Now I Remember Why I Don't Run a Bunch of MTTs
Now that the challenge is over, I have been mixing it up, playing single table S&Gs, and last night a bunch of MTTs. I ran the 8k on FullTilt, the 4k on bodog, a 180p S&G on Stars, a $20 MTT on Stars, and a small MTT on WorldPx. I ended up getting through more than 1/2 the field in all 5, but no cashes. That puts me down $91 for the night. It is pretty rare that I will drop that much in one night in cash games, but I think you need to expect that if your running all MTTs. So you have to survive a bunch of nights like that, until you get the big score that makes up for it. Thats pretty tough mentally. I will probably stick with S&Gs for a while, and maybe run 1 or 2 MTTs a night.
There are a lot of bloggers out there, who post huge MTT results, and claim that they are winning MTT players, but they are pretty silent about all of the buy-ins that were required before the big score. It would be really cool if someone would do a MTT challenge that detailed the daily wins/losses when playing only MTTs, so I can get a feel for how they deal with the day after day of losing before the big score. It would also be very interesting to see someone calculate thier hourly win rate when playing only MTTs. I would imagine that it is much smaller than most people realize.
The play was absolutely awful in all of them in the early stages (first 1 1/2 hrs). I need to adjust my game a little bit for this. I had a guy call a pot sized turn bet with 23o when a 2 showed up on the turn. That's 4th pair worst kicker for those scoring at home. It beat my A high bluff that wanted an orphan pot, but come on. How often is that the right call? On another hand a guy open limped from UTG, then called a my 5x raise (I had QQ). When an Ace flopped, I c-bet and got called, then checked it down the rest of the way. He had A6o, and should have folded preflop twice, and then should have made some kind of a raise or bet after flopping 2-pair. The hands I was not in had all kinds of horrible plays. I guess you just wait for a hand and overbet cause these guys can't fold.
I was doing pretty well in the 180p on Stars, until a very interesting hand below happened.
PokerStars Game #6351743014: Tournament #32220785, $20+$2 Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (100/200) - 2006/09/20 - 02:36:20 (ET)
Table '32220785 10' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: peterlawler (3290 in chips)
Seat 2: DAYTIMER (2650 in chips)
Seat 3: AugustXII (7905 in chips)
Seat 4: Blinders (4075 in chips)
Seat 5: zagagolfer15 (1360 in chips)
Seat 6: TCPLUMBER (4400 in chips)
Seat 7: mgpferreira (2945 in chips)
Seat 9: thechron1 (6090 in chips)
TCPLUMBER: posts small blind 100
mgpferreira: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Blinders [As Kh]
thechron1: calls 200
peterlawler: folds
DAYTIMER: folds
AugustXII: calls 200
I need to raise here to get down to 1 or 2 opponents, or just take it down.
zagagolfer15: folds
TCPLUMBER: folds
mgpferreira: folds
thechron1: folds
AugustXII: calls 600
Now thats quite a flop. I have the nut flush draw and 2 overs. Thats 15 outs, If I am behind, but there is a good chance I am still ahead as well. AA and KK are not likely holdings of my opponent, so all my outs should be good. I am thinking, how can I get all of my money in with this hand.
AugustXII: checks
Blinders: bets 1000
AugustXII: raises 6105 to 7105 and is all-in
Well looks like AugustXII is going to help me get the chips in. The push makes it very unlikely he has much more than a pair. My 15 outs are probably good, and I should have a 60% chance minimum of winning the hand, and am getting 3-1 pot odds to call. The win would put me at about 9k in chips, which would be well above par. I think this is an obvious call. Let me know if anyone thinks otherwise.
Blinders: calls 2275 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [3s Ts 8s] [4d]
*** RIVER *** [3s Ts 8s 4d] [6h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
AugustXII: shows [Td Qc] (a pair of Tens)
Blinders: shows [As Kh] (high card Ace)
AugustXII collected 8650 from pot
Well, I missed my outs and IGHN. I still like my play. What about the other guy who won the pot. Anyone like the way he played it? He is the table chip leader, and I have enough chips to cause him some major problems.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 8650 Rake 0
Board [3s Ts 8s 4d 6h]
From the villans perspective he did the following.
Limped from EP with QT0 (not a great play in my book)
Called a 4x raise from me preflop (I am way to tight preflop for him to make that call, what is he hoping to flop? Plus I am getting close to pot committed already)
Flopped top pair (Queens) with a T kicker, and then check raised me all-in. (why not lead out to see where you stand. I could have AA, KK, QQ, AQ, KQ, As Xs ( all of which has him dominated. When I bet the 1,000, I am pretty much pot committed, so I am not folding if I have any piece of that flop, so why push?)
Anyway, he won. Nice hand sir, but this is the play of the table chip leader when we are down to 60 players.
posted by Blinders @ 8:37 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
What can you do? He made a horrible play calling out of position with such marginal hand, and the he got lucky you didn't catch up when you were a favorite. I like your play, and that's the kind of hand that gets you far in an MTT when you actually catch and double up...
The thing about MTTs is the luck factor is inherently higher than cash games. On the other hand, the reward is large. I keep a ledger with my buy-ins and cashes in MTTs (since I play them almost exclusively) and this year, I had four straight losing months. All of which were wiped out by a 3rd place finish in the Paradise Re-buy.
So, it's a psychological thing. You have to be able to withstand periods of emptiness, knowing that when your time comes, you'll make up for those times.
I'm low stakes. I very rarely play a tourney with more than a $30 buy-in. Thing is, some of those low buy-in tourneys have huge payouts (re-buys especially) for the top slots. You can get into the $20K on FT for as little at $6 while first place is over $6K. That's a lot of buy-ins.
That said, winning these things is hard. All you can do is repeatedly put yourself in position to win them. And be able to deal with the soul-sucking lulls when you don't.
Great post (came to it late from Hoy's link) and great question. I am not one of those who thinks he is a great MTT player. I am one of those who has been posting results though, so I thought I should comment.
I use my blog as a way to keep motivated in the face of daunting odds. I don't do nearly enough book keeping, but I have one thing working in my favor - I have never cashed out any money from my net-teller account. Because of that I know two things: I started poker by going 1200 in the red. That lasted from December 2005 to May 2006. This summer things came together and I have final tabled 5 times at large field MTTs and cashed about 5 or 6 other times, for a total just over 5k. Once I deduct the 1240 I was in the hole for, I'm left with the knowledge I have been able to make some money playing MTTs in the last three months.
But you're absolutely right, the time committment has been sizable, and from an hourly rate point-of-view, I won't quit the day job. I am from Hoy's school of thought. I play cause I really love the game and the strategy aspect of MTTs. The money is great, but the ego stroke really does it for me, as dumb as that may be.
Plus I am a terrible cash and S&G player. I have documented evidence on both of those realities. So, donkaments it is.
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