After reading a post on a forum where someone suggested that stars $2.20 180 man turbos were a good way to build up a bankroll I have reconsidered my plan. Since I've been having a bad run on the single table SNG's and frankly I'm getting bored of them anyways I thought I'd try out this idea I read. Hopefully this will also quench my thirst for MTT's and prevent me from blowing my bankroll that way.

I've started with $150 so that's about 69 SNG's. My experience so far is that these things are mental! When it starts everthing is normal but pretty quickly you're all-in every other hand and when your 4-tabling it can be pretty stressful! Think I'll stick to 3 tables for now, good luck me!

Update

I just thought I'd write a quick update on my poker shinaigans... I played at the Grovesner Casino last night for the first week of the Newcastle Poker Forum's league. I was a bit apprehensive about playing some decent players for a change as I'm used to playing random members of the public at Aspers. However I went to check it out anyways.

I ended up finishing 63rdish out of about 117. So not a bad result considering the quality of the field. The only thing I would've changed about my play would've been to be more aggressive in a couple of spots, but nerves got the better of me and I played it a bit too safe.

As for my online activities things are not going too good. I decided to put on a balance of 150 pounds instead of 100 to allow me 40 buy-ins at the $5 level sng's. It's now douwn to 90 pounds and I'm forced to consider moving down to $2 sng's. I don't know if I've lost my knack or whether it's just variance but I've been on a poor run either way. Will I ever have the patients again to grind up a bankroll for MTT's? Not sure atm.

Good Advice

When reading Eric "Rizen" Lynch's bolg (famous online MTT pro) I came accross this handy nugget of advice:

"So, how do we know who has a lot to lose from playing a pot with us if we don't have a big stack? A general guideline that I like to use is that any player who has 15-30 big blinds and less than twice my stack size is a prime target to attack. If players have at least 15 big blinds, they are not so short that they're desperate to double up, and if they have fewer than 30, they typically are shallow enough that they're reluctant to take flops with people without a real hand."

Just to put it into context (http://www.rizenpoker.com/articles/2007/08/target-practice.html), he's talking about the mid stages of an MTT, and who you should apply pressure on pre-flop by blind stealing etc. Attacking the mid-stacks is old news but I thought it was a handy rule of thumb :)

That's all for now, can't wait to get his book "Winning Tounaments One Hand at a Time" in 3 days!

AA vs KK vs K10

Last night I played in my regular pub game in Heaton. It began badly as I pissed away half my chips playing half-arsed poker. I won it back though by calling an all-in with the nut flush draw which hit. From this point on I played a solid game and made some big calls to take a massive chip lead.

Everyone thought it was foregon conclusion that I would win but desppite this 3 hands decimated my stack putting me out in third. The last of these was a tad unlucky to say the least... I picked up K10 on the button (3 handed) and raised all in due to my short stack only to be called by AA and KK, oh dear. Still I'm really pleased to have nearly won a small live game again as these are my worst games atm.

I've just ordered 2 new poker books:

"Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at A Time: 1" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-Poker-Tournaments-Hand-Time/dp/0974150274)

and Gus Hansen's "Every Hand Revealed" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Hand-Revealed-Gus-Hansen/dp/0818407271)

Both are highly acclaimed. "Winning Poker Tournaments..." is by some of the most successful online tournament players alive such as Rizen and Pearljammer. I can't profess to know much about them but people on the forums are going nuts about this book so I thought it was a must buy!

"Every Hand Revealed" is a description of every hand played at the Aussie Millions when Gus Hansen won. I think that's a great idea for a book and I haven't read a bad review yet so for £8 I couldn't turn it down! Also I think I'm getting to the stage in my game where I need to loosen up a little and consider styles beyond ABC poker, Hansen sort of personifies unconventional play.

I was just excited so I thought I'd post about my new aquisitions lol. I'm just hoping that they will be a bit more readable than Harrington on Holdem or SNG Strategy which both took me a LONG time to read due to their dry nature. I can't imagine Gus Hansen's book being boring though!

Not Again :(

Just finished 242nd out of 6000ish in a $5 freezeout on Pokerstars. Pushed with TT UTG as my M was about 6... called by AA and JJ, game over. Another 4 hours to get my entry fee back lol - not sure if I love or hate MTT's atm.

Running Deep

I've had a pretty successful weekend despite the fact I've got nothing to show for it. On Friday night I played the 20 pound freezout at Aspers and finished 20th out of 160. Slightly disappointed to go out so close to the final table but to be fair I did let myself get short stacked. This was in part due to making an aggressive move that got called and ruined my image on my table, forcing me to tighten up. Crap hands followed and before i knew it I had 3 BB's. At this point I made a stand with K8o and despite hitting 2 pair on the flop lost to a flush on the river. The suprising thing was I wasn't that disapointed and had a really good night after :)

The second success was a deep run in the Pokerstars $3 rebuy. I finished 342nd out of 6000+ runners :). My last hand was an attempt to steal a pot with 3 limpers and a third of my stack. Unfortuneately one of them had limped with ATo (his 3rd limp in a row) and insta-called my push, his hand held up against my A4o to knock me out. So all in all some good results :)