How to dismantle an atomic bankroll

I don't know if this swing is self-induced or numbers-induced.

My life, as I'm sure you all know, is frustration. For the purposes of this post, we'll focus on poker and not my inability to effectively whittle.

I decided to more-or-less try something DEL and I have thought is a good idea for awhile now -- focus primarily on tourneys. So, although I was playing a ring game at the time and watching season 2 of Arrested Development, I blitzed through what seemed like a fuckton of 45-person tournaments (apparently, actually 7). I played them pretty much consecutively, started around 11 p.m. The top-sheet analysis:

-- NL Hold 'em --
$1.50+ $0.25
finished: 15th (of 18)

$1.00+$0.20
finished 18th, 30th, 9th, 19th, 27th

-- NL Omaha8 --
$1.00+$0.20
36th

Yup. I donked away $7.95 of David's money. Which wouldn't have been so bad -- hey, you don't finish ITM every time -- if I wasn't also in the process of dropping 100 BBs in a ring game. Over several hours, I was able to dwindle $4 down to $0. Definitely my worst day ever playing poker.

Details, you ask? Well, in the NLO8 tourney, I got beaten by the 1 hand which could beat me (I had the 2nd-best full house.)

The one I'm most pissed about is the 9th-place finish. I was 2nd in the chips in a runaway (after, admittedly, getting decent cards and doubling up with the best hand more than once). We were down to 10 players, which means 5 at each table until the 10th-place person busts out. Maybe it was the short-handed pressure. I don't know what happened -- impatience? -- but I think a non-horrible beat did me in.

PokerStars Game #3684914655: Tournament #18292337, Hold'em No Limit - Level VII (100/200)
2006/01/19 - 02:31:40 (ET)
Table '18292337 5'
Seat #9 is the button
Seat 8: Grey IV (9933 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Grey IV [8s As]
Grey IV: raises 450 to 650
z00eyglass: calls 550

*** FLOP *** [2s Qs Ks]
z00eyglass: checks (habitual move on all streets for this weakish player)
Grey IV: bets 650 (sweet! nut flush! must ... extract...value...)
z00eyglass: raises 1465 to 2115 and is all-in (...or not)
Grey IV: calls 1465

*** TURN *** [2s Qs Ks] [7h]

*** RIVER *** [2s Qs Ks 7h] [Kc]

*** SHOW DOWN ***
z00eyglass: shows [Qh Kd] (a full house, Kings full of Queens)
Grey IV: shows [8s As] (a flush, Ace high)
z00eyglass said, "sweet"
z00eyglass collected 5855 from pot
Grey IV said, "Wow"

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5855 Rake 0
Board [2s Qs Ks 7h Kc]
Seat 2: z00eyglass (small blind)
showed [Qh Kd] and won (5855) with a full house, Kings full of Queens
Seat 8: Grey IV showed [8s As] and lost with a flush, Ace high

Who am I kidding? That's a shitty beat. A 4-outer to the boat. But it shouldn't have been a big deal. I still had ~7000 in chips, well above-average. I probably should've just folded into the money. At least then I'd have had something to show for my time...

Without too much detail, I slowly bled chips for the next few orbits. My blind-stealing wasn't working nearly as well as it had been; I was getting played back at a lot more, which makes this weak-tight idiot have to fold a lot of flops.

Looking back at my final hand now, I definitely can't understand what I was thinking. Maybe it was the fact that it was the same person that had sucked out on me. (This person was also the big table bully, picking up lots of pots.) I called a standard means-nothing 3xBB bet preflop with QTh. I bet out 1500 into the 3,000 pot on a 5-4-2 flop, a standard bet that often folds people. But zooeyglass pushed all-in, which I guess should have been my first clue. I was pretty committed by the time, though, and figured it could easily be a bully move that zooeyglass had used before. So I called.

Me: QhTh.
ZG: AcAd.

I did pick up a redraw to a heart flush on the turn (a 3rd ace), but a river blank sealed it. It took me only 16 hands after that beat to donk away my stack. Had I simply folded, I still would've had approx. 6,000 chips.

That's by far the most interesting one. In my others, I:
-- checked J4 in the blind and flopped 5-3-4. This was an uber-weak table, so I went all-in, figuring I had a good chance at the best hand anyway with no aggression being shown. Even if I got called, I reasoned, they'd have to pair their high cards. The 1 caller, unfortunately, had 67. And I even turned a set. Probably a risk I shouldn't have taken, but hey, everyone was folding to aggression...
-- severely shortstacked, I went all-in on a J-6-9-J-9 board with Q7 since it had been checked all the way down. Guy flips over Q9. WTF?
-- Actually, this may be the worst beat of all: Early on, I've got a good stack and I'm controlling the table well. I flop bottom top 2 pair (KT) on an A-K-T flop with 1 guy all-in. I get another person with a slightly larger stack than me nearly all-in with some aggressive betting. She flips A3 (sooted), and proceeds to catch 4-4 to out-2 pair me. Monster pot lost; I finish 30th.
-- Wow. I looked at this again, and I went "What an idiot!" Then I realized "Grey IV" is me. I get all-in with pocket 6s on a Q-8-5 board. Guy had a Q. I guess, again, I "knew" he was full of it. He bet and raised almost every pot, which is how he was the chipleader. On the plus side, I awesomely overplayed wired 6s.
-- I lost AK to AQ.

Random shit
* I hate it when they pair their kicker. I get money in the pot, betting and raising, with, say, AT on a 10-high board. Homeboy is playing T3 for multiple bets, which is great. Until the 3 comes on the river. (This has been happening all the time to me lately in ring.)
* Overcards. My pocket pair or top pair is terrified of the face cards on the board. While it's usually a good bet some idiot is holding onto his A4 for whatever reason, it's harder to ajudge when the turn's a Q. I'm trying not to fold to this irrational fear, but not folding is a surefire way to risk more bets.
* I wish I could tell more easily when I can fold people with aggression, esp. in limit. Some hands, I get called down all the way. Some hands, just betting quickly every street seems (seems) to make the other guy fold by the river (unless he connected with his hand, of course). Which segues into...

Reads. They're important. Not catching the Matador's secret twitch or KGB's Oreo trick, but being able to put guys on a range of hands, the likelihood that they played the hand this specific way, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, remembering how they've played similar hands before (or more accurately, when they've played in this fashion before, what'd they have?)

I'm bad at this. Part of this is because I don't try that hard. (That's a familiar refrain.) Part of it is because people get up and down a lot at full ring. But mostly I like doing other things while I'm on the computer. It's hard to pay attention to a guy using his full 20 seconds to fold when Gob is COCK-A-CAWing in a window right next to it.

Improved focus would improve my play. I don't know if it's a gift or a skill, reading players well. And I think there are real logical holes in it, despite the awesomeness of the skill of guys who make reads for thousands of dollars -- the JCarvers and such that I so desperately wish to emulate. (That's a post I need to make.) The real masters of the poker universe.

"This is a good move to make against X type of player. But if he'll call you all the way down, don't do it."

It's not that I don't understand the concepts -- I do. If I know who's across the table, I know how to play it. But having an accurate read on who's around me? That's tough.

But do I want to put in the effort to read well? Hell, sometimes I just think I should play robotic ABC poker -- use Sklansky's system, Adar's robotic 10+1 guide, Kill Phil ... something. It should be profitable (at least marginally) and I wouldn't have to worry about pissing away my whole bankroll.

And then there's 6-max, which would allow my calling-station ways to be more profitable (with larger swings).

=====================================================

I sat down at a table as I started to write this entry. My first hand dealt:

PokerStars Game #3685505757: Hold'em Limit ($0.02/$0.04) - 2006/01/19 - 04:59:40 (ET)
Table 'Elephenor'
Seat #9 is the button
Seat 8: Grey IV ($4.03 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Grey IV [4s 4d]
tsar777: folds
tiqua: calls $0.02
!L0neW0lff!: calls $0.02
gofio1: folds
Malibou: raises $0.02 to $0.04
Grey IV: calls $0.04 (PITR: "Oh, those fishy Stars players and their pocket pairs they can't help but make unprofitable coldcalls with preflop!" Okay, the usual critcism of fish like me is "They call all the way to the river" with PPs. Which I am also totally guilty of.)
kustomwood: calls $0.04
PizzaCalzone: folds
bb1365: calls $0.02
tiqua: calls $0.02
!L0neW0lff!: calls $0.02

*** FLOP *** [5d 4c 9c]
bb1365: checks
tiqua: checks
!L0neW0lff!: checks
Malibou: bets $0.02
Grey IV: calls $0.02 (I could've/probably should've raised here, but I wasn't trapping anybody between for multiple bets. I honestly thought I would get more callers to 1 bet than 2, increasing my sure profit when I awesomely win this hand. And, I told myself, the board is relatively draw-free -- I'm really only worried about higher pocket pairs. Of course, as soon as I called -- oops -- I noticed "Oh yeah, 2 clubs." I'm the shit.)
kustomwood: calls $0.02
bb1365: calls $0.02
tiqua: calls $0.02
L0neW0lff!: folds

*** TURN *** [5d 4c 9c] [6c]
bb1365: checks
tiqua: checks
Malibou: bets $0.04
Grey IV: raises $0.04 to $0.08 (Now is definitely the time to get rid of/make pay the douches with 1 club in their hand -- if, indeed, someone didn't flush up right here on the turn) kustomwood: calls $0.08
bb1365: calls $0.08
tiqua: folds
Malibou: raises $0.04 to $0.12
Grey IV: raises $0.04 to $0.16: Betting is capped (Gamboooooooooooooool)
kustomwood: folds
bb1365: calls $0.08
Malibou: calls $0.04

*** RIVER *** [5d 4c 9c 6c] [5h]
bb1365: checks
Malibou: bets $0.04
Grey IV: raises $0.04 to $0.08 (How luckbox am I, I housed up -- only 99, 66 or 55 can beat me)
bb1365: folds
Malibou: raises $0.04 to $0.12
Grey IV: raises $0.04 to $0.16: Betting is capped
Malibou: calls $0.04

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Grey IV: shows [4s 4d] (a full house, Fours full of Fives)
Malibou: mucks hand
Grey IV collected $1.23 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1.23 Rake $0
Board [5d 4c 9c 6c 5h]
Seat 7: Malibou mucked [Ac Qc]
Seat 8: Grey IV showed [4s 4d] and won ($1.23) with a full house, Fours full of Fives
Ouch. Nut flush, too. I got horribly bad-beat, if you'll recall, with a flopped on earlier in the day.


And as I was typing that hand up, I rivered the nut flush with pocket aces. My opponents had 56 offsuit (and never paired with a gutshot straight draw) and KJ offsuit (King of the flush suit). I left the table up $1+ over like 15 hands. (I was up like $1.25 -- Jesus, I'm a cash leak.)

It is cyclical.

Goals:
* Tighten up more in ring play. If I could "make back" my $4, that would make me feel very good. (Even though you're not supposed to view your bankroll this way.)
* Before going on a tourney spree again, read up on some strategy. It's possible I'm not being aggressive enough around the bubble.
* Gap concept. Gap concept. Gap concept.
* Maybe read throught a couple of systems for tourney play. See what they eludicate.

I was up about $15 on Stars. Now? $4.07.

Net profit: $12.47 ($4.07 Stars, $8.40 FTP)
ROI: 6.4%