Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Slowly but surely, building the bankroll back up

I have made a commitment to myself to slowly build my bankroll back up. After being drained by cash games in May, I threw $50 in and I'm starting off with $5.50 SnGs on FT. The progress so far is fairly good, after a few non-cashes the roll slipped down to around $30ish, I won 2, and finished 2nd in another. Bankroll stands at $71 currently and I will strive to play at least 1 $5.50 SnG everyday until the roll is up to around $200. At 200 I will switch over to $10 SnGs and build back up that way.

I'd like to say I've been playing better, but I don't feel like I have, still relying a little too much on luck and not thinking things though enough. Here are some hands from the SnG last night.

First hand, button. A-Ko. 3 limps, so I put in a big raise of 5x the BB. 2 callers, naturally.

Flop comes 10 high, with 2 clubs. Checks to me, and I stick out a half pot bet. EP folds, guy to my left min-raises. At this point my thinking is giving him way too much credit on the hands he could be min raising me with. I'm thinking maybe hes semi-bluffing with 4 to a flush or something so I just call.
Turn comes a 4s. I decide to push since I think I can get him to fold a non-scary turn. Well he thinks for a smidgeon then calls with Q-10 off. Fortunately for me, an A rivers me a better hand.

I seem to have trouble determining in low limits what players will raise with. He obviously thought Q-10o was the nuts on the flop even though I put in a big raise and half potted the flop. It seems like I can be a sounder player at low limit SnGs if I just play basic non-bluffing poker, i mean he was willing to throw chips in there with just TPSK, so I would have been golden with J-J through A-A. This strategy comes in to play in the rest of my hands.

After this hand I raised only my good hands, and folded to big bets from the rest of the calling stations.

Second hand I played, about 5 after the first, I had A-A. Raise 4x BB since Im pretty sure I'll pick up 1 or 2 callers, just 1 limps this time.
Flop is some non-scary J high flop. I bet half pot again and limper quickly calls.
Turn is an A. I decide to trap this guy and hope he has some kind of hand he wants to bluff me off with, so I check. Luckily this guy bets 1k, leaving 300 behind. So I put him all-in. He turns up A-J, and I show my set. 6K chips, 2 people gone and its just the first level.

The rest of the field was donktastic, the two people directly to my left were uber-calling stations. They called ANYTHING with ANYTHING. 5X raise? Call. So I played very conservatively. Raised with pairs and A-K, A-Q in position, folded everything else not in position.

A curious hand arose when I had K-K. I put in the standard 4x bet, UCS calls flat. Flop is a kinda scary J,9,8 with 2 clubs. I check. UCS Checks behind. Turn brings another 8. I check again, UCS bets half pot, I call. River is an A. I check, he pushes all-in. Now if this were a good player I would have re-raised the turn, but having this guy show absolutely no-agression what-so-ever and him showing down some pretty crappy hands I figure he couldnt have slow-played Q-10, he would have raised the flop. A more likely holding is J-8 or A-8, i lean towards A-8 due to the all-in bet on the river which was more than the pot by a sizeable margin. So I folded K-K.

Eventually it got down to 3 handed after 1 UCS took out the other UCS. The other person in at least had a clue about playing agressive, because he would attempt to steal my BB more than the UCS's BB. I re-raised him back one time when I had A-7o and that put an end to his steals for a little.

UCS lost about half his chips to me when I got him to call a top pair, non scary flop for me, then put him all-in on the turn. He folded, being crippled.

Heads up, me and the semi-aggressive guy went toe to toe. I raised a bunch and he folded. When he raised every now and then and I had crap, I folded.

The penultimate hand, I had J-5hh and raised. He raised all-in for like 3k, so I called. And he showed A-9hh. 5 on the flop wins it for me.

So lucky on the first hand, lucky on the last. Better playing by me in-between. If I could just read people a little better Id be on my way.

Watched the Celts win, and the Phillies lose. Hopefully Phillies win it tonight.

3 comments:

SirFWALGMan said...

i try and play the SNGs with less c-bets because these guys like any blackjack hand (totalling 20 or more). Last night i won my sng with some people great calls pre- w/ A2 i outflop him with KQ 2 PAIR and he calls off his entire stack. keep tight.

also 200 might be a little short for 11$'s. Lotta variance in these. good luck.

1Queens Up1 said...

Thanks Waffles, good info!

Unknown said...

Hi.
I had a similar project last year. Started with $5 and slowly played made it into $1500. I played exactly like you, so I am sure you will succeed and that you have just been hit by variance.
Michael
www.pokerbankrollblog.com