First Online Grind for 2011

2011-01-08

Although my online MTT career was barely a few months old, I was looking forward to making 2011 a big year in climbing up the ranks of the Australian online poker community.

Playing the primarily on PokerStars, things have been going allright since I took a hiatus from cash games. My first 50 cashes came from 252 games at an in-the-money rate of 20%, but I was still break-even and slightly down on Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - although I've only played a handful of tournaments on the latter two rooms. Consequently my goal for this year is to turn some of these min-cashes into deep runs and big dinks so I can see my bankroll climb skywards - even if my ITM rate takes a slight dive.

Welcoming in the new poker year at the bright and early time of 7am (for me that is), I loaded up PokerStars and Absolute and began my hopefully long grind from my desk.

I felt that I wasn't running or playing that good at the start of my session and consequently decided to stop registering early then I normally would. I managed to go 1/4 on Absolute and 5/16 on PokerStars for the day registering my first profitable Monday since taking up the MTT-grind, but although the bankroll boost was enjoyable, it could have been so much more if a few things went my way.

In one of the $3 Rebuys with forty players left and me well-placed in tenth, I accidently misclicked and potentially threw away a US$3,500 payday! Being dealt on the button and having two short-stacks in the blinds, my plan was to move all in if it folded to me. Once the action was on me, I followed through with my plan by shipping it, and once the blinds passed, instead of the pot being pushed to me, there was a pause in play. It was then I noticed that the player in the one seat at the top of the table - the only player that had me covered too - opened from under the gun . . . and since I had nine tables open at the time, I didn't even notice that he had raised. He made the call holding and it was then I called upon my one time for the day! the flop kept me alive as the on the turn gave me thirteen outs . . . but alas it wasn't meant to be as the saw me bundled out.

I fell just a few places shy of a final table berth in the $3.30 NLH when I busted in 14th place from the 4,243 starters, but it would be the $11 NLH Rebuy that would hurt the most. With 5,000 starters and 140-odd players remaining guaranteed a $213.90 payday, I copped one of the most sickening beats of my short MTT career (situational based mostly).

Seat 1: STALINGRAD70 (49139 in chips)

Seat 2: sabbatage1 (541623 in chips)<br
Seat 3: lrounderl (266754 in chips)

Seat 4: warrior1203 (119224 in chips)

Seat 5: Ticiz (193185 in chips)

Seat 6: JackBluff666 (63400 in chips)

Seat 7: Blazed3x1 (162886 in chips)

Seat 8: tRaMSt0p (133668 in chips)

Seat 9: jimpou69 (262142 in chips)

Everyone posts the ante 1600

Blazed3x1: posts small blind 5000

tRaMSt0p: posts big blind 10000

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to tRaMSt0p

jimpou69: folds

STALINGRAD70: raises 37539 to 47539 and is all-in

sabbatage1: folds

lrounderl: calls 47539

warrior1203: folds

Ticiz: folds

JackBluff666: folds

Blazed3x1: folds

tRaMSt0p: raises 84529 to 132068 and is all-in

lrounderl: calls 84529

*** FLOP ***

*** TURN ***

*** RIVER ***

*** SHOW DOWN ***

tRaMSt0p: shows

lrounderl: shows

lrounderl collected 169058 from side pot

STALINGRAD70: shows

lrounderl collected 162017 from main pot

If my hand holds in that pot, I climb into the top forty in chips giving myself I great chance at having a crack at the US$21,000 first prize!

As it has been said millions (if not gazillions) of times before . . . oh well, shit happens . . . time to move onto the next tournament!

[I]For additional blogs, interviews, articles and photos from tournaments around the world, head to Tilted Behaviour.