Time Management
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Lately, it seems like I've been burning the candle on both ends. At the office, I am constantly moving from one crisis to another. At home, I recently went to Boston which was planned within a week, had a surprise birthday brunch for wifey Kim which was also planned within a week, and generally have been trying to keep up with everyday chores. My free time on weekends seems to be dedicated to friends' birthday parties (some, friend of friends of friends), so burnout is fast approaching. Unfortunately, this has 'gotten in the way of' attending certain blogger events, if you will.
For instance, on Sunday, after driving 4 hours from Boston, I attended a shiva (a Jewish wake) for a friend's grandmother. I would not miss it for anything because the friend is like a brother to me. Consequently, I missed the Veneno v. Katitude Heads Up match, in which V used her suckout poison to lay the smack down on the upstart. I was hoping to guest announce with Sir Waffle, but it just didn't work out that way. I can only hope that I can make the next one.
Meanwhile, I am hoping to appear on the Flop radio show this evening at 6:30 pm. You can hear me live (hopefully) from the link on the Flop's website. I'm sure it'll be in the archives in a week or two as well, so I'll keep you updated on that.
The Poker Champ and I are ironning out the details for our best of seven Heads Up series. If all goes well the first game will occur on Thursday at PokerStars in a private tourney arranged by TripJax. We will probably only play one HU SNG at that point and save the rest for a later date. This assumes that the Champ and I can both make that date/time. So far, so good.
An unnamed blogger's birthday is coming up and it was my understanding that there will be a private MTT in his honor this Sunday. Another blogger who told me of the hush-hush event just posted all the details. I'll post them here if I get the thumbs up. Otherwise, hopefully a few of you will be invited or see the post by the other blogger and join. I really want to play, but lately I just don't know with my busy schedule.
Finally, I'd like to talk about my play last night. I signed up for Doyle's Room through a rakeback program. I am working on getting an affiliate deal with the lovely rakeback people, so hopefully you'll see that banner up soon and we can all hang at Doyle's.
Doyle's is actually the same as Golden Palace, my original stomping grounds. It was interesting to go back. I played a $10 Turbo 6-p SNG. It surprised me that the blinds were at 100/200 iin seeming minutes, until I realized that Doyle's has Speed tourneys (akin to Turbos at Stars) and Turbo tourneys (akin to Roulette, I guess). I busted out of that one in 4th place on a suckout.
Meanwhile, I entered a $10 Speed 9-p SNG. I couldn't get anything going there either, and eventually went out in the middle of the pack.
As I played those two tourneys, I decided to check out the MTTs offered at Doyle's. At 10:45 or so, a $20+2 MTT was scheduled. There were only 20 players and a $1500 guarantee, so, with 20 minutes until the tourney started, I expected a big overlay. By the time the tourney was about to start, there were 98 players. I quickly clicked unregister, and then clicked register again. I'm a fickle bitch, but in the end, my desire to play for big money got the best of me.
I played my usual game, folding unless I had something impressive. The game lasted for over 2 hrs, and during that course, I was usually in the middle of the pack. On occassion, I stole chips, but the table was fairly loose, so even this was rare. When it was down to the last 20 players or so, I was in desperate shape. The blinds were high and I probably had 5-6x the BB. I got lucky with A2 v. AJ, but then went back to going the way of Broomcorn's Uncle. With a short stack, I held 33, and decided to push. I got two callers. The flop had a 3, and the river paired the board, so my full house took it down. My chip stack was still in the Rule of 10 after the blinds escalated. I played push and fold poker like only I can, getting AQ, AK, and AJ in a row, and pushing each time. The AQ was called by 99 and I won a race. The AK was folded to. The AJ was called by K9, probably because of how often I had been pushing. My A hit, twice, and I doubled up again. To cut a long story a little shorter, I placed in 7th place out of 98 players, netting a $78 profit. Subtract my SNG losses and $25 in losses on Party's 1/2 limit (don't ask), and I ended the day with a $30 profit. It's not an amazing feat, but one I am proud of nonetheless. That MTT was needed to turn the night around, and if you've been reading steadily, you know that this has been my theme lately: the comeback SNG or MTT win. I can't complain.
Lot's happening so keep your eyes open. Also, check out some of the great blogs listed on the right. You'll be doing yourself a favor, and your employer a disservice.
posted by Jordan @ 11:52 AM,
6 Comments:
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At 12:56 PM,
said...
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Nice job on the MTT. Check you tonight...
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At 2:23 PM,
said...
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I believe that I am the current specialist in the comeback game. I've entered into a WWdN game twice with my last $11 to come in 2nd and 3rd respectively to keep the bankroll alive.
Also, didn't you used to have me linked up over there on the side? I seem to be missing. -
At 2:30 PM,
said...
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I'll fix that Kaellinn. I recently moved some links around, and it must have been an oversight. Thanks for finding it. Kaellin is one of those blogs I was talking about. Matt on Poker. Good stuff.
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At 3:14 PM,
said...
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An excerpt from the PokerNerd:
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There's a new trend in the past few weeks in multi-tabling called "stacking", which is particularly attractive at Poker Stars, with no table limits and action always popping up to the front in turn. I think we can give credit to a player named RainKhan, who apparently has 30-tabled the lower limits. I've tried this in the past few sessions and have been able to get up to 20 tables at the $60's, but mostly 10-15-tabling. There's been some talk about it at the 2+2 SNG message board, but I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea for the non-ADD repititive-task-freaks in the audience. Once I've done this for a while, I'll try and throw togther a tutorial on effective "stacking" techniques.
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So, Jordan, in essence, you load up multiple tables and the table with the most urgent action required pops to the front. As soon as you make your decision on that table, if another table requires your action it pops to the front...and so on and so forth. It's basically multi-tabling, but stacking all the tables on top of each other. Takes some getting used to, but I was 5 tabling SNG's last night and still able to listen to music. Chatting was a no go though cause after almost every action taken, another action was required. It's great if you are bored with 1 or 2 tabling. I've only tried it at Stars...other sites might not work the same way...they might just pop up whatever is the newest action which could be annoying when trying to take action on the current table you are on...
Anyway, as far as I understand it, that is stacking. -
At 4:10 PM,
said...
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Interesting...
Do you have to do anything to "stack" or is it the default way that the SNGs pop up (via priority). I know some sites pop up the most recent prompt to act, so those sites wouldn't be useful.
The only problem I see with stacking is the same problem I have with multitabling...you give up some reads. But its a different style of playing, and as I've said a dozen times:
Poker is a million different games to a million different people. -
At 4:32 PM,
said...
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You just load up the table and the rest is done for you. You will be prompted when to take action so you don't have to worry about switching from one table to another, unless the action is slow and you want to take a look at the other tables.
I suggest giving it a try at the $3 SNG's that way even if you get up to 5 tables and don't cash you aren't breaking the bank. I did that and it wasn't long before I was back up to the $12 + $1 SNG's...
