Monday, June 12, 2006

Somebody explain these numbers to me

I have played almost no tournament in the last 10 days, today I decided to break my "vacation" and play the usual 3, 9PM EST, the Stars $150+12, the Paradise $30 and the Party Super Monday.
In the Stars I was out early after a blinds war, I decided to limp in the SB with K6c, BB raised and I went all in, he thought for a while and make a good call with AT, I lost the 39%, no biggie, I think the play was ok. In the Paradise I made it deep as usual and in yet another blind war, I had QQ in the BB and lost to the SB A8, that was ok too, we both play the hand well and shit happens, and shit happens a lot to me. In the Party Super Monday, I think I was playing real good, the money was at 120 players, between 400 and the money I had no cards at all, but still managed to have a good stack, once in the money, I lost a fucking 90% against the big stack in my table and was out 109th; and won a whopping $157.05 for a -$5 profit.

I have had so many cashes like this, it's real insane. Look at my position in the Internet player of the year race. The IPOTY I think it's the most objective system to rank Internet tournament players, they take in account just the results of all the biggest tournaments in the net, the system is really elegant, easy to understand, accurate, and most important, it does not depend of anybodies opinion and it's not a popularity contest, just the numbers speak there, you don't need to promote yourself, you just need to play and have results. As today, I'm 23rd there. 23rd !!!!!! of all the fing Internet tournament world (even I'm pretty sure I play a lot less than most of the guys of the list), wow, usually this achievement would be notable in any field you work, but as a poker player, the incredible part it's that I'm a losing player for the year, as today I'm in the red, losing more than 10k in the year (just internet tournaments). How the hell is that possible?. The answer of course; I'm not closing, if you take a look at all my cashes, I have almost no Final Tables and I don't have any top 3 in these tourneys. One of the things it made 2005 and 2004 pretty good years for me, was my ability to close. Once I made the $, I had a pretty good % of making the FT, and once I made the final table, I had a pretty high % of top 3 finishes. What happened? Did I lose my edge? Do I suddenly suck to close? Did my game change? Probably so, but every time I study my tournaments from last year, I don't see any big differences in my play, and if there are some, I think it's for the best, this is, I think I have improved in some areas. But I don't know, probably I need to look deeper and find something in my play that has changed and made me a very poor closer these days. Probably there's something, but I think most have to do with this:


#Game No : 4504095229
***** Hand History for Game 4504095229 *****
NL Texas Hold'em Trny:24772994 Level:11 Blinds-Antes(1000/2000-75) - Tuesday, June 13, 00:53:42 ET 2006
Table Super Monday(727209) Table #10 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 7: superbetter ( $31265 )
Seat 9: sirio11 ( $64545 )
Seat 10: Slaan_PS ( $142765 )
Seat 8: rob42359 ( $28562 )
Seat 6: rplrpl ( $93672 )
Seat 5: BPWJR ( $75213 )
Seat 2: hambotwo ( $16011 )
Seat 4: Kizzzer ( $67545 )
Seat 1: Cat_637E ( $81751 )
Trny:24772994 Level:11
Blinds-Antes(1000/2000-75)
Cat_637E posts ante [75].
hambotwo posts ante [75].
Kizzzer posts ante [75].
BPWJR posts ante [75].
rplrpl posts ante [75].
superbetter posts ante [75].
rob42359 posts ante [75].
sirio11 posts ante [75].
Slaan_PS posts ante [75].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to sirio11 [ Jd Qd ]
Slaan_PS raises [6000].
Cat_637E folds.
hambotwo folds.
Kizzzer folds.
BPWJR calls [6000].
rplrpl folds.
superbetter folds.
rob42359 folds.
sirio11 calls [4000].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3c, 9s, Jc ]
sirio11 checks.
Slaan_PS bets [13000].
BPWJR folds.
sirio11 is all-In [58470]
horrilibis has joined the table.
Player horrilibis has been moved from table 12 to this table
Slaan_PS calls [45470].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]
Slaan_PS shows [ Tc, Ts ] a straight, seven to jack.
sirio11 shows [ Jd, Qd ] a pair of jacks.
Slaan_PS wins 136615 chips from the main pot with a straight, seven to jack.
Player sirio11 finished in 109 place and received $157.05


I'm pretty sure I'm in the far left side of the variance, of course I have made my share of mistakes, but no greater than the ones I made in 2004,2005. I even think I'm a better player, but what do I know.

The truth is, a "top 25 player in the IPOTY race" is a losing player in 2006. Variance is just insane in tournaments. I share my numbers with you, so you have an idea how difficult could be to depend just on tournaments, even if you are a "good" Internet tournament player. This is really tough, and if you're not prepared, you will be broke, crazy or both. I'm not broke, I was prepared for this, but some days I'm in the verge of insanity, really.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dave:

We both know that even the best tournament players in the world are going to have break-even and losing stretches that can last for weeks, months, a year, sometimes more.

Such is the nature of tournaments where you're up against 800 players, or 2500, or 5061 entrants, etc.

The variance against fields that large is just too high to not have a significant impact, no matter how strong your game.

Look at Daniel Negranue. He was tearing things up and winning player of the year, and the very next year everything crashed and things weren't going his way.

Don't be afraid to add cash games or sit n' go's to your repertoire.

Also, you got your money in as a huge favorite that hand, and your opponent caught running cards. What else can you do? You want him making that call everytime.

I had the same thing happen to me live. Donkey min-raised UTG, I defended my blind, flopped a pair that I knew was good and check-raised all-in. He called me with air and caught running cards for the straight.

Same thing in an online tourney. I raise Q/Q, one caller, SB with A/K offsuit min re-raises, we see a 2/4/6 flop four-handed. He bets 400 into a 1600 pot, next to act calls, I push 1400, the A/K calls with no pair, no draw, King on the river. Still, I want him making that idiotic call everytime.

Unfortunately all you can do is get your money in with the best of it. Sometimes they hit their 5% shot to bust you, sometimes they do it across consecutive tournaments after you've spent five hours making great plays and decisions.

Anonymous said...

Sirio,
Hang tough bro, your time will come. YOu will hit one of your heaters and in a couple days time you will erase all of those nasty bad beats from your mind. Ariba!

Anonymous said...

enrique:

I don't want to turn Sirios blog into a home for responding to posts on my blog.

But while he was getting good odds on his money, the guy was a total donkey.

I raise in EP and a player calls, and he min-raises out of position with A/K, then fires 400 into a 1400 pot with FOUR PLAYERS in the hand when the flop is 2/4/6.

If that doesn't scream donkey, I don't know what does.

David (sirio11) said...

As usual thanks for the thoughts AJ, Enrique and Tito. You're some of my loyal readers and I really appreciate your words.
When you're a winning player and you're on TV and in a heater, everybody wants to ask you for advise and talk to you. When you're losing most of those people dissapear.
If you'll be in Vegas for the WSOP, I'd really like to have a drink with you guys.

Anonymous said...

Hey Sirio:

Glad to be there for you. Sorry to see things going so blechy for ya.

Unfortunately I took 65th place out of about 2,300 in the Stars Blogger Championship (prizes started at 54, and only first place got the 10K seat anyway)

So it's highly doubtful I'll be making the WSOP this year (I've actually never been to Vegas)

I'll continue four-tabling the 22 and 33 sit n' go's, plus grinding the 10/20 and 15/30 Omaha hi/lo cash games.

But I'd love to meet up in Vegas sometime in the future and have that beer. Thanks for the invite.

And don't feel bad about losing the hanger-ons when the "fame" disappears. It's a fleeting thing nowadays, with so many events and so many bracelets up for grabs. Not to mention the huge fields.

Having a bracelet is sorta dilluted in a way, because there's so many circuit events and what not.

Sure, I wouldn't mind being famous one day and having sponsorship opportunities. But I'd be plenty happy just making a comfortable living doing this and leading a simple life as well.