It’s been a funny few weeks since my last post. I really enjoyed playing in the SCOOP at PokerStars and managed to play 15 or 16 events in total. Although I think the mix of events they offered was good, I think they could have tried to space the game types out more evenly. There were a few periods of 2-3 days during the series where there were no events I wanted to play.
The event I was really looking forward to was the $22 rebuy towards the end of the series. Coincidentally this was my best result, finishing 24th from over 9,500 runners. Overall I made a profit of $1,690 for the entire series after cashing in 3 events. That’s not too bad, but playing in these events did take me away from my normal cash games, where I would, on average, make more over the period.
I still seem to have a real issue with closing tournaments though. The SCOOP finish was pretty frustrating, but here is a selection of deep runs from my last 6 weeks:
24/9,500 (Stars $22 rebuy)
16/3,250 (Stars $55)
19/4,290 (Stars $55)
8/850 (FTP $75)
14/2,250 (FTP $26)
12/910 (FTP $26)
The $75 FTP tournie was the only one I managed to final table, going in 2/9 in chips. I lost half my stack with QQ < AK then, rather amusingly, busted when I shoved AK into QQ.
When I start to get deep my absolute priority is the win, so these finishes aren’t the result of careful tight play folding my way up the payscales. I don’t think I’m going too far in the opposite direction either. I do increase the aggression as stacks get smaller relative to the blinds and I certainly seek to exploit players who seem to tighten up, especially when we are nearing a big pay jump.
Maybe it’s just the variance I need to overcome. In the above finishes there is one flush < flush, two flips, one AK < KJ, one AQ < AK and one hand where I flopped top two vs a flush draw and he hit for my bustout hands.
No really spewy hands, and I was only short when I busted in one of these too, so I would have had a decent stack in any of the rest had I won my bustout hand, and of course would have been sailing far closer to the win.
I just need to keep grinding and getting deep and I'll take something down eventually...
