Sorry I haven’t updated over the weekend, I have had some holiday parties to go to.

I just got finished playing a 3000+ field tourney on Stars and I am really pleased with the way I played. I just barely cashed, but that is not the point. I was dealt KK in the first 20 minutes and after that I got AQo once. Both hands, I might add, I lost. But yet somehow I still managed to cash even without any premium hands.

I was just simply pushing when I could, and I never got called. I was around 6-15 bb’s for about the last hour and a half that I played out of 3 and a half hours of tournament play. I made a couple -ev folds (from a chip equity standpoint) on the bubble where I probably could have pushed, but at the that point in time I only had 8 bb’s and thought the pushes could easily be called and I felt it was actually better to fold as there was less than 10 people to the money.

Outside of that, I have also been playing more 5 card draw cash games. As of right now, I have logged a total of 14 virtual hours (multi-tabling). I am winning just shy of 4 BB’s an hour. Take away one poor session, and I would be making over 5 BB’s an hour.

My account is slowly starting to creep back up as I now have over $1400 at Pokerstars.

I just got finished playing the $4.40 Limit Draw MTT on Stars for the second night in a row, and for the second night in a row I walk away as the winner. Tonight I bested a field of 120 for another $144.

When I got to the final table I was chipleader but I had my doubts. I really didn’t like my table position based on the stacks or the players’ styles. I slipped down to last place with four people left, only to change my strategy.

After a long fought battle at the final table I made it headsup with a 5-4 chip deficit. Then I played one of my tougher HU’s. Not only due to the opponent, but every time I seemed to put him in, he would have a slightly better hand than me. To take a quote from rounders, he truly had alligator blood. It was back and forth a ton, and at one point I had my whole stack in the middle to only get lucky to outdraw his hand. That would be the one and only time my chip stack was put all in for the whole tournament.

I am really pleased with my play, and though it is not for the amounts of money that I have played for in the past, I am excited to win two in a row!

After a couple more days off, just working on this site and trying to catch up at work, (yes I do have a daytime job, though I would like to change that one day) I decided to go back to the usual tournaments. I just STILL can not catch a break.

The mathematical definition of variance from Wikipedia:

In probability theory and statistics, the variance of a random variable, probability distribution, or sample is one measure of statistical dispersion, averaging the squared distance of its possible values from the expected value (mean). Whereas the mean is a way to describe the location of a distribution, the variance is a way to capture its scale or degree of being spread out. The unit of variance is the square of the unit of the original variable. The positive square root of the variance, called the standard deviation, has the same units as the original variable and can be easier to interpret for this reason.

In poker Lehman’s terms, it is the luck factor that could make one win or lose more than expected over a specific sample size (ex: 20 tournaments) as compared to what the expected Return on Investment (ROI) from a given game is for that player.

To say the least, I am on the wrong end of variance when it comes to tournaments since before my break and again today. I could sit here and give you a laundry list of what I am talking about, but I don’t want to go there. This is not meant to be a “bad beat” blog. I just have recently really questioned why I spend all the time I do thinking about the game and if this time would be better served thinking about something else. Especially when some clueless guy, probably playing poker for the first time, beats me out of another pot on some crazy luck.

I have sat here and erased at least 3 paragraphs as I decide which direction to take this blog post. I really am at a loss for words. I currently just don’t play enough to let these beats not bother me. If I could play more games at a time, and be more encouraged to do so, then maybe the skill factor will overturn the bad luck at the tables.

After all, the saying is “anyone one can win any given night, but the better players will win over the course of a month, a year or 10 years.”

I really need to take a more objective view with my poker playing. I need to be less results-oriented and be happy when I get my money in ahead. I have been listening to some cash plays recently and I really admire the way Bart Hanson is able to take the point of view he does and be completely deterred from being results-oriented. That outlook is one I am trying to reach, and I hope that I can get there one day.

It is just another thing to add to the “need to learn” list before I can become the player I strive to be.

Until next time, I hope you are running better than me.

So at the beginning of my BR goal, when I was hovering around $100, one thing that catapulted me up to about 1k pretty quickly was the $4.40 limit 5 card draw MTT on Pokerstars at 9:30pm est.

My average finish in this tournament is probably in the money, or at least close to it. It is really easy to cash, the play is just poor. I have taken it down quite a few times. The money is just nothing great, and I feel like I could be spending my time doing something else for better money. For 3 hours of play, I only average around $12 profit.

The thing about this tournament is right when there are 2-3 tables left, the blinds are so high compared to the average stack that it really becomes a crap shoot especially if you are not lucky enough to be the table chipleader.

I decided to play it again tonight for the first time in about 3 months. I started off pretty bad, being used to the play in 5/10 cash, I had to get accustomed to the play. At one point I was left with 1.5 BB’s. A couple of hours later, I finished in 6th place for another final table appearance.

Not bad, but I am not really happy with the result. First, it was for only $24. Second, I was chipleader for the majority of the tournament during the middle stages (after my poor start).

Once I lost the chip lead at my table when we were about 18 players deep, I had to rely more on the cards, and they really just never came. I tried to stay active, but things just weren’t working out.

Oh well it was fun. It will probably be another 3 months until I play it again, just due to the disappointed money up for grabs. I wish Stars would offer a WCOOP 5 card draw LIMIT mtt. They offer PL, and that is a totally different game in itself, one that I don’t have much experience in.

BR note: $3229.96