Bonus? or Bogus?

I'm debating. Is it worth it? I haven't played on Stars in quite a while, so I'm not sure what the play is like there now. And I will probably have to earn a trillion points to get the bonus bucks, but it is free money!

Any advice?

Aaahoo, werewolves of London

What is the relevance of this first picture? It is the clothes hamper in my hallway. I'll tell you why I posted it in a minute.

I played several tourneys Friday night and it was a +Bankroll night for me. But I didn't make any major scores. 70/1290 in 28K guarantee, 7 of 549 in $3 KO, and 6 of 18 in a Tier 1 SNG. I managed to cash in 3 of the 6 tournaments I played in. All fun, but again, no major score.

I'm trying to make a lucko or an LJ type score. Maybe soon. Take a look at lucko's blog to get some good tips on MTT play. And check out Vinnay. I kept thinking of his "blind play" when I was playing. No. Not playing from the blinds, rather playing without looking at your cards. I didn't do it, but I tried to imagine how I would play the hand regardless of my cards. As he said: it "reminds you of the importance of image, and really makes you pay attention to what the rest of the table is doing". See his post here for more. I know it is online and there are no physical tells, but you can still read your opponents somewhat.

So here is why I posted that first picture. Just before going to bed, we always check on the babes to make sure everyone is still in their bed, needs to be covered, is sleeping, etc. Panic set in quickly when we couldn't find my 3 year old, and just before I was going to start searching outside of my house: my wife found him here-------->










In this picture, he was still sound asleep. He woke up briefly when we were getting him out and said he was hiding from the monsters in his room. He had a blanket, pillow and a book with him. How can you get mad at him for that?

Thanks to my iphone to always have a decent camera on me.

Stay patient...

$3 tourney Friday night.

549 players and I get my first KO in hand 3 and my 2nd with 34 players left

I get 2 more right away then hit a big one with KJ vs K9. I am in 3rd of 28 right now.

Won AQ vs 44 on river. I had 5 x the chips preflop. 4/18 now

Lost a big hand when I tried to but a pot with 57hearts and got killed by KK

Doubled up with 77 vs A10 then hit AA and bought pot to put me at 1/16

I bought a pot with A3 and was 3/10

Final table, I have 1 and 2 behind me which is perfect. I am 2 of 9.

I eff up when I play 66 And chip leader catches up on turn with an A7. I go home 7th and get 40something for $3 buy in. so close, yet so far away
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Where I found my 3 year old this morning.

I guess candy on the top shelf doesn't really matter.

Possible replies to 7 year old's comments (see previous post):



-Didn't you hear? The tooth fairy's server crashed. She can't mapquest our house without it. Microsoft is working hard to get her back working though.



-I'm sorry honey, we didn't want to tell you this way. The tooth fairy was mugged and killed last Friday night. All the robber got away with was $87 in quarters, dimes and nickles. The tragedy.



-Actually, the tooth fairy is real. Mom and Dad just have to place an order whenever you lose a tooth. We didn't know to email her the request.



-OK, you got us. There is no tooth fairy. Santa Clause needs to do something in the off-season and he pretends to be the tooth fairy. So really it is Santa Clause's fault. He forgot you.

-Did you add the tooth fairy to your myspace friends. The tooth fairy no longer delivers to anyone not in her "extended network".

OK, that's enough sillyness from me. Hope your having fun.


You got one????

Conversation with a 7 year old

This morning after I had left for work, my wife was still in bed asleep. My 7 year old "Boo" woke her up with this conversation:

Boo: "Mom! I have proof that you and dad are really the tooth fairy."
Mom: "What?" (still groggy, and unsure where this is going)
Boo: "Remember when we couldn't find my tooth that fell out. Well, I found it and put it under my pillow for the last two nights and the tooth fairy never came."
Mom: "Boo. Go get ready for school"

No one can tell me that I'm doing wrong today

"whenever I see you smile at me" .. James Taylor

I'm finding the token frenzy's and Tier 1 SNG's where you get a $26 token to be quite easy on FTP. Hoy recently wrote a great post advocating playing the tournaments where payouts go to the top 30% and then using those payouts for buy-ins to bigger and/or better tournaments. I agree.

I also like the 45 player 26$ buy in SNG's. So I'm essentially getting into them for a discounted amount. How much of a discount?. Let's assume that I play 25 $8.70 SNG's and 12 $6.60 (some are $6.50 but we will round up). That's a total of $296.70 spent and I win 15 tokens which equals $390. That means I am actually spending $19.78 per $26 tournament I enter (296.70/15). That's a discount of 24%. Not too bad I'd say. My goal would be to win 1 out of every 2 tournaments I play which would be a discount of around 40%. That's extremely aggressive, but still a goal I will shoot for. See results below from officialpokerrankings.com


Of course, what really matters is what I do with those 15 tokens.

Breaking the numbers down even further, I find that I am only hitting a token 1 in 2.77 tries at the $8.70 buy-in. That is almost getting into -EV. 1 in 3 wins would be -EV by 10cents every 3 tries or a .4% loss. Of course I have won 3 out of the last 4 $8.70 SNG's, so I will assume I am getting better rather than hitting a good streak of variance (awfully vain of me, eh?). I need to break down the results in turbos versus non-turbos, but I'll save that for later.

And at the $6.50 buyin level, I am hitting a token 1 out of every 2 times I play. 4 of the 6 tokens won were in the 9:45CST frenzy's with 100+ players. Those are full of tons of loose players, so TAG play is rewarded. I can't play those any 'ol time like I can the 18 player SNG's, but they sure are nice. Wouldn't you like to cash almost 60% of the time you play? HA HA HA.

I've cashed in 2 of the 10 $26 buy ins I have played. I've played a few different sized tournaments but the 2 I cashed in were 45 player SNG's (1st and 4th) paying out $518 for $197 invested. 160% profit is pretty nice.

So that's a synopsis of what I'm doing right now and what is keeping my bankroll moving upwards (like the 30 year mortgage rates or the real estate values in Toronto -ok maybe not that much). You get the idea. Let me know what's working for you.

In the meantime check out this "may the felt fold bald texan" and this "presto is gold".

Stay patient....