2006: Year in Review

This is x-posted from the year end thread in MTT Community on 2+2.

I started the year with approximately an 8-9K bankroll, after losing 4K over Christmas when I moved up to $100+ tournaments for the first time and did poorly. I was not happy with my game and the "huge" downswing had hurt my confidence some. So I moved down to a lot of $22-$55 tournaments with occasional shots at the $100s. Unfortunately the year started very badly with a 3 month break even streak. I was playing a lot better again though and I knew it was just a matter of time until I broke out. My results in NL tournaments were terrible, with no top 3 finishes over the entire period (maybe one 2nd in a 20/180 or something small). However, I was killing limit holdem tournaments and the $22-$55 stud hi/low tournaments on Stars to stay even. These were small tournaments and I basically won one every week.

Finally, in April things started to turn around. I won a few small tournaments like 20/180s and got moving in the right direction. May was my breakout month. I finally started running good in NL tournaments and put up several 2K-5K scores. I also won my WSOP seat, my first ever big live event. At this point it was still kind of depressing that the WSOP package was worth twice as much as my largest cash, and an enormous % of my bankroll. However my roll was over $20K and I was playing all the big $150-$200 tournaments and even $100 rebuys on Dise and Stars when they had the bigger fields. At some point in here I had -10K week but then won $10K over a weekend. My introduction to real MTT variance. In July a few weeks before the WSOP I won the Stars $162 for $20K. Finally that huge breakthrough cash. I'd also started playing some NL cash with immediate success and that helped me really understand the game a lot better. I went to Vegas as confident as ever in my game.

Vegas got off to a slow start. I wasn't doing great in the cash games and I busted Day 1 of the WSOP after 12 hours of my chip count yoyoing when I made a fairly bad mistake. When in Vegas bankroll management goes out the window so I started playing a lot of the daily $1000 Bellagio Cup events. These things were incredibly soft so it seemed somewhat justifiable. On my 5th try I chopped one 6-handed with the chiplead for $44K (I wouldn't normally want to chop so early but for several reasons this was indredibly good for me).

I continued to do well when I got home playing a lot of 5/10 NL and big tournaments. But I couldn't stay on the good side of variance forever. I lost about 15 buy-ins at 5/10, several more trying out shortstacking the 25/50 games, and a whole lot more when I failed to cash a single tournament in the WCOOP and FTOPS, despite playing most events. In total it was a $40K downswing. Forunately, over the last 2 months I've made the money back and more. I moved down and killed 3/6 NL for about 6ptBB/100 over ~25K hands. My tournament results finally turned around this month with a couple wins on UB, and most recently I won a $100 rebuy on Stars for $23K to erase what was left of my downswing. I also won my PCA seat so I'm actually ahead since August now. Finally, on the last week of the year I cracked the Pocket Fives rankings.

Cliffs Notes:

-8K roll to start
- 4 month break even streak
- Make 5 figures plus WSOP seat in May
- Win stuper for 20K in July.
- Donk out of WSOP but chop $1K Bellagio Cup event for $44K.
- $40K downswing.
- Pwn 3/6 NL.
- Win PCA seat.
- Win $100 rebuy on Stars for $23K to get out of downswing.
- SirWatts ranked.

My biggest online score!

I got myself an early Christmas present tonight winning the $100 rebuy on Stars. I played pretty well (there were some tough spots I'm still not sure about), and got very lucky when I had to. It's a really good feeling when things go right near the end of a big tournament for once. First paid $23K. For anyone trying to keep track I am now out of my downswing and officially a winning player since I got home from Vegas in August. That's always a relief, though I could easily go on another huge losing streak now so I'll try not to get too happy about it. Here is probably my biggest key hand from the tournament. I walk into a huge cooler but draw out huge to vault into contention at the final table.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?682026

equity (%)
Hand 1: 42.1556 % { AhKh }
Hand 2: 05.4930 % { AdQs }
Hand 3: 52.3514 % { QcQh }

Anyways I'm not sure what else to say about this right now. I should easily be ranked in the top 100 online players on PocketFives now this week. It doesn't really mean much, but I can't lie a little recognition is nice sometimes considering the amount of effort I put into this silly game. I'm heading home for Christmas break this Friday and I'll be busy until then so you won't see me at the tables for a few days at least. I'd better get some sleep, I have to proctor then mark a final exam all day tomorrow. Back to the real world :-).

Mike

Selling some % of my PCA action

A few people asked me about this recently, here's what I've decided. The buy-in for the event is $8000, so I will sell 1% of my action for $100 (US), minimum purchase 1% up to whatever. I probably only want to sell 15-20% at most though, so first come first served, except I'll save a few % for people I've already talked to that expressed interest. E-mail me at miwatson17@hotmail.com if you're interested, or PM me on 2+2 (TheNewf) or CPF. I can probably arrange to meet people that I know in town, otherwise I can take transfers on most online sites (Stars in particular is easy).

Mike

Up and Down Week

I had some good scores this week, but I played a lot of tournaments so I didn't really do very well overall. Thursday night I won the 30r on UB for 6K, and on Saturday things were looking very promising as I was deep in the $320s on Stars and Party. I made the final table on Stars and was on the final table bubble on Party when things started going wrong. I took a tough beat on Party for a decent number of chips (but also made a small mistake that was probably quite costly), but battled back from my short stack to a respectable level, and then lost it all again on a hand I probably misplayed where I had A8 on an AKJ flop. I feel like I probably didn't have to get broke here, but my stack was short enough that it was awkward to find a fold, so I shoved it in and bubbled. On Stars, from two tables left and on, I basically lost every coinflip or better that would give me a lot of chips, but then won every hand I got all-in preflop once I became a shortstack, despite usually having the worst of it. I finally built up to 2nd/5 but then played a hand poorly against the chipleader and bluffed off 1/3 of my chips. Then I decided to lose more coinflips and bust 5th. $4300 is good and all, but first was 21K and even 2nd was easily 5 figures. Oh well.

The Sunday tournaments went badly again, and I lost tons of money as usual. On the plus side I'm happy with my play lately. I've been a lot smarter about picking my spots. I've got some extra tricks now I can use, but I'm not overdoing it like I was for a while. Talking to Steve today he basically said something that was exactly what I've been thinking lately about the higher buy-in tournaments, so I think I've definitely got the right idea with these adjustments. I'm confident I'll be on top of my game for the Bahamas, so if I can get lucky at the right times I just might make a run.

Mike

I win a poker tournament!

Finally! It took two outers on the river, winning all-in preflop with several dominated hands, and not tilting when my super passive opponents kept picking up monsters at all the wrong times for me, but I managed to luckbox my way to victory in the 3pm $18 rebuy (20K guaranteed) on Doyle's Room, for $8K. It was a relief to finally win something fairly big. I've had a lot of close calls lately (including a 4th in the 20 rebuy on Stars Friday night) so finally getting over the hump feels good. Not much luck in my other tournaments on the day though. I managed one small cash in the $163 tournament on Full Tilt, but got shutout everywhere else. Anways, it's definitely nice to make money on a Sunday for a change, I'm going to try to make a habit of it. I'm too tired to go into any details or talk about much strategy today, other than that I actually cut back on the resteals slightly today in marginal spots and I think that helps a bit, though it's obviously something that can't be analyzed just by looking at the reults of a few hands. Good night!

Mike