Anyway, it's amazing how you can suffer for 6 weeks on a horrific downswing and then just one day can turn it all around. It started off with a win in a $15 turbo for $700, and I decided to take a few shots after that. Got 13th in the $50 turbo 2nd chance for $400 and then the big one was 2nd in a $109 turbo for 3k. I really should have won it, having a 5-1 chip-lead heads up, but the other guy just went on a heater and there was nothing I could do (I've been over the HH twice, and I'm not sure how I could have played it differently). Earlier on there was a spot with about 15 left where I got it in with AK against AQ, and I was just praying for it to hold up. A queen hit on the river and I was getting ready to smash the monitor when I realised that it made me a straight (the other guy even had the nerve to call me a luck-box!). These are the spots where I've been busting recently, and it was so nice to not get shat on by variance for a change.

So I'm pretty much back to breakeven for the year in mtts, but psychologically it feels like a huge burden has been lifted. Here's hoping I can keep the momentum going in the right direction!

I'll put in a few more sessions this week, but nothing too serious, as the wireless modem is a bit dodgy, and hopefully will have ADSL by the end of the week.

Having an enforced break is kinda good, as I'm having time to reflect on things and devote more time to study. I've been re-watching some of the epic video series on TPE and it's amazing how rewarding it is to watch these more than once.

I might go over to my parent's place this weekend for a session, but not too likely as there's still a lot of unpacking to do, but I may be able to slip the leash after everything's sorted 🙂

I've definitely been abusing the ABI concept this year. Just because I'm keeping my abi to $20, it's still really risky if my spread of buyins includes loads of $109s and $82 hypers. This has actually been a major flaw in my brm strat and I have to reign it in. I checked last night, and I'm actually running at 20% roi in my $3.50r, $8 and $15 180 mans, but negative at the higher buyins which has been the cause of my downswing.

Anyways...Important to note. Variance is there. It will be always there. It sucks to be sucked out with 73o against your AJo and the board runs 3 3 on the flop with an A. If you stay inside of your zone BRM,,, those spots shouldn't bother us too much. Anyways, keep it up. I would suggest when a big shot is taken, spend a couple days down in the lower part of your BRM range and then take some more juicy spots at times to keep the mojo up.

Poker is supposed to be fun and not dredgery. Relax and have fun. Also remember...."The nuts isn't until the river is dealt". Thanks man for continuing to update us.

Moving house this weekend (was going to be last weekend, but house wasn't ready) and I may be without internet for 2 weeks! I'm a bit worried actually, as the phone company can't confirm whether ADSL is available at the new place until we actually hook up the landline. I know 2 other people in the area that have ADSL so it shouldn't be a problem, but life would really suck if I had to switch to mobile broadband or worse...

Had a disastrous session yesterday, but not because of bad beats. It was early Monday Aus time, which is Sunday prime time in Europe. Had 16 tables loaded up and was doing really well in a whole bunch of tourneys when my connection to stars dropped out. I thought it was just lag at first, but after a few minutes it looked like it was something worse. Everything else was fine on the internet except the stars software. In desperation I rebooted my router, and it connected to stars again, but about 15 minutes had passed which is an eternity when you're deep in a turbo, so most of my big stacks were halved and a lot of my others were down to 3-4 bbs.

Kept on grinding and the same thing happened again about an hour later. This time I rebooted the router straight away, and after the 5 minutes it took to get back up and running I still couldn't connect to stars. Checked out the 2p2 forums and it seemed a bunch of other people were having the same issue, most of them blaming it on the double vision sunday. So after about 10 minutes I could connect again, and same thing, all of my big stacks were decimated, and one $15 in particular where I was 1/35 I was now 19/20. I managed to min cash it, but still that's a pretty big loss of equity.

I emailed stars and at least they didn't give me a stock reply about them not being responsible for people's internet problems. They denied there was any problem at their end, despite a rep posting in the 2p2 thread admitting that there was, but agreed to refund my buyins for any tourneys where I'd been "materially affected". Because I cashed in the $15 where I was chip leader, I got nothing for that, and only got $40 refunded from the tourneys where Id been crippled. Better than nothing, but I reckon I lost at least a couple of hundred in equity from the tourneys where I had a big stack but only ended up min-cashing.

Hopefully will have a positive update soon to balance the negative ones I seem to keep doing 

Will post a graph later, but it's not pretty. Down around 3k in mtts in one month (although up about 1.1K in sngs and vpp bonuses), and my worst month ever I think. Only upside I guess is that it's forced me to take a good hard look at my game, especially around bubble time as that's where I've been exiting tournaments I get deep into. A couple of times I'm reshoving too light, as people with 12bbs rarely raise-fold on the bubble and always have it, but apart from that it looks like I've just been unlucky in these spots. I seem to have always been getting bad beats, coolered or losing flips deep.

Despite this I had to question why I'm always ending up around 10bbs towards the bubble, and not closer to 20, and I went back further in these tourneys and realised that I'm passing up a lot of reshove spots into bigger stacks that I used to take without even thinking last year, probably because I've lost a lot of confidence. If I have a 20bb stack on the bubble I can afford to lose a flip late, but with 10bbs you're out if you lose. So February resolution is to regain my confidence and make correct decisions 100% of the time.

Volume wise, I came pretty close to hitting my goal of 700 tourneys in the month (played 636). It was tough, and I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain that pace, so perhaps I'll have to revise my monthly target down to 500. Was hoping to be able to hit Platinum on stars, but doesn't look I'll be able to at that rate.

Late last month I started playing some large field regular speed tourneys and absolutely loved them. I think the only time I'll be able to play them is weekends, but intend to keep going with these. I came really close to final tabling the $55 30k last weekend, but tightened up too much late and blinded down to 10bb before busting out in 19th.

As far as my ABI goes, I'm going to lower that to about $15, and will take very few shots above $50. Once I'm back to breakeven I'll go back to my previous brm strat.

I'm going to have a lot happening irl in February, so will be even harder to hit my volume target. Apart from big upheavals at work, I'm also moving house next weekend, so might be without internet for a few days which will suck.

Poker Stars $100+$9 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t600/t1200 Blinds + t150 - 9 players

TournamentPokerEdge.com Hand History Converter

boyxavier (BTN): BB = 41.9, t50336
$mokin_aa09 (SB): BB = 18.8, t22557
apestyles (BB): BB = 15.4, t18441
Buffett1986 (UTG): BB = 20.6, t24664
Nick55 (UTG+1): BB = 15.7, t18865
GeorgeGunner (UTG+2): BB = 80.2, t96182
Hero (MP1): BB = 8.1, t9670
bliiz (MP2): BB = 13.7, t16476
cutup15 (CO): BB = 10.2, t12263

Pre Flop: (t3150) Hero is MP1 with Q A
3 folds, Hero raises to t9520 all in, 1 fold, cutup15 raises to t12113 all in, 3 folds

Flop: (t22190) 4 8 K (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t22190) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t22190) 9 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: t22190
Hero shows Q A (a pair of Queens)
cutup15 shows T J (a straight, Nine to King)
cutup15 wins t22190

Funny story from yesterday:

I was on the exact bubble of a $75 turbo. Had JJ in the CO with an average stack. Guys behind me had the same size stack so wouldn't be calling my shove with anything except a monster. BB wakes up with AA 🙂 I was down to 500 chips, with one other guy in the tourney with 450, so it was a matter of who got the blinds first. Luckily he did and busted so I at least min-cashed. Down to 120 chips, but doubled and tripled and quadrupled my way back to 2K. Got dealt Aces, shoved, and got called by AQ and AK! If I win this I'm back to average stack again and looking at one of the biggest comebacks in history! But alas WhiteRabbito, who is an awesome player but also one of the luckiest guys I've seen, flops a flush and I'm out 🙁

After that, I decided to have a change of pace and play some regular speed tourneys as my wife's away this weekend so I could afford to play all day. Was such a nice change from the push/shove world of turbos, and I could actually put into practice some of the post-flop stuff I've picked up on TPE. Played 3 of them and cashed in 2 (got 19th in the nightly 30k), so I really wish I could play more regular speed stuff.

So I'm down about 2.5k in mtts this month, but up about 1k in sngs, so things aren't quite as bad as they look. Been playing a lot of the satellites to the TCOOPS which are quite profitable.

Had a big upheaval at work this week as well which may affect my ability to see the volume part of this challenge through. Basically my boss quit this week, and the CEO has asked me to take over his role. Would mean having to spend a lot more time at work and I really don't think I could do that and put in 3hrs a day of poker. I haven't decided whether I will take on the role yet, as I always vowed I'd never go into management, but seeing as I hate my job anyway, changing roles for a big payrise seems to make sense...