But They're Suited!

I've commented recently on how I need to focus on tournaments. I seem to be doing pretty well on those lately, and not so good with the cash games.

I've been playing tournaments at Stars the last several days. One day I play a sit-n-go. Get first and win a nice sum (for micro-limits). I then decide to dink around with some ring games. Proceed to give back to various cash game players the profit I just made off the tournament. I play 3 more tournaments - this time turbo SnG's. I manage to break even - well not if you count the tourney fees, but for the regular entry fees. Still better than my recent cash game experience.

Tonight I play 3 SnG's. I finish out of the money in the first two and second in the 3rd. So I finish down just a hair. But I still show at approx. a 50% ITM rate in poker tracker, as well as approx. a 50% overall rate of return on tournaments. If I can just stop giving it away in the cash games, maybe my bankroll will go up a little.

Ok, so for the first time I want to cash out of a site MORE than I transferred in via NetTeller. What is involved with that? Why do they all have that restriction that you can only transfer back to NetTeller the same amount you transferred in? How do I get the rest out? Pay them to send me a check or something?

I guess maybe I'll transfer out what I can from WPX, and maybe leave the rest to keep playing with until either it goes away or I get it up to a reasonable amount to be worth getting a check. I transferred in 100, and right now my balance there is 146.xx with some rakeback still to come next Monday. 50.xx doesn't seem like enough to be worth a check, but who knows. What do you think?

Last night I ended up playing at the World Poker Exchange for a bit. The skeptic in me originally logged in to check and see if my rakeback got deposited as scheduled, and it had. Then I decided to look over the tourney list and see if there were any guaranteed tournaments that would provide an overlay. Unfortunately I had just missed the early 1K tourney that went off with 69 players, but I was in time for the $500 guaranteed which only had 3 players signed up with 26 minutes left until start. I decided to monitor the tournament lobby and play a little .05/.10 NLHE while I waited.

Bought in for $2.00. A few hands in, paying blinds, etc. I'm down to around 1.50. I get 88 in late position. I raise it to 2xBB. I should have gone 3x or 4x, but I was a little gun-shy at that point, having had several good hands broken by calling stations. A couple of chairs to my left it got raised to .40, then UTG+1 raised it to .60 with everyone else dropping out. I called, as did the other raiser. Flop comes AA8. WOO-HOO! Full house! I bet .40. Raiser one raises to .60, UTG+1 calls. I then go all-in for whatever I had left. Raiser 1 goes all-in also, as does UTG+1, making a side pot. Turn is a 2. River is an 8! WOO-HOO!!! DEMS QUADS, BEETCHES! I win 7.xx. The side pot gets chopped because both of the others had aces full of 8s. That was a fun hand.

The 500 guaranteed tourney ends up getting 45 players, so I decide to bail. I sign up for a 2.00 + .20 5 person SnG, and while waiting (FOREVER) for the table to fill, continue the ring game. Nothing else notable in the ring game.

In the tourney I hit a few good hands, and managed to hang on for 2nd. I was pretty evenly matched in chips when heads up started. I pushed with a less than stellar hand thinking either I'd make the tourney all but over or I'd be out because it was almost time for the Mavericks/Spurs playoff game to start. Well, I was out. :-) Good enough to cash for 3.00. And since they give me my rake back, that is a 1.00 profit. Good enough.

A couple of additional comments about the World Poker Exchange:

Apparently in their SnG tournaments there is no "lobby" to check stacks, rank, payout structure, etc. Not that with 5 people you need that all that much - that is just a personal preference.

WPX also makes it easy to get to the World Sports Exchange. Your bankroll at WPX is really in a World Sports Exchange account, and when you buy-in at a table that amount gets transferred to WPX. Now that means that it is very easy to make sports wagers as well. Since I've been playing at WPX, I've bet on the Spurs game last weekend (bet 11 to win 10 - I know, bad odds, but I was sure the spurs were going to win it, and they did - big), made 4 $2.00 wagers on the Kentucky Derby (with one of them being a win ticket on Barbaroa or whatever, which covered all my bets and gave me a $4.xx profit), and again last night on the Mavs in the Mavs/Spurs game (10 to get 13 with the mavs getting 2.5 points) and I won. This is not good. I do not want it to be so easy to give back the money I grind away at poker to earn. So far it has turned out OK for me, but I know that long term that is not likely. I think I'll try to transfer out of WPX soon. But I have to wait until at least next Monday for the rakeback I earned last night to be credited back to my account.

I've been playing a lot of tournaments lately. Even before I read this post on Change100's blog, I was already thinking along these same lines. Focus on what I'm good (or at least better) at to try and build up the bankroll and then use the padding to improve other areas of my game.

I've really done much better at tournaments lately than at ring games. So I played a few tournaments this weekend. I played the 3.00 turbo SnG's at Stars and either placed out of the money or finished in 1st. That has given me a nice profit of $20 or so. A few more weeks of this, if I can maintain my current win ration (or something close) and I should have a decent enough bankroll to dabble in the .50/1.00 NL Ring Game.

I'm going to try and play 1 tournament a night, 4 nights a week. If I exit early, (within the first 20-30 mins), then I'll start another. Otherwise I'll be done for the night. Let me know what you think of this plan.

So I decided to play one of those 1K Guaranteed tournaments at WPX that TripJax talked about. I monitored it down to the wire (last 2 minutes) and only 75 or so people had signed up. That turned into 79 by the time the tournament kicked off. That is a $210.00 overlay on a $10 + $1 buy-in. 9 places paid. I managed to just barely hang on and go out 9th for a $35.00 payout. And since I'd made enough at the site already to cover my buy-in, it was almost a freeroll. At least in my mind it was. So it was a $24.00 profit overall.

That is the first time I've played in a tournament that big, other than when I first started at PokerStars and played in those HUGE $1.00 + .10 MTT's on a Sunday night.

I think that'll be all the pokering for me for this evening. Time to relax and watch a movie (for Bloody P: with my wife! :-)).

Thanks, TripJax (if you ever even see this post) for recommending WPX. I don't think I'm permanent there, but it's fun for now.

I learned of a new blog recently - Adam LaBare's Poker Blog. I saw the username on the PokerSavvy forums and had not had a chance to check it out yet when the author emailed me about checking it out. I've only been reading it for the last day or so, but it looks good so far. He is on a quest to go to the WSOP. Apparently he went last year as well. Look it over and see what you think.

In the interest of fair and honest criticism, I must say it is kind of frustrating when catching up on old posts to have his Blogger blog nested inside is regular website. Separate scrolling windows - yuck. Sorry Adam - but I gotta call'em as I see'em. Other than that it looks like it'll be an interesting read.

The other day I read a post on TripJack's blog about the World Poker Exchange (that is not any type of affiliate link). They offer a 100% rakeback deal, meaning that whatever you pay in rake on the hands you win you get credited back to your account on a weekly basis. There is even a special rake tracking section in the cashier window to show you what rake you've accumulated. It only updates at the end of a session. I'd prefer it to update after every hand that you won.

I have to agree with TripJax's description. Tables are semi-soft - several players push with second pair, etc. I've played the .10/.25 and .25/.50 tables and have generated a small profit even without the rakeback. I deposited $100 Wed. evening, and I'm up approximately $20.00 after 2 evenings of play. The biggest issue is finding a table to play. The traffic is so low there now that what tables have action are typically full. Last night I had to go on a waiting list on two different tables and wait a few minutes to get a chair at one. I know - wow, wait a few minutes, you poor thing - but I'm used to sites like PokerStars where there are always tables with open seats and have 80% of the chairs full.

TripJax also mentioned the guaranteed tourneys that have a good overlay - also due to the low traffic. I monitored the $1k guaranteed last night, and though I don't recall the exact final count it was definitely below the 100 required (at a buy-in of $10.00) to cover the guaranteed prize pool. I had planned to play in it, but the crowd got past the point that I felt I could finish it at a reasonable hour - assuming I finished in the money, that is.

How long will I keep playing at WPX? Not sure - I've only played there 2 evenings, and I miss PokerStars already. But that is typically the case when I try another site. I'm always comparing it to PokerStars and always finidng PokerStars to be better.