Spare time

Well my teacher/professor is overseas in the UK to teach some courses there, so I'll have next week's classes off. If you know me, then you know that translates into more poker time. I do, however have a midterm to do over the time he's gone, so I've got to make sure I remember that.

I recently ordered Small Stakes Hold'em and Stox Poker's book from Pokerstars' FPP store, and they arrived yesterday only after a few days of placing the initial order. Ace on the River is also on it's way. I've always loved Pokerstars' customer service and the speed of everything they do. Best in the business.

Anyways, like I said, I'll have plenty of time to read the books in the next two weeks, and they'll hopefully help shed a new light on FLHE to put me back on track to a winning record. I've already read about a quarter of SSH, and it's exactly what I was hoping for. StoxTrader's book is geared for high stakes, and I may have to put that one off for a bit until I get all the basics down.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I stopped playing FLHE for a bit because I was on a bad run. I've played a few tourneys since, and while I feel I'm playing well, I haven't had great results. Last night I played a few, going deep in a $4/180, nearly winning a $10/18 and also going fairly deep in a $3 rebuy.

In the $10, I nearly came back from a ~4:1 chip defacit heads up against a loose-passive monkey, but ended up losing in a standard AQ vs AK all in preflop. Nothing I could do about that and I was happy with my play.

I also played very well in the $4/180. I ran so well throughout I'm surprised I didn't win it. I hit 2 sets in smallish pots that turned huge, picked up monsters at just the right times, and picked my spots very well by my standards with steals. As the tourney reached the final three tables, I was stealing and getting stolen from; not moving up or down with my stack much, and eventually reached a point where my stack got to an M of 8 or 9. I picked up KK in the BB, a LP player stole, and I ended up getting my money in vs AJ, which hit an ace.

Regardless what happened that hand, I feel I overplayed it a little. There's no question I was getting my money in with KK, but I feel I could have gotten more value from some of the lesser holdings he could have had.

Anyways, I also played the 10k guaranteed $3+R twice. The first time I played well and ran into another hand, but the second was a little different. Again, I felt I played well throughout, bringing myself up to one of the top 10 stacks (of ~2000 runners) at one point, but misplayed one hand that turned out to be my downfall. Discussion of the hand is still going on here.

Thankfully my winnings from the $10 covered my losses from the other MTTs, but I'm really getting antsy here. My bankroll keeps dwindling and I'm banking on a final table or two very soon. My play still needs work, but I'm still playing well enough to reach a FT.

On a side note, I'm considering more changes. One of them is actually moving money to Party. Vanq and Rex have been having some great successes there, and the MTT fields look like they're much smaller than PS's. Right up my alley.

Another thing I'm considering is quitting turbos for a while. Playing the regular speed tourneys is making me realize just how much more play there is in between blind levels, and this can only help a player who has any significant edge over his opponents. Players who have more knowledge over ICM and inflection points have the edge in turbos, but players with postflop skills and patience have the edge in the regular speed tourneys. I'm sick of playing preflop poker, and the regulars are just more interesting to me right now.

On yet another side note, I'll be visiting my buddies up in Guelph Uni this weekend for some Halloween shenanigans. If someone brings a camera, I'll post pics.