Well I have been playing as much as usual, but life has gotten in the way of me keeping this updated. My wife is still struggling with morning sickness and this has caused me to be busy helping her and doing more with my son so she can relax. I recently had an article of mine posted on pocketfives and it has been generally well received. It is about getting more aggressive when you play. I have been working on my game and I feel that with this new added weapon of aggression I have positioned myself to win way more tournaments than before.
OK - the updates! I won a $20 rebuy on Poker Stars back in November for $16025! This isn't my biggest cash, but by far the best tournament I have ever played. I truly feel that I dominated this tournament from about 30 people to 1.
A few days after this I finished 8th in the $55K guaranteed $11R on Poker Stars.
Since then on Poker Stars I have gotten close many times with a 11th and 13th place finish in the $20R. I have been playing the $150 Nightly on Poker Stars of late as well, but I just can not get anything going in this tourney. I either get zero cards and have to start stealing way to early or like last night I run into a set with AA and lose the majority of my chips. I think I have become too much of a rebuy specialist over the last month. I need to get my freezeout game back!
I have also started playing more on Ultimate bet. Mostly the $30R at 9pm. I am cashing in this tournament at an insane rate and I have had two 4th and one 5th place finishes already this month in this tournament. It has an awesome structure and with the double add-on I am almost assured to have a top 20% stack after the add-on. So many people leave in the rebuy period and a decent number of them do only one add-on. It is a buy-your-way to a nice finish tournament for sure! I also had the unpleasant experience of finishing 2nd in a $30 WSOP package tournament. 1st paid a $12,000 WSOP ME package. 2nd got nothing - so hard to take!
I am basically happy with my play but I need to fix a few leaks in my game. I tend to make calls of short stacks with marginal hands always thinking they are just pushing with junk. I also use a continuation bet way too much and if a flop doesn't hit me I tend to go after it too hard sometimes losing chips. Late in tourneys I have gotten way too aggressive and I have wasted some opportunities, but these are all things I can work on and overall I am playing much better. I just need to win more consistently for my liking.
With my results of late and my pocket fives article I have had at least 40 people contact me about helping them or going over their hand histories. I would love to help everyone, but with work and a family I just don't have the time. I started looking for someone that I could help out while getting a little something in return. I found someone through pokerXfactor and I have gotten through half of his hand history that he sent me. I think he liked what I sent him and I plan on getting the other half done before I leave for the holidays. If this works out I plan on pursuing this a bit more to supplement my poker with a small steady income from my writing and mentoring. I feel I can really spot things for people to work on, but it takes nearly two hours to properly go through a hand history and write it up, so I doubt I will do to many of them unless people are willing to make it worth it.
Well that is enough for now. I plan on keeping this more updated in the future! :)
