180-mans are so soul crushing..

So PJ was nice enough to stake me for the $2.20 180-mans on Stars, which are by far the softest game Stars has. I'm not sure what the current top numbers for these look like, but I'm sure 30% ROI is easily attainable by the mass-multitablers, so 50% could probably be attainable for top players not playing quite as many tables. I've only played 221 so far, so that's not nearly enough to be able to start drawing any definitive conclusions, but it looks as if I'll at least be decently +EV, which is always a good thing. 2 1sts, 3 2nds, and 4 3rds so far. I'd love to get that finish distribution flipped the other way around, but I can't complain. Most of the money is in the top 3 spots (most of it's REALLY in the top 2 though, 1st and 2nd pay a combined 50% of the prize pool), and so with roughly 40% of my cashes so far up in the top 3, I really have nothing to complain about.

Like I said before, these are by far the softest game Stars has right now, but they're equally soul crushing. Even when you're running good (like I have been so far), you feel like you're running horrible. Take today for instance: Felt like I was running horrible the first half, then hit a 3rd place to get me to break even for that set. Took a break, came back, felt like I was running horrible again and had to stop registering for games earlier than I'd planned because I was worried I would just start tilting all of my stacks away. But then a 5th and a 3rd brought me up to 30% for the day, which is nothing to be ashamed of at all.

I really don't understand how some people can play 100+ of these per day, day-in day-out, and seemingly not let the variance really affect them. Keeping my emotions in check is definitely one of the biggest parts of my game I have to work on at the moment. Widening my shoving ranges is something I need to work on too, but that kind of ties in with the emotions: I found myself shoving noticeably tighter today as the few games I went deep in progressed, when if anything I should be opening my shoving ranges up. I'm sure I was still playing +EV poker, just probably not the most +EV. If I can do a better job of keeping my emotions in check then I'll be playing better and as a result, making more.

And just to round this post out with one more graph (because who doesn't like looking at graphs), here's all of my games for October so far:

Played 73 $1.10 45-mans at the beginning of October for around $56 profit.

I'm hoping to round out the weekend with somewhere around 50 more games tomorrow, but I doubt that will actually happen. I originally planned on playing a bare minimum of 50 today, but I had to essentially stop-loss myself at 42..so we'll see how it goes. Either way, I'm hoping to round out the month strong with 200+ next weekend, and I'm shooting for 200+ per weekend throughout November. That would be enough to get me to Silverstar again for the first time in about 10 months, and it should also be enough (or at least close to enough) for me to clear the last $10 VIP stellar rewards bonus and the first $50 one. All in all, I'm looking forward to November.

And just for fun here's a hand from Friday that I found interesting, and I really need to keep this hand in mind when I play:

Poker Stars $2.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t800/t1600 Blinds + t150 - 9 players - View hand 995637

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

marianito22 (MP2): t20935 M = 5.58

thePbear (CO): t18195 M = 4.85

resalin (BTN): t10305 M = 2.75

Dupydog (SB): t10980 M = 2.93

JHN3829 (BB): t3320 M = 0.89

LUIZ GLOBO R (UTG): t10692 M = 2.85

topher123890 (UTG+1): t20315 M = 5.42

brunoS 219 (UTG+2): t28801 M = 7.68

HellaEffortz (MP1): t20580 M = 5.49

Pre Flop: (t3750) topher123890 is UTG+1 with K K

1 fold, topher123890 raises to t4567, 4 folds, resalin calls t4567, 1 fold, JHN3829 calls t1570 all in

Flop: (t14454) 5 3 J (3 players - 1 is all in)

topher123890 bets t6400, resalin folds

Turn: (t14454) 2 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t14454) A (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t14454

JHN3829 shows 6 6 (a pair of Sixes)

topher123890 shows K K (a pair of Kings)

topher123890 wins t2794

topher123890 wins t11660

4567 is probably a little bit high for my PFR, I'd probably get more value making it more like 4000 or so, even though I only have around 12 BBs. At the time, it was just much easier to type 4567, and making odd bets like this always serves to throw people off. Even though my stack is pretty shallow, a combination of the terrible players and the fact that I'll likely never see them again means I don't need to worry about balancing my ranges, so it's more than OK to raise the top of my range here to try to induce someone to do something stupid instead of just shoving. I do see Dupydog around a lot, but he's the only player I recognize, so I'll get more value from everyone else spazzing out than I will by shoving and hoping he makes some kind of hero call.

Anyway, resalin calls (there's the "something stupid" I was talking about), and JHN in the BB makes an easy call as well (2 BBs with the chance to quadruple up, easiest decision in the world, especially with the hand he ended up having). Flop is J53, I bet enough to put resalin all-in and he folds. Absolutely horrible play by him, I don't care what he has on that board, there is just no reason at all to call half of his stack preflop just to fold on the flop, especially since doing so leaves him with 3 BBs. For all he knows, I could be doing this with AK or AQ, meaning he really wouldn't be in that bad of shape if he had live cards. That, compounded with the fact that he's getting 4:1 on a call right now, makes this an atrocious fold.

It's players like him that make these games so profitable, and it's playing the top of your range like this that allows you to extract a few extra chips out of the fish while they're still alive, so it's important for me to keep this hand in mind.