12 hour session on stars/full tilt

Bink Bink Bink.

Woops, down about £500 today as I really got nothing going at all. I registered for every tournament from 7pm to 3am from $11-$109 and $3r to $22r so I had a lot going on! Alas, the card God's thought I had enough success this week so would give everyone else a chance instead.

It was a pretty repeat occurrence today that I would have 6-12 tournaments up, be getting relatively deep at like the 300/600 stage and then either lose a flip or get a beat and go out. Thus leaving me 5-11 tabling a load of games in the 50/100 blind stage. Yawnn...

I was however quite impressed that I managed to maintain my concentration throughout the period as it is a long time to be staring at cards. I did feel at a point when every singe cbet was being check/raised and every raise 3bet that I could do with a 15 minute chill-out. But that's just not an option if you want to be an MTT grinder!

In the end I cashed in 3 tournaments out of the 30-40ish I played. I mincashed a $75/$22000 gtd on full tilt and cashed in a $3rebuy for $45. The other tournament I did manage to final table was the $22rebuy/$15,000 gtd:



I've got mixed emotions about this tournament really. On the one hand, the structure was really nice and it was great to be in the money with 50bb's deep. That was really good. But, the standard of play was by far the best that I've been in.

I OPR'd all of the remaining players once we got down to the final 2 tables and all of them were winning high stakes grinders. It was literally ridiculous. About 70% of pots were 3bet and there was constant 4betting going on in about 30% of the hands. It was at the point where it would fold to me on the button and I'de have JQss and just want to fold it as I knew that somebody would reshove from the blinds.

This was really quite different from what I've been used to and as such I adapted differently. Primarily by actually tightening my late position raises and raising more from early position (which was getting 3bet less). And secondly by 4betting at a much greater frequency. There were some quite nerve wracking moments when with 20 to go I 4bet shoved with 10 8 suited to the guy on my left which had literally 3bet every hand I had opened.

Despite that, I managed to whittle my way down to the final table coming in as 9/9 with about 20 big blinds, just below half the average. I made a few early plays which bounced my stack to 30 big blinds and being 7/9.

After a while I found myself with AQo in the SB with 19bb's and a late position open and a flat (vs. almost anyone other than this one guy I would be concerned but he was flatting a ton with all kinds of junk). I reshipped it and after the original raiser started his timebank I thought I was good as AK insta re-ships. Bleh, he slowrolled pocket kings and I didn't improve, thus cashing for just over $300.

Although I do enjoy playing on stars and full tilt I think I will probably keep that for either a Friday or Saturday night if I'm in grinding MTT's. I think on Sunday coupled with the huge fields a lot of cash games players come to and try their luck in tournaments. It's just one theory, but tonight I don't think I've ever been 3bet so much in my life. As I got deeper I have to say that the fields, even in the $5rebuys were tough. I believe this as if you ever play midstakes cash online you will see the amount of 3betting that goes on, it's quite mind boggling and I think a lot of cash players automatically implement this in their MTT game. Which makes playing against a lot more challenging.

I think then until I am rolled for the majors ($215 buyin tournies), I'll stick to the euro sites on the Sundays for softer and smaller fields.

Hope everyone else had a good Sunday anyway! Mine was fun, despite not being too profitable! Cheers.