament here, so you can "play a tournament with me" and get an idea of what I was thinking throughout the entire thing. I will warn you, though, that I got insanely lucky a few times in this thing, including a spike of a ten on the first hand of the final table to double up against AK with A-10.

Back to the blog...

I found today that I played like shit. I believe that as a result of my big win yesterday, my desire and determination to win faded temporarily. I found myself playing impatiently and recklessly, looking to either build an insanely huge stack early in the tournament or go home. Looking at the tournament lobbies, I would see that there were 900 or so people left in a tourney, and that even if I came in first, I would "only" get 5 or 6k. I just didn't have the drive to sit for hours and work my ass of for that amount when I had just won 11k.

There's a reason they say "you can't win a tournament in the first hour", and today I was proof of that, despite my best efforts. Indeed, I failed to prove it wrong, as in fact I won NONE of those tournaments in the first hour! I know, I'm as surprised as you are.

I am sitting now fairly certain that I've got my game back. I thought about it pretty hard today as I slowly leaked away a shit load of money, and I think I'll be ok.

In all, I played 11 tourneys today, 3 of them being satellites to the Sunday Million. I'll explain the reasoning behind that...

I woke up today about 11am Central Time, ready to play today. I was excited as today was going to be the first day that I would get to play in the "Sunday Majors" as they're called. The Sunday Majors are a collection of usually $200+$15 tournaments at the major online sites (Pokerstars, Ultimate Bet, Full Tilt, and Bodog) with huge prize pools and lots of players. I've never played in a single major, with the exception of the Sunday Warm-Up on Pokerstars last week.

I definitely feel like I have the game for them, it's not that I feel I'm outclassed. I just know that before today, my bankroll didn't really deem it appropriate to play in them routinely, so I avoided them.

However, I was excited about being able to play in them today. I only have money on Full Tilt and Pokerstars, so I was going to focus on them today. Pokerstars has 3 majors on Sundays (The Sunday Warm-Up, The Sunday Million, and the Sunday Second Chance) and Tilt has a couple as well. However, laying in bed, I realized that if I wanted to play in just a few of those every week, it would cost me around $1,000 per Sunday. Yes, I can technically play in them, but after about 5 or 6 weeks, if you add in the buy-ins I would spend during the week, I would be getting short of money without any big cashes.

Considering this, I decided that while I could handle buying in directly for awhile, I would still need to win some satellites whenever possible to get into the tourneys. It would make the most sense for my bankroll to not risk 10% of it every week playing when it's possible I would go five or six more weeks before my next score.

So I jumped into a few sats...good idea right? Not today.

0/3 in the last three satellites of the day to the Sunday Million, and I found myself down almost $160 without anything to show for it.

Great, now I had to buy-in direct to the Sunday Million, and I had missed the Sunday Warm-Up because of the damn satellites. So I just spent $375 to get into a $215 tournament.

That's REALLY great math Jess, you idiot.

lol of course I'm just kidding, it DOES make more sense for me to satellite in every week, as I have a great chance of winning plenty of seats in sats each week, it just so happens that it sucked today.

Other than that, I played in a couple $75 big tourneys on Full Tilt, a $55 and a $109 on Stars, the Sunday Million, the 3r on Stars, and the two Daily Doubles on Full Tilt. Zero cashes for the reasons I discussed above (I suck, obviously), and I ended the day down $728.30 and decided to stop the leaking and think about what was happening.

I've decided to keep going with the satellites to the Sunday Majors, and I'm also going to get some money onto Ultimate Bet and maybe Bodog to play some tourneys there, too.

I am going to focus now on tourneys with buy-ins between $20 and $100. Before, my range was anywhere from the 3r's to 30+3's, but I feel now I am going to move up and include the Full Tilt $69+$6's, the Pokerstars $50+$5's and $100+$9's, and satellites to the Sunday Majors.

I'll keep everyone updated on how it's going, and expect the blogs on the two final tables from this week whenever I get around to writing them. I have a feeling at least the $50+$5 one is going to be VERY long, although I'll try to keep it readable for you guys.

Deuces never looooses,
Jess

and if anyone is reading this and has money on Ultimate Bet and is willing to transfer for Stars money, please instant message me on AIM at FullTiltPoker316 or send me a private message at Full Contact Poker. I'm looking for a good amount (like 1k), but I'll take whatever I can get really.