Has to be in Portugal?

Today I arrived in Portugal !!!

To visit family, friends.... eat nice food and see if things get better in Poker, as this month has been terrible so far.

In the Netherlands, I've been trying to play cash mainly and when possible some tournaments, but I'm running bad.

Cash, definitely, I've to improve. I feel that my game is getting better, but besides the bad run, I've to be less impulsive, less aggressive, to be profitable.

MTTs, as said many times, is where I feel more comfortable, but lately I was feeling that wasn't playing my best game and the results were in general bad.

The exception happened last Sunday, when after playing bad in some of the chosen tournaments, and running bad on others, I had a good result in the 200k Guaranteed Double Deuce with a buy in of 22$.

After almost 8 hours of tournament I finished in 29th place out of more than 10 thousand players! Well, I have to consider that was a great result, but unfortunately, the prize structure is quite bad, and only received 372$. The prize for the first was 31k!

Decision: I'm not going to play this tournament again. Is too much time spent, for a very small prize.

Now in Portugal, life is different and I can play all night long, so is MTT time!

Arrived at home around 22:00 and start playing...

FTOPS are coming, so the plan was to play Satellites and one or another that could be interesting. Opposite to some of the well known Portuguese players, I'm not a multi-table player. I can feel that my results when multi-tabling are not as good as when focused on a single table. Because of that, I've to plan ahead which tournaments I'm going to play.

Do you know what is running bad? Running bad (and sometimes playing bad) is:

-To bet with QT on a flop with J97, hoping that my OESD (Open Ended Straight Draw) will be completed and the villain is holding T8.

-Standing in the BB with 94, have 4 opponents(limpers) on a flop with 945, bet the flop, to be called by one villain, to see an 8 in the turn. Of course, the villain has 67o.

-To be completely card dead, to bet with AJs and have a call. In a flop with King high, after the cbet (continuation bet) the villain doesn't fold and after deciding not to put in risk the tournament, checking until the end, the opponent shows a great K3. Later, already short, I moved all in with A6s against another short (not as much as me) player that bet in the button. Of course he has AK.

-Holding QQ, re-raise a player with stats like 50/30. Of course, that this time he has AA.

And to finish, the best one:

It was a 26$ tournament with 32k Guaranteed (around 7k to the first place). We were deep and I was feeling that I was playing solid poker. There were about 300 players left of a field of 1230 and I was placed in the top 20.

http://weaktight.com/2259476

What to do? I felt that I was playing good, and was a matter of not running so bad to have a good result.

So I continued! Let's try a new tournament... A Rush tournament with only 135 players.

Here is the result:

I have to admit, opposite to the rest of the night, in this one, I ran good!

No suckouts, kept playing focused and arrived at the Final table as chip leader.

Then kept calm, waited that they kill each other and then in the decisive phase, I started having great cards and didn't give any chance to my opponents. The Heads Up was easy with a very weak player and 5 minutes were enough to "kill" him.

More than the tasteful prize of 923$, this tournament was important to improve my confidence. Even after a series of tournaments running bad (and sometimes playing bad), I was able to keep playing my best game and have a good result! Great!!

I've become definitely adept of Rush tournaments, has it is fun and fast. 135 players and only 96 minutes to finish it.

Now the question is: Do I have to be in Portugal to have good results?

Well, at least I have about a week, to keep doing it here!

Cheers

March Up, April Down

Hello guys,

It's more than one month since last post, so I had to write something.

Let's start with March.

After the good result in tournament that I posted, I played a few more but without any good result. I felt that I was investing too much money in the tournaments, for low guaranteed prizes. It's the down side of playing during the day. Definitely, to play massively MTTs, you should play during night. For the same Buy-In, you can earn much more.

As result of this I spent more time playing cash.

Rush Poker. In the beginning the results were quite good, but then I had a downswing and felt that maybe my game was not good enough and was just a lucky start. I got affected by all and in the end, the final result was negative. Instead of trying to get better and wait to find out if it was just a downswing or some lack of skill/leaks of my game, I decided to stop.

So, what to do now? I could play only during the day, and was realizing that some of the possibilities weren't good. Let's try another approach!!

I decided to go back, once again, to PKR, the site that I call the aquarium as it is full of fishes. I made a deposit of 600$ and start grinding cash tables. Was an awesome week!!!

After all, finished the month with 2000€ net profit.

In the end of December, I had defined the ambitious goal to the 1st three months, 12k profit. Now, admitting that had also some luck, I can say that I got more than that, close to 20k !!

April

Although the first 3 months of the year were almost perfect, I have to keep my feet on earth and to know that it's not going to be always like this. There are swings and most of all, I have soooo much to learn!!

After some days on vacation in Sicily, I started playing only on 5th and I continued in PKR, but had and awful week. I lost big part of the profit that I had there in March and decided once again to think about my poker career.

The results of the thoughts are:

Full Tilt: I will be playing again NL50 6max. I feel that I can have good results there and I can improve a lot my game. Definitely has to be my starting point as a ring player. NL25 is too low, considering my bankroll and my experience and NL100, is probably to high for my experience (although I have bankroll for it). NL50 I feel I can beat it and just need to practice and improve a bit.

PKR: I can't play only there. The level in general is very low, but there are some decent regulars (at least for me) and all in one, I feel that my game doesn't improve there. As I played mid stakes there, the risk is also bigger. I will keep some money there and will play once in a while.

So, for this month goals will be:

To play 4 tables NL50 6Max (Monday to Friday).

To see at least one video per day of NL50 6max in DeucesCracked

To achieve at least 5 bb/100 in NL50 and then to move to NL100 (minimum 3ok hands)

MTTs: keep playing on Sundays and whenever I can play without pressure of the clock (or the girlfriend).

Profit goals at this moment is difficult to define, as It can influence my game and I don't want for now to feel this kind of pressure.

I felt that, after the 3 great months that I had, this month I started with some pressure (I put pressure on myself) and with the start of another downswing the pressure was getting bigger. So, once again, I have to admit, that I'm not a great player, and I can't put that pressure on me. I need to keep improving without pressure!

Cheers