Grinding it up

I am back playing at a highly confident level. I played in 9 tournaments this weekend and cashed in 3. I'll take a 30% ITM any day! My ROI was 212%. One of those 3 cashes was when I won a satellite that gave me entry to the Sunday 750K on FTP. It was so beautiful outside this weekend that I decided not to play and to keep the Tourney dollars. I am kind of torn about whether or not I should play in a tournament with a buy in that big. I know the nice thing is getting into a $216 buy in tournament for $8. Then again, that $216 will buy into a lot of tournaments if I'm playing at $26 or less for each one. Then I can continue grinding up my bankroll.

I decided to unregister from the FTOPS Event #7, following RaisingCayne's advice. I just wasn't comfortable playing a high stakes rebuy tournament right now. I am committing to grinding it out at the lower buy ins and I don't want to play something where I feel restricted right away because I don't want to do the rebuy or addon.

I am still thinking I will play in the FTOPS Event #9, $322 buy in event that I won for $75. I really want to take a shot at one FTOPS event this go around, even if I am going out of my bankroll comfort zone.

I was listening to Chris Moorman on a pocketfives' podcast. He made a great point about something that I had just figured out on my own (the expensive way). He was saying how many players will cash big in a tournament and then start playing over their heads and suddenly wipe out their bankroll 2 weeks later. You really need to have discipline with your bankroll management. He may cash for $60,000 but had just lost $40,000 over the last month. It's all relative, but a great player really focuses on their bankroll. Check out Chris' stats on Official Poker Rankings:

I had a hot run in August and September, but gave back almost half of it in October. But I was playing over my head. Instead of occasional $50+ buy in's, I was playing $75 -$200 buy in's and multi tabling them. That is simply too much for me. I have just recently gone back to focusing on smaller buy in tournaments, satellites, and SNG's. And I am multi-tabling less.

So if you are struggling, think about scaling back a bit. Play some smaller buy in tournaments. Also play some smaller fields. Like SNG's. There is not a much better ego boost than taking 1st place in a 9 or 18 player SNG. Just make sure you are managing that bankroll properly.

If you aren't listening to the poker podcasts available out there, you should be. There is some great content available at pokerroad, pocketfives, and even espn.

Stay patient....