$100 swing...the wrong way

I was pressing up against $1200, then lost some tourneys. Launched five more tourneys (my usual multi-table) then within the first orbit lost Internet connectivity. Bye bye $25 plus juice. Got back on hours later and ran ten more buy ins into the ground with only one second place cash to show for it. Had the usual suckouts AJ vs A3, KK vs J8os, etc. Bottom line is that I took my roll down about $100 today. Bummer.

C2K

Here we go again. After the Cake 1000 challenge the next logical step is to go for C2K, the Cake 2000 challenge to double up from the last milestone. I'm getting more aggressive with the slope as well since I will need to net out more bankroll in less time than the last challenge. I also will be without the assistance of a mid-year bonus to pad my numbers and only have two rounds of freerolls to potentially benefit from. I've been pretty busy away from the tables this month and have decided to just try to clear silver level in the Iron Man promotion instead of iron last month. That will keep me from trying to press too hard to clear points and instead I can concentrate on making good decisions.

New chart has been posted at the top of the page.

MMM: Got a plan yet?

Yo Sushi,


You've had a while to think about it. What's the next step going to be?


Antonio E.
Las Vegas, NV

Antonio,

Yeah, I've been slow on the blog but have have been playing as normal. I knew this already but having a goal in front of me keeps me focused. In the past few days I've been playing, profitably, but probably not as well as if I had a target to go after so I'm going to arbitrarily pick Halloween, October 31, as my day to hit $2000 by. I'll have a new chart up shortly to view progress against the goal. Thanks for the prodding to get this done!

Sushi Cowboy

MMM: After $1K, what now?

Hey Sushi Cowboy,


Congrats on hitting the $1000 mark. So what's your plan now?

Dan H.
Santa Monica, CA

Dan,

I'm still formulating my next step but one thing for sure is that I'm not going to cash out. I want to leave everything in the account for now and keep building it up. I feel that the $5 Super Turbos are still plenty ripe for the picking and I want to keep playing those for now. I actually still don't have a large sample set to determine my long term earn rate in that game so for now it's going to be staying the course. I do think that I should get another carrot in front of me so that I don't donk off my roll like the last time I didn't have a target to shoot for. Right after crossing the $1000 line I looked at my chart and tried to extrapolate the line to see what I would have at Labor Day. Keeping in mind that $75 of the jump came a freeroll and that a lot of the early growth on the chart was from the mid-year bonus, I came up with $1250 as a number to try to reach by Labor Day which is a slightly faster curve than the pace I originally set.

I plan to move up to the $10 Super Turbos at some point now that I have 100 buy ins for that game. But I am going to crunch numbers and review hand histories to figure out exactly how I'm currently doing. Long term I want to find the equilibrium point between game difficulty and buy in so that I'm playing at the optimal stakes to maximize my hourly rate but that is a discussion for way down the line. For now, I'm going to keep plugging away at $5 ST SnGs for now and establish a baseline before moving on to anything else.

Thanks for writing.

Sushi Cowboy

A funny thing happened on the way to $1000...

First things first, the $1000 barrier has been broken with $7.27 to spare. That's $618.55 more than the starting amount on July 14th, one month and one day ago.

A brief timeline:
* July 1st - Adam wins the Cake II Challenge concluding at the end of June and immediately sets his sights on the $1000 mark. Having futzed around with my bankroll since the April 1 cutoff point, I am inspired by Adam's thoughts of a Cake III challenge.
* July 11th ($205.23) - I blog that I have adopted the goal of $1000 as well. Set mid-February as my deadline.
* July 14th ($388.72) - Reset deadline to Labor Day and begin charting the progress.
* July 22nd ($568.88) - Completely clear my $250 mid year bonus.
* July 29th ($558.52) - Start playing Super Turbo SnGs exclusively. Begin unworldly heater in those tourneys.
* August 2nd ($837.77) - Start to level off and being two week period of fluctuating up and down.
* August 14th ($988.35) - $146 day. Cashed for $5 and $75 in freerolls, got the rest in ST SnGs. I realize that I am within one 1st place ST SnG finish of the goal but decide that it'd be best to just leave the tables for the day and come back the next day instead.

Which brings us to today. Basically all I have to do is net out one 1st place finish but the tables were not going to make it easy. AA vs 33 all in pre and he spikes a trey.  KK vs QT and he flops trip tens. The usual and not tilting in the least but very untimely and I am more acutely aware of every result of every hand I'm involved in since I'm so close. I am down a few buy ins and leave the tables for a while to take a break. After a  while I jump in again later and like a scene from a movie, I get my cashier window up to $980.29 so a win puts me over, second place doesn't. I am triple tabling and in the last window I get it down to heads up. I am laser focused to get this thing done. I have a lead but am picking my spots carefully. I eventually get villain all in in terrible shape with his eights up against my jacks. I fade his two outer and do a virtual fist pump then immediately pull up the cashier window to see that glorious four digit figure but to my utter dismay I instead see $999.79 instead! It takes me half a second to remember that a win is only $19.50, not $20.00 so I end up tantalizingly close but still a paltry 21 cents short. Unbelievable.

So I mentally scramble to figure out how best to scare up two dimes and a penny. I decide against another $5 SnG and instead opt for nickel Rush to keep the variance down. I buy in for $2 at each of two different tables. I'm in lockdown mode and just looking for that one hand. All I need to do is take down a pot to put me over. I'm folding everything and blinding off nickels and pennies but I'm not concerned since any pot I get involved in will easily cover the blinds I'm paying. Then it comes, MP pots it to .17, button calls, and I'm in the BB with 99. I decide to flat call and see what the flop brings. Flop comes 356 rainbow. I am OOP and pot it to .53 knowing that an opening pot sized bet in Rush is usually a big pair or two big cards but when villain shoves my read jumps to two big cards since premium pairs would normally flat call there. Button folds and I go with my read and commit the rest of my stack. Villain, unsurprisingly shows AK. I fade his six outs on the next two streets and I instantly cash out of both windows up $1.30 which brings my cashier window to $1001.09 using up an extra few pixels of screen real estate to display that extra digit.

Pop the cork on the champagne! I'm getting Twitter warmed up and ready to crank out a blog post. Last step is to update the spreadsheet and see my progress line pop above the $1000 mark. I plug in the number and realize that I haven't gotten my rakeback number for the day which is, to my horror, -12.18 due to the overlay from the freerolls yesterday so instead of being over $1000, I'm still short by a few bucks!

I'm a little deflated after having two close calls with hitting the mark. I take another break before heading back to the felt then dive into the SnGs again. Unfortunately, I start off by going through two sets of three tables without cashing digging myself a $30 hole but come back with two wins and two seconds over the next six tourneys which puts me on the edge of $1000...again...but for real this time. Then for the truly final time today I am in a make or break situation. Heads up for the thousand dollar mark. Again, I have the lead and just need to pick my spot. Villain is very aggressive and shoving every hand. I decide to call off with KTos. He shows 78os and I have his suits covered. He spikes a seven on the flop but I river a ten spot to put me over. I recheck my math and verify that the numbers. Once I've dotted i's and crossed t's, I send out the tweet to announce that the goal has been reached.

The homestretch was a little more convoluted than I wanted but I can't complain. From an original target of a mid-February finish down to Labor Day and now ending up three weeks early, overall it's been a pretty good ride even with some bobbles at the finish line.

Knocking on the door of $1000

I got $5 in the One-a-Day freeroll and $75 in the Iron level Iron Man freeroll which brings my grand total to $988.35. Very close.

MMM: Why 6 max ST SnGs?

Hey Sushi,


Why are you are playing 6 max Super Turbo Sit and Go tourneys? Is there a reason you went with those?


Daniel N.
Las Vegas, Nevada

Daniel,

Good question. Frankly I just happened to run across them in the SnG category in my lobby window. Figured I'd give it a try and see what happens. Turns out they really work for me. They are short, usually under 15 minutes, so I can jump in and not feel tied to the computer for an extended amount of time. But they are still a tourney which matches my playing style and the combination is perfect. I did try full ring ST but got frustrated by idiots no playing properly on the bubble but at the short handed tables there are fewer people to interfere. I also tried normal stack SnGs back in April but didn't fare too well at those. Dunno what else to say but that format really works well for me. I enjoy the structure and it is EV+ for me to play. I will eventually branch out and try other games as well but for now I'm just going to stick with this one until I cross the 1K mark then reassess later.

Sushi Cowboy

Controlled landing

My concern about an epic crash has so far been unwarranted. I took a dip right after my big run up but have since recovered that and then some. I still have an enviable 12.7% ROI and this is about as ideal a way to transition out of my heater as possible. Just basically grinding away, being EV+, adding to my roll in an orderly fashion. I've actually been ever so slightly short of my daily quota but considering the cushion I had built up I'm not worried about it. I have freerolls coming up this weekend so hopefully I'll be able to pad the roll with some MTT money.

A down day

Built the roll up to as much as $850 before going on a cold streak. I bubbled out of a few tourneys in irritating ways but I closed at $810 still and I'm not complaining. I was aware of my missteps as I took them which is a lot better than just flying blind. Still even after a "bad day" my ROI is 17%. Would have been nice to have ended at the $850 mark instead but I can't get sucked into trying to keep winning streaks alive. It is actually a bit of a relief to give some money back. I was feeling pressure to keep my unrealistic numbers alive, kinda like a pitcher going into the sixth inning with a no hitter. Just a bunch of extra external factors which were distracting from the task at hand. Now that I have that monkey off my back I can just return to playing good solid SnG poker.

MMM: Account security

Hey Sushi,


Nice work on building your bankroll. One thing to keep in mind is that the bigger your roll, the more people want to hack your account. Trust me, I had it happen to me once. So take measures to secure your money.


Greg R.
Stoningham, CT

Greg,

Thanks for the warning. I'm kind of a security minded guy in general so I appreciate the concern. I have to confess that for convenience sake I've had the FTP client software save my login and my password for one click login. However, I keep my machine locked when not in use and my screen saver auto-locks after 15 minutes of idle time so I don't feel like that is a major issue. Ever since I started my serious run and went past $400 or so I did take the additional step of implementing a PIN, which in the FTP software is done by clicking on three different cards in sequence after entering your login and password. I feel that that is a very strong counter-measure against hacks. I do plan on continuing to build my roll though and will end up spending some FT Points on getting the security key software for my phone at some point. Thanks for the suggestion!

Sushi Cowboy

OK, now I'm just getting scared

I have no idea what is going on and quite frankly it's kinda freaking me out. I'm trying to run out some tourneys so that my chart will normalize and I'm just continuing to run good in massive proportions. According to HEM my $219.80 in winnings is substantially above my $55 EV adjusted amount. I know I had some suckouts today but I don't feel like I have been getting *that* lucky when getting it in while behind but the chart says otherwise.

Nonetheless, here I am sitting at $826 just a mere weekend after not being able to close above $600. My ROI is 21.4% which is ludicrous. According to 2+2 a 13% rate would be exceptional at these stakes. I'm ITM 42% of the time. I'm now about 22 days ahead of schedule for hitting 1K. This actually is more nerve wracking than anything else. It was fun at first but now it seems like the blissful calm before the storm of bankroll nosedive. But I don't know what to do about it. I'm trying to keep it all in perspective and not let the upswing affect my play but holy heck is it hard to ignore. Eeeeek. I'm just going to have to try to stay real even keeled and ride this thing out.

Below is my Sharkscope chart. The first half or so of that was my first go around of playing Sit and Go's back in April. After bottoming out the climb out of the cellar was from the $2 Super Turbos and the big gains at the far right (including the sharp cliffs) are all from the $5 Super Turbos. Ridonkulous.

Inevitable downturn

Well I can't just not play after being on a heater because that's not going to get it done. I will eventually have to grind out a ton of games and face the reality that I'm...gasp...not a double digit ROI player so I decide to play a little after Saturday Night Poker. Perhaps not a good idea? Dunno but I went on an immediate 0 for 6 slide after whiffing on two straight sets of three which is $31.80 right off the top of my roll and dropped me out of the vaunted 700 club. Bummer, but certainly a definite possibility. I call it a night then get up and play some more after getting some sleep. Bam, drop four more which is $53 off of peak and a number which is too close to approaching 10% of my roll. But I soldier on and finally get some of it back. I bounce around for a few more tourneys before catching fire and getting back to "just" four buy-ins down which I write off as just one first place money from breaking even for the day. I'm glad just to keep the damage minimized. But before calling it a day I decide to jump into the fray and finish off strong including three straight first place finishes which put me over the top for the day while setting a new high water mark of $737.38. Actually it should be over $740 but my rakeback reports have been empty for the past couple of days so there are a few bucks not accounted for. Inevitable downturn...postponed. ROI at an even more absurd 14.2% now. I'm bracing for impact.

700 club?

So on Thursday night/Friday morning I reported that I fell short of $600 and had been kinda treading water for a few days having breached the $600 mark but without closing above it. Fast forward 24 hours or so and not only have I pushed past the $600 mark but I drove straight through it and passed the $700 mark as well. That puts me across the half way mark of the approximately $400 starting point and the $1000 goal. I am (temporarily) killing these $5 Super Turbos. 128 games (meaningless stats-wise), in the money 41%, a wholly unrealistic 16% ROI, and a housing bubble looking graph. The red line indicates my luck adjusted winnings which shows that I should just merely be doing well and not outrageous. I know this ride can't last forever and I'm not wanting/expecting it to. I'm just glad to be EV+ at all and would be completely satisfied with 1/3 the ROI that I'm currently enjoying. I'm just hoping to avoid a giant crash and would prefer that when the tides turn that I regress into an EV neutral player until the graph flattens out to something more normal looking. But for now I got a huge spike that puts me about 12 days ahead of pace for the Labor Day goal so I'll try to nurse that cash infusion across the finish line.

Monster day

$56 added to the bankroll Friday. Yeah, I know this is an aberration. Adding 10% to the bankroll is obviously a pace that cannot be kept up. But I'm totally willing to soak up the positive side of high variance when it happens to balance out the times when I'm totally getting coolered. Still, 111 $5 tourneys running at a 8.9% ROI clip, I'll take it. Currently at $662.28.

Closed short of $600 again

I ended up dropping a few buy-ins...actually quite a few. At one point my cashier window read $514, which is one heck of an upswing from the $14 I had in June but still well off the peak for the day of about $570. Those $5.30 buy ins add up quickly and going for a streak without cashing will drop my total down quite a bit. The good news is that picking up a win adds $20 (OK, $19.50, but close enough) to the roll and gets it healthy in a hurry. Those are the biggest swings dollar wise and not that trivial percentage wise either. Even after getting some of that money back my HEM chart was well off of the previous numbers. Just like spring training, it's easy to either embrace or ignore the numbers...whichever makes you feel better. I dipped down far enough that my cash line actually submarined my EV line which is not all bad since I was still EV+ even "running bad" and the numbers imply that I am even more EV+. Even though I fell short of $600 by $11 bucks or so I still cleared my daily quota and retain an approximately three day cushion compared to the pace line.

Shifting to Super Turbo Sit and Go tourneys

Based on the previous success that I'd had with Super Turbo SnG tourneys I've decided to concentrate all efforts on that front. I have even put promotions and bonuses in second position which is a pretty big move since those are basically got me where I am now. So far it seems that my previous theory is correct - that I am going to be more profitable playing higher quality/less quantity since my game fell off considerably as I tried to clear points. So for now all I'm going to "push" for is the Iron Man one-a-day bonus which just means earning one point/day (which one SnG clears) and the minimum bronze level in order to keep my overall Iron Man monthly streak intact. Bronze level only requires 20 days at 50 points which I've been clearing lately without difficulty.

The other big news is that I'm moving on up stakes to the $5 + .30 SnGs. There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, keeping the stakes relevant to my roll helps to make sure I don't fall asleep at the wheel. Being excessively over-rolled leads to a laissez-faire attitude since the stakes are too low to make bad play really sting. Secondly, the rake is slightly lower percentage-wise. $2+.15 is a 7.5% rake whereas $5+.30 is only 6%.

So far so good. Granted this is a near meaningless sample size of only 50 of them but my stats at this point are 12.6% ROI which is way good, unsustainably good. 38% in the money, which is normally scorching but considering that 33% of the six man field makes the money is merely just good. According to HEM all that adds up to $33.50 of profit and a $8.97 hourly rate. HEM also says that I am an essentially break even player after adjusting for luck. I'd say the the truth lies somewhere in between me just treading water and being an SnG savant but we know more after I get more tourneys under my belt.

Oh, and one other thing. I am currently at $613.97 and hope to close above six bills tonight. After flirting with the $600 barrier for almost a week I feel like I got the ship headed solidly in the right direction and hope to get that milestone further behind me.

MMM: Bronze, silver, gold, iron?

Sushi,


Congrats on clearing your Iron Man mid-year bonus. Are you going to go for the full $600 year end bonus by clearing the iron level each month for the rest of the year?


Allen C.
Riverside CA

Allen,

Unsure. I cleared 200 points for every day so far in July and have already qualified for iron level. However, I'm pretty sure that grinding out that many points is detrimental to my roll since I'm just odometer watching instead of concentrating on playing well. Since I've ground out my status for this month already I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the month and see how my roll does. It's hard to quantify how much the perks are worth for iron level since there are so many factors involved. But as far as the year end bonus goes, getting the entire $600 bonus equates to about $3/day. Considering that I reach silver level ($1.50/day) without much of an effort, the incremental difference is not that much. I've just noticed too many times when I've played poorly as I am reaching the last 10%-20% of my points for the day. Since I've finally found something that I'm reasonably EV+ at against the rake I feel the best thing to do now is concentrate on making money from that and let the bonuses come as they may. I will still be participating in Iron Man but just not pressing to max it out.

Sushi Cowboy

600

Made up a lot of ground at the STs tonight moving from the mid $550's to cresting above $600 for a while before giving some back. Still have a bunch more to play today and might close the day over $600 but for now I'm just glad to have cards fall my way enough to make up so much deficit from yesterday (and then some).

Down a bunch, all at ST SnGs

According to "the data" I am EV+ at the Super Turbos so I decided that today I'd play only STs and see how EV+ I am. The answer, for today at least, is not much. Down about $35 for the day which takes my total down to the $550-560 neighborhood after having stood at the edge of $600 earlier today. Very disappointing results given how close I was to getting past six bills.

The nice thing about the Sit and Go tourneys is that it is more difficult (not impossible mind you) to tilt off chips. Steam calling is tempered quite a bit by the fact that you need to return to square one if you biff of that tourney by making a stupid move. I don't really feel like I played poorly or tilted. I definitely noticed when someone caught a two or three outer but I don't feel that it changed my play. Just couldn't keep dominated hands from pulling out victories and kept finding players in the blinds with huge hands. Cards just didn't go my way but the chart says I'm up $150 in STs this month so I'll stick to the program.

Bam! That was quick.

New cashier total reads $512.00 after gluing the $250 mid-year bonus onto my existing cashier total. Sweet! Looking forward to the year end bonus since I'm planning to have $600 waiting to clear in January.

Release the bonus!

Just got done with today's 200 points which also happened to be enough to reach the 5000 points needed to clear the mid-year bonus so sometime in the near future I should see another $250 plop into my cashier window. I made about three shiny dollars at the tables today but add in bonus and rakeback and I'm up about $20 for the day which pushes the chart up to a new high water mark of $568.88.

Got some back

Played some more and SnG'ed about $20 back for today to bring my balance for the day back to a more respectable -$12 which would have been pretty much dead even on a normal rakeback day so I'm feeling OK about today even though it ended up in the red. Considering how badly I tilted off chips to come back to even (apart from RB aberration) I feel like it's a win.

Steaming off some chips

The tilt session was inevitable I guess and it was today. I'm down $30 for the day and that number is exacerbated by the fact that I got negative rake today. Instead of positive $6 like normal I got about the same amount but in reverse since my $50 bonus was applied against yesterday's rake. Not a good combo and that marks a two day losing streak.

Week 1 check-in: Up $172.94

Totally satisfied with where I am so far. Only had a few tilt hands but mostly have been keeping everything even keel. Funny that I made basically the same profit in the past week as I did in the first three months of the year during Cake II. Had a bad day making kings hold up yesterday which contributed to my overall loss at the tables of about seven bucks. Everything else is from RB and bonuses, which will be drying up in a little while. In an effort to backfill that revenue stream I've switched my Iron Man preferences to taking bonus medals instead of participating in the freerolls based on advice from the 2+2 forums. For bronze or silver levels they recommend the freerolls but for gold or iron they say that the tourneys are much tougher and not the easy money that the other tourneys are. So I think the lower variance way to monetize my Iron Man work is to get bonus medals and buy tourney tickets from the store so I can play in matrix format tourneys and hopefully get some cash out of the Iron Man work I've done.

Back up to being down three bucks

Played some more this morning. Had Rush come out OK to add a few bucks. Ran pretty good at the ST SnG tables. Add in six bucks of RB from yesterday and some more mid-year bonus and I'm only down three bucks for the day which is way better than being down thirty. It is actually my first net loss day on the chart but I'm trying to make rational decisions about not trying to chase down a winning day at the expense of playing poorly. I cleared my 200 points for the day, and incidentally cleared gold level Iron Man already this month, so I'm content with just taking a loss for the day and not worrying about it. I got other stuff to take care of today so I'll just write this day off as being largely due to a few suckouts for stacks. Not worried about it as I'm still over $100 above pace which translates to 9+ days of cushion.

Calling it a night

Spent a couple thousand hands at .02/.05 Rush and basically treaded water. Nothing much to report. Switched over to ST SnG play and ended up a little. Went over to .05/.10 Rush and things started to fall apart. Top set gets sucked out by flush draw. KK vs Ax loses three times after getting them in light pre flop each time. Finally get KK vs QQ and he spikes a Q on the flop. AK vs AA on a K high flop. Stuff like that. Decide to switch back to ST SnG to change things up...except nothing changed. Dominating hands don't hold. Premium pair loses against A/rag. Reasonable shove hands running into AA in the BB. End up losing a bunch there as well. Down about $30 for the night and I'm going to pull the plug on myself before I do any more damage to the roll.

MMM: $564?

Hey Sushi,


Me again. Well it looks like you've had quite the month taking your $14 cashier balance to 40 times that now. So now I have a different bankroll management question for you. When are you going to move up? You're still playing the same Rush levels and SnG tourneys as you did over an order of magnitude ago.

Jesus F.

Pacific Palisades, CA

Hey Jesus,

Yeah, I know. Actually I moved *down* in stakes at Rush. I am back down at .02/.05 instead of the .05/.10 tables in an effort to be more EV+. But you're right, I am buying into them for the minimum $2, roughly the same as my $2 + .15 SnG tourneys. I know you're good enough at math to see that those buy ins are about 1/3 of one percent, a far cry from having 15% of my roll riding on one table, and well below usual BRM standards. Right now I'm so focused on the Cake 1000 challenge that I don't want to mess with the success I've been having. I'll probably move back to the .05/.10 tables for Rush and see how my progress goes. I'm still working on my Iron Man quota for the month and the nickel tables take...well...about twice as long to churn points as the dime tables so moving up will save me some time.

The ironic thing is that I think being too overrolled was what led, in part, to my earlier downswing. When the stakes just seem too irrelevant then my play gets sloppy and the bankroll takes a hit accordingly. Having more pronounced consequences for a bad call keeps your game sharper since you know it will take a chunk out of your roll instead of just a sliver of it. Moving up stakes might also be part of the equation of how to make up for the absence of bonus income coming up soon. I think I'll ride out the current stakes for the rest of July at least. That will finish off my mid-year bonus and give me some time to see where the chart goes without assistance.

Thanks for the mail!

Sushi Cowboy

I, too, will miss week one I'm sure

Adam had posted over at his blog that he misses week one. I'm not looking back at week one but I'm sure I will miss it as well. I had a couple hot sessions, one at Rush, and one at ST SnGs, but mostly have been pulling down bonuses like a banshee: $50 for playing Rush and my mid-year bonus who's time is running out. Fortunately those perks have given me a huge head start and it's better to be ahead of the curve than behind it but I'm also very aware of the fact that if I cannot match the slope of my goal line then I will eventually run underneath it. The good news is that I no longer need to play as much Rush since I cleared the Rush Week bonus so I can put in more time a more EV+ endeavors like the ST SnGs. I'm also have a few days of slack for hitting Iron level this month since I've cleared 200 points every day of July so far so I am running bad I can just pull the plug early and play another day.

Worried about where the other $500 will come from. I have a 50 days left and bring in about $6/day in rakeback for $300. I have about $50 left on my midyear bonus. That leaves me $150 short assuming exactly break even play. I have my August freerolls coming up and my August and September Iron Man medals that I can use to enter into Steps tourneys and, if things go well, move up the staircase and convert a Step 3 ticket over to a cash tourney like I did last month for about $28. Not sure if that will make up for the difference or not.

One half K

Just passed the five century mark. Lost about $7 at nickel Rush thanks largely to a my kings getting cracked by an untimely queen showing up on the board and the same thing when an aggro got caught overplaying his jacks then got rewarded for it. But I put in my 100 points worth of Rush play which got me the other half of my $50 bonus so my current roll (including cashier, rakeback, accrued mid-year bonus, and the Rush bonus) is currently $500.27.

No sooner said than done

As mentioned previously, it would take me punting off huge chunks of my bankroll to miss the 1/2 K mark in the next three days. Well, I did just that. A combination of suboptimal play, being tired, too long of a session, bad luck, and a slight flirtation with .10/.25 Rush dropped me down about $50 today. Fortunately I went on an absolute torrid run on the Super Turbo SnGs and patched up most of that. I'm net up for the day so far but considering I got about $10 in rakeback and another $10+ in mid-week bonus for the day I'm actually doing rather poorly and could not even sustain break even today. Still considering that my progress line took a big dip down earlier in the day I'll settle for coming out ahead after having the extras thrown in.

The "other" Rush poker approach

So occasionally I mix up my approach to Rush and get uber-aggro. That was much of my profit over the past day. The alternate approach is pretty simple: if it is folded to me then I will open with a pot sized bet with any two cards. If I nail the flop I will continue with pot sized bet on the flop and re-assess from there. If I miss then I just dump it and move on. I will also re-raise with JJ, QQ, and AK and mostly shove with KK and AA. Nothing but good ol' aggression which actually ends up not being that high variance either since, at .05/.10, you're only investing .35 at a time pre-flop most of the time. Granted, you are doing it a ton of times but such a small amount means very small moves in the graph. Though more profitable, this approach is far far slower than my normal one since you not only need to wait for the action to get to you but also have to wait for everyone behind you to act as well. Furthermore, if you do take down the pot without a fight as desired, you will pick up some change but get no Full Tilt Points to show for it since there was no flop and thus no rake. I play either way, just depends on my mood and the amount of time I want to spend.

Big uptick

Today has been very good for the bankroll. I'm up three cents shy of $30 on the tables. I'm worked off $17.77 more from the mid-year bonus. My morning rakeback report gave me $8.34 for yesterday's play. And since it was my fourth day of clearing 100 points or more at Rush I've earned $25 of the $50 that I will get for playing all week. All told that's an $81.08 push in the right direction and it puts me way ahead of pace for now. Grand total now stands at $469.80 and I have my eyes firmly set on going through the $500 barrier within three days since I'll get another $25 from my Rush week promo bonus, about $30 from mid-year bonus, and about another $20 in rakeback. As long as I don't punt off huge amounts on the table then it should be a milk run to half a grand.

Blog...now with pretty picture at top

Got my act together and made a chart for tracking my bankroll while also tracking it to my goal of hitting $1K by Labor Day. The straight blue line is the pace I'd need to meet or beat to take my roll from $388.72 that I closed at yesterday to the $1000 that I hope to reach by September 6. I am adding in the real time accrual of my mid-year bonus since that money is already earned even though it isn't yet released into my account. The $25/$50 bonus for Rush week I am omitting since that has not technically been earned yet though I see no issues to doing so. The red line is my current progress. I had things go well for me today at the super turbo SnGs and I busted through the $400 mark today. It is still seriously hard for me to cope with the fact that I was staring at $14 in my cashier window less than a month ago.

It's nice to be ahead of pace of course but I also am cognizant that I am getting an extra $10/day boost from my mid-year bonus currently and I have about ten more days where I will be getting that tacked on to my roll. After I play through enough to clear my entire bonus I'll get a gigantic $250 added to my cashier but I will also stop getting a head start on each day. The pace I need to track to is $11.32 per day. I usually get six bucks and change from rakeback per day which means I'm going to need to actually play well enough to snag a few more bucks per day to make it on time. The chart will tell how things are going.

Playing Rush hands

Adam said he was thinking about straying back into Rush poker and was looking for advice so I figured I'd just go ahead and publish my hand standards.

I basically fold everything except:

AK raise or call a single raise then play if I hit A or K. Possibly cbet a miss in position but usually not, but that's just my style. I know I'm giving up some equity here but it is just easier and faster for me to bail on the hand and move on to another.

AA raise, re-raise, or shove pre. I don't try to play these tricky because anyone who will go broke with their hand post-flop will usually do so pre. If there is already isolation I might flat instead of four bet so I don't scare off JJ or QQ but that's rare. Usually I just shove when I find someone that interested because some many donks shove AK trying to look strong and other players know it so a shove can induce a call from even small pairs even though, if they'd think about it, they are a flip *at best* but once you make a big pot people get greedy.

KK, actually more likely to shove pre here than with AA because I don't like getting bluffed out by an A on the flop.

22-QQ raise if first to pot and in MP or later. TT-QQ raise if first to pot in any position. Small or mid pairs limp if previous limper(s) and set mine. If there is a raise in front of me I'm pretty much dumping 22-QQ and moving on. They end up playing much the same since anyone who is getting frisky has AA, KK, or AK and there is no substantial difference between ducks and queens at that point. Every so often you'll catch someone with JJ or TT but not enough (in my book) to justify stacking off in coin flips or with an underpair. I used to get real defensive about getting re-raised with QQ and get stubborn with them then stack off to AA or lose a coin flip with AK. It's taken a lot of lost hands and money to finally just condition myself to ask "would I put money in here with 22?" because that is basically the same hand.

Steals. I used to steal a lot more in the hi-jack, cutoff, or button when it was folded to me. A min-raise is not going to cut it. Yes, some people will have the auto-fold button on but a min just ends up getting called and you'll have to play poker. If you're going to steal then just pot it. However, steals are so common from there that re-steals from the button or blind makes stealing a hassle sometimes. Nowadays I pretty much don't bother because of the playback and the fact that you need to wait for everyone to fold to you all around the table (I play full ring Rush) until you can try to steal.

I also buy in for minimum and cash out after doubling up as long as I double up to more thank 150% or so of my stack. You have to close your window but once you do you can buy in for min again. Rush is a rat holers paradise. As such their min buy is larger than at the normal ring tables, 40bb instead of 20bb. As the saying goes, I'm not here to make friends.

I know that this is suboptimal play but those are the guidelines I use because my goal is merely to break even and plow through as many hands as possible in the shortest amount of times. Playing four tables in the Rush format also means that I do not bother trying to get reads on players. I focus on my cards and my cards only. When I'm making origami and folding everything due to either nitting up or being card dead I'll clear 2000 hands/hour (500 hands/hour/table). Average though is closer to 1600 and on a slow day because I'm having to play hands out it can dip down to even less than that.

Other tidbits:
For whatever reason, re-raising the very deep stacked players pot sized bets very often gets them to fold. I don't know why.

I have found that the stereotype of aggro Europeans, especially eastern, is true enough that I will knock my standards down half a notch for them. i.e. stacking off with QQ or AK.

According to HEM and my (admittedly not huge sample size) numbers, stacking off with AK pre-flop is EV-. I forget the exact numbers but QQ was either EV- or only slightly EV+ that I also have stopped doing that in favor of finding spots where I am a substantial favorite. The only winner when playing tons of coin flips is Full Tilt.

.02/.05 is, not surprisingly, softer than .05/.10 which I normally play since players will stack off lighter. If I am looking to do a little bankroll repair I might move down to playing nickels but usually I stick to dimes because it takes so long to accrue points at .02/.05.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Comment or email if you have any questions.

1K by Labor day?

So I brought up the 1K race idea at poker last night and after giving our target dates Marshall quipped that it was more like a walk than a race so I'm going to set a much more aggressive end date now. Instead of mid-February I'm looking at Labor Day (2010 that is) as my new target date for hitting $1000.

Here's the basic components of how I hope to get there:

$200.48 Current cashier balance
$250.00 Mid year bonus which will clear before the end of July at current pace
$50.00 Rush poker bonus which will clear next week
$405.00 in rakeback at approximately 45/week for nine weeks (including the previous Tue-Mon period which hasn't been paid out yet)

All that totals up to $905.48 assuming that I do nothing more than break even on the tables. I'm looking to make up the difference in EV+ play and freerolls. Reviewing the numbers makes this seem reasonable enough on paper. Profiting $10/week between now and Labor Day seems plenty doable but the challenge is going to be, as it always is, to not tilt off huge chunks of bankroll and to do that will require a lot of discipline. Fortunately, having a set goal and a set date will help me keep things on track I think/hope. Even Cake Challenge II didn't provide as much guidance since it only provided an end date without a target dollar value. Having both will provide a roadmap to the target so I can easily detect if I am straying off course and put in corrective measures quickly.

We'll see how this goes...

MMM: $14?

Mr. Cowboy,


Could you explain your bankroll management standards while playing $2+.15 tourneys when you only had $14 in your account?


Jesus F.
Pacific Palisades, CA

Jesus, it's good to hear from you.

Well to be honest I did have have rakeback coming to me as well so I knew that worst case scenario would be that I would have to wait until that got credited to my account. Still, a $2 tourney is not proper BRM even with the rakeback accounted for. I realized at the time that I was violating my BRM rules but there were a couple things going on. First of all, I felt that I was EV+ against those SnG tourneys and that I had just had an extended stretch of run bad. If you're going to give me 2:1 on heads or tails I am going to take it because there is an edge. If I lose a bunch in a row I'm still going to take it because I know the numbers will even out eventually. Secondly, after winning the April 1 deadline prop bet I really had just been aimlessly wandering and decided that I'd be better off bumping up the stakes so that I pay more serious attention. When losing a microstakes buy in is so insignificant to overall bankroll it is easy to play poorly because any one buy in does not impact your roll very much. But like death from a thousand cuts it will eventually ruin you. So I increased the amount at stake and it shook me out of my funk. Yes, I took a serious nose dive but I have come back with a vengeance and am surging like a banshee. As I've noted before, the biggest challenge is all mental game management. Though poker skill is part of it of course, the biggest risk is going on tilt or other mental lapses. We'll see how my head holds together on the way to $1000.

Sushi Cowboy.

Rush Week

Yet another bonus available to me this week. Playing Rush poker is worth anywhere from $5 to $250 depending on how many points you earn and how many days you earn them. Entry level is 10 points/day, mid-tier is 100, and the big bucks go out to those who churn 1000 points/day. I'm targeting 100/day for all seven days of Rush week which will be worth $50. A nice chunk of change for clearing points that I am already cranking out.

Nice day at Rush today. Played nitty and raked in KK over QQ four times today. Also got KK vs QQ and AA vs KK but lost when they hit their sets. Still, solid progress.

Cashier is at $225.58 and I've passed the halfway point of my mid-year bonus which is now at $126.88. Throw in an esimated $24 in rakeback and I'm sitting $376.46 and should tick past $400 sometime this week. Really feel like I should be able to get halfway to 1K by the end of July. Sorry I don't have pretty charts currently. Part of the problem is that my SnG stats don't roll up on the same chart as my cash game play so I'll need to cobble something together but I'll throw something up on the blog before too long.

This...is...POKER!

OK, I had that one all saved up for when I break the $300 mark. 300. Get it? Like "This is Sparta!"

Have to say that it has been a rough ride and I didn't really think that the road from $240 at the end of Q1 to $300 would go through the $14 neighborhood. Not by a longshot. But now that I'm back on track, in the right bankroll zone, and headed in the right direction, I'm really locked in on the $1000 barrier and want to reel it in.

What's been happening?

Yes, I know that the blog has been on a rather extended hiatus. A few things have transpired since last post so here's the update on the past couple months.

* Still playing every day. In order to qualify for the One-a-Day freeroll I need at least one Full Tilt Point per day and I have been clearing that by a comfortable margin. On an "off" day I may only get 30-40 but usually I have 50 minimum and more often 100 or more. Beginning in July I have been targeting 200 points/day which qualifies me for "Iron" status, their highest rung in the Iron Man ladder. So far in July I've nailed it every day.

* I've added in playing $2 + .15 Super Turbo Sit and Go tourneys. T300 starting stacks, 15/30 starting blinds, 3 minutes per level. Feel quite comfortable with these. I play them four at a time and need 1 win or two seconds to basically break even. Anything above that is sugar.

* I absolutely torched massive chunks of my bankroll. I certainly will own up to donking off plenty of it but I will also give credit to epic run bad. You know, two outers, three outers, runner-runners, etc. The suckouts we all know and love but just in such historic proportions that it was ridiculous. At one point my cashier total was $14 and change though I had some rakeback in my back pocket. Still buying into $2 tourneys with $14 in the bank is questionable BRM.

* Cashed in 7th in a freeroll, good for $45.

However, Adam has lit a fire under me since he started talking about going $1000 or bust so I've jumped on his bandwagon and have the same target in sight. From my nadir of <$15 I am now well above that thanks to shedding my run-bad, more focused play, and having a carrot to after. In the past few weeks my cashier window has been run up to $205.23.

The big news though is that I am currently clearing my mid-year bonus. Since I had two months of silver and two months of gold I have $250 worth of bonus available to me that I clear at the rate of one nickel per FT point. Since I've been churning 200 points per day that is about $10 per day and I'm halfway done and will have no problem clearing the full amount by August 14, the deadline. Combine the bonus with roughly $6/day in rakeback and all I have to do is break even at the tables to net out about $16/day while still clearing my bonus.

My total assets at this point are $205.23 (cashier) + $21.64 (rakeback) + $118 (bonus) = $344.87.

I have another $132 coming from my bonus which I have not cleared yet so my projected total in a couple weeks should be about $475. ASSUMING that I don't decimate my roll and can stay on the current pace I will qualify for a $600 year end bonus which I can start clearing in January. I would need to push 267 points/day in order to clear the full amount but if I did then that would put me well above $1000 so I see mid February as the latest I should hit one grand. If things go well and I can pull in some more freeroll cashes then so much the better. Heck, if I start playing poker well then I might even get get there much sooner.

To my loyal reader(s), sorry for the extended absence. Now that I have a goal to shoot for I will be updating the blog regularly again with news.

Almost batting 1.000

A day of really strong decision making. I've made some critical adjustments to my pre-flop play and trying to avoid high variance coin flips for stacks. I know that I'm giving up some equity by folding when an over card king or ace comes out but I'm OK with that for now until I get more mileage under this system. Basically I will see flops with QQ and lower or AK and try to get all in pre with KK and AA.

"Just" 3627 hands today with a tasty $12.83 of sugar. Got all in 34 times during that span. Was all in pre-flop 13 times and never got it in bad. Weakest hand was 55 against a short stack that I put on AK and was getting proper equity. Otherwise I had either the heavy side of a coin flip against a short stack or crushing equity against under pairs or a single over. I was lucky to avoid running KK into AA which would be just about the only way I can get it in really bad with the new system. Got the remainder of the stack in on the flop 13 more times and here is where I had the biggest losses as I a) find that I am indeed against an overpair to my overpair to the board b) against a set or c) lose to a draw/superdraw. Had and underset once and TPTK on an A rag rag flop, both of which I'm fine with stacking off to since the set miner had terrible odds to try to hit. Got it in on the turn 8 times and here is where I have a hammerlock on hands when I had villain drawing dead three times and < 15% three more times.

Only had one really poor play where I tried to push JJ through with a Q out and AQ just not going away. But apart from that one single play I was totally satisfied with my other big hands. I know I could be more profitable with more steals and cbets but there is a tradeoff. Sticking to the algorithm has a high theoretical yield to time ratio and simple rules which allow for high throughput while actually playing poker slows down the hands/hour and involves more brain work though it would mean a higher $/100 hand rate.

I'll stick with the current ruleset for now and reassess next week after 10K-20K more hands.

What a day

Played some Rush last night and had some free time today so I played some more. Pretty much held steady with a little bit of slippage. Then for some reason I decided to "open up my game" with terrible results. Before too long I was $20 deep so then I decided to play my way out of it and in doing so I set a new high water mark for hands in a day while recouping some of my losses. Thanks to the innovation that is Rush poker I got in 10,205 hands today averaging over 1000 hands/hour in the process. That was good for 434 Iron Man point which is well above the 50 per day I was eeking out last month and the 100 per day I've been targeting this month. Add 171 bonus points for playing during happy hour periods thorughout the day and I netted over 600 points which is over 0.22% of the MacBook I'm saving up points for.

I don't mind being EV neutral against Rush because it allows me to partake in my wheelhouse which is bonuses and promotions. The problem is that once I slip down it makes it hard to make up the difference when the best you can do is tread water. So in order to try to remedy the situation I added in the cbet to my arsenal with good results. Cbets were not enough to fully make up for the divot I left after my bad run in the middle of the day though. Plus I had some run bad. Take KK for example. I managed to get all in pre-flop with them 11 times and lost money over that run. Ran them into AA three times, outflopped by AK and AJ, and got it in versus JJ and TT in a massive pot that went to the big stack who overcalled with TT and spiked a set. I won the rest but still ended down two buy ins just from KK all in pre.

Once I got out of my funk I did manage to play pretty solid. I need to figure out what else I need to do to be more EV+ at the game. After rakeback I'm only down about eight bucks, which is more manageable than when I was down over $20 including rakeback.

Tomorrow will be another day and I don't plan on coming anywhere near 10K hands.

MMM: How's it going?

Dear Sushi Cowboy,


I have enjoyed reading your blog but have noticed that there haven't been many posts lately. I was wondering how the grind has been? Any news?


Shannon E.
Los Angeles

Hello Shannon,

I've been playing every day. That will assure that I will qualify for the One a Day freeroll and I'm well on my way to making Iron Man gold status for this month. Playing nickel Rush has made it really easy to grind out points. I've dipped down in that game but lately I've nitted up and have been essentially EV neutral against the rake so I'm netting out about three bucks a day in rakeback. But I should be getting about twice that when the Iron Man semi-annual bonus is announced as it is expected to be.

There's really not a lot to report playing Rush. I'm folding pretty much everything under the sun (seriously, my VPIP is < 10 playing nine handed tables) and playing all of my premium hands very fast. I've even become less enchanted by AK and pairs QQ and lower. I still play them of course but much more carefully. Generally speaking I won't go to the mat pre-flop with AK anymore unless I'm getting a decent price. The sessions end up all looking very similar, a blur of hole cards getting pitched, raising big hands for value, and stealing blinds every so often. I run KK into AA here and there, get sucked out on horribly from time to time, but mostly just post blinds and wait to stack someone.

So sorry that there isn't much content for you to read. When I have something interesting or pass a big milestone then I'll post but until there news my blog is going to be pretty quiet. Thanks for your interest. Call me.

Sushi Cowboy

EV+...actual V, not so much

Just one of those days where a lot of things didn't go like the odds say they are supposed to. Net result is that I'm down about nine bucks for the day instead of being profitable as shown in the chart.

How bad was I running? All of the hands below were for stacks.

KK vs AK all in pre loses to A on the flop
58 (BB) vs A8 on A58 flop
AA vs TT all in on the flop of undercards turns a T
KK vs AQ vs JJ all in pre loses to flopped J then comes in third thanks to turned A
JJ flops top set then loses to bare nut flush draw
99 vs A7 all in pre loses on KKQ 7 7 board
AK vs AT all in pre loses to flopped T
KK vs 77 all in pre loses to flopped set
And my favorite, KK vs AQos catches running cards to make a wheel straight flush

Ahhh...variance.

MMM: Negative rakeback?

Yo Sushi,


I was checking my rakeback account and noticed that I had negative rakeback for one of the days. I'm no accountant and maybe there's a good explanation but that seems pretty screwy to me. How does that happen?


Rakebackless,
Seattle WA

Dear Rakebackless in Seattle,

Negative rakeback can seem surprising the first time you see it but there is a very simple explanation. You can end up with negative rakeback because of deductions taken by your poker room. A couple reasons for this are freerolls and bonuses. In the case of a freeroll the overlay provided by the poker room is evenly divided among all participants. For example, I played in a freeroll yesterday which had a $5000 prize pool and 2173 players. Since no money was contributed by any of the players the entire $5000 was overlay. Five grand divided by 2173 players is $2.30 per player which counts against your rakeback. If you earned less than $2.30 in rakeback for that day then you would register negative rakeback for that day. There is indeed no such thing as a free freeroll...at least not with rakeback. I assume that players without rakeback accounts actually do get a true freeroll. Similarly, if you are playing through a bonus amount then that is deducted from rakeback as well. You still end up ahead because of your bonus, just not as far ahead as you would if you got the bonus and the rakeback but the poker room is not going to want to let you double dip like that and since they are setting up the bonus rules they can call the shots.

I hope that explains it for you,
Sushi Cowboy

FTPA freeroll

Today's freeroll is what I get for acing the Sit and Learn test from the Full Tilt Poker Academy. This one is a $5K event with 2173 runners and the top 540 cashing. The upside is that a flat payout schedule makes it easier to cash but the amount is pretty small (as in a $5 min cash) and stays small throughout the long tail. Undaunted, I jumped in to see what damage I could do.

Got a great kickstart when I rasied to 3xBB, or T90, in the first blind level with KdQd. Flop is 9d3d7d and I stack 4d8d.

Pot it with AA, get one caller. Flop is 955, I lead for pot he shoves and I call, he has TT.

Raise with JJ, get shoved on by a short stack. I call, he shows 88 and I eliminate him.

Not sure if I was getting too cocky or not but I take on a re-raise from the short stack with TT and pay off QQ.

So I'm cruising along and find the field thinning while sitting on a pretty healthy stack. As long as I don't do anything stupid I will have absolutely no problem coasting into the money. I then start wondering how deep I want to try to go. The bubble bursts at the top 540 for $5. The next stop is at 360 for $6.25 so I'd have to slog through way more players just to get another $1.25. I consider just sitting out and getting blinded off but as we pass through the money bubble the eliminations happen at a furious rate as everyone who was nursing a short stack now is just shoving with ATC.

Before I know it we're closing in fast on 360 and I can see by the player list that there are a considerable amount of players who have only a few blinds of chips left. So I decide to go for it. I just stick to my style and pass through the next tier. About now I'm wondering if it is feasible to make some real money. I'm above the average chip stack and I have just as much reason to make it to the final table as the next guy. I'm pretty conservative but I realize that I need to make some moves if I want to grow my stack to stay competitive. So I shove with any premium hand, JJ+, AK, and AQ depending on circumstances. The blinds are getting up there and steals are not trivial amounts. I have a spotless record but I get a bad feeling about shoving with AJ against a guy I have covered. He calls and shows AA which cuts my stack down quite a bit. But I pick up some legit hands and shove about 4 out of 6 hands in a row and build it back to respectable in quick order. I manage to wait for good hands and get paid for them with one bad suckout along the way my QJ vs KK which ran out ATx x K to win in ugly fashion. I sail past the 180 mark, the 90 mark and crack the 45 player mark which is worth $12.50. If I can get to two tables the payout is $17.50 and final table payouts range from $25 to $400. My stack is strong and I'm bringing my A game after a slight lapse in concentration. I pick up KK, shove, get called by a short stack holding 22 and genius big stack overcalls with 44 which sets up on the flop and sends me home with $12.50 in my pocket.

Not a bad weekend for freerolls. My cashier balance has hit a new all time high of $290.26 thanks to three cashes. Though I shouldn't expect the same performance each month I see no reason why I can't at least qualify for the same three freerolls each month so I'll at least give myself the chance to roll up more cashes 12 times a year.

'cuz I'm freeeee...freeroooooollllling

In what is sure to become a regular fixture to my online poker schedule, the second weekend of the month is time to freeroll time for me. Saturday is the Iron Man freeroll and the One a Day freeroll. Sunday is the Full Tilt Poker Academy freeroll. These are my opportunities to pad the bankroll after jumping through the hoops that FTP puts in front of me.

One a Day freeroll - For earning at least one FT Point on each day of a calendar month, I qualify to either receive 15 bonus medals which can be spent in the Iron Man store or I can join in on the One a Day freeroll. Last month I took the bonus medals but since I would just end up spending the medals on tourney entries as the best way to monetize my Iron Man achievements, I decided to just go ahead and do the freeroll instead. It is a $2000 freeroll with a fairly flat payout structure. 1409 entered and with the top 360 paying. First place paid $232.50 and 91-180 paid out $3.

I spent a long time just folding. Blinds started at 15/30 and for the majority of the first four blind levels I took down a few blinds when raising pre with strong starting hands. It wasn't until late in the fourth level that I got involved in a hand. With two limpers ahead of me I completed the SB with 3s5s and saw a flop four ways. It came down 5c4s2s for top pair and and OESFD, not bad. I bet pot figuring I would just take this thing down but was surprised/elated/horrified to get two callers. Turn was 8c and I shoved the remaining 810 into a 960 pot which was enough to shake off the other players. That got me to 1770. The next hand I picked up KQos on the button and took down a three way limped pot when I hit top pair. Those were the main hands that got me healthy. I had a couple other skirmishes and some blind steals but that was enough to get me past the bubble to my massive $3 payday. Since the next payout was 90 players out it was time to just jam and I got it in with 99 versus KQ and lost the flip. For a tourney with such a small min-cash I think I'm going to play more aggressively next time and look to either bust out early or position myself to make a deep run.

Iron Man Silver freeroll - Participants in the Iron Man promotion have the option of taking bonus medals or playing in the freeroll. I decided to do the freeroll this month for the same reasons as above. Since I'm at the silver level of Iron Man my freeroll is good for a $15,000 prize pool with the top top 180 places of an 837 person field. First place gets $2250 and a mini-cash is a reasonable $37.50.

The best part about these Iron Man freerolls is that people get entered into it by default since you need to opt out to get the medals. As such there are a lot of stacks on auto-pilot. When I started it became clear immediately that only three of the 8 seated were actually there so it was time to feast on the blinds of the the players who probably don't even know they are enrolled in the tourney. One player ended up being an idiot and was looking to mix it up with other players at the table instead of just cooperating and robbing the absent players which would have been far more profitable. I was fortunate to have had position on the other two and could min-raise and take down blinds for half the hands if they folded to me. Eventually the idiot started raising more than his fair share and I protested by taking the maximum time allowable including my time bank to let him know that I'm still at the table and if he's going to steal from me then I'm going to make it less profitable by slowing him down. I catch one set early and extracted some chips from another live player but for the first half of the tourney most of my profit came just from stealing blinds of absent players. However, those players eventually got blinded off and it was time to actually play some poker. Since the min-cash was actually a reasonable payout I sized up my stack and kept an eye on the lobby so I could estimate if I had enough chips to coast across the finish line. There was an absolutely irritating player on my immediate right who would literally take the maximum amount of time every single hand before folding. He had to have been there too or else he would be auto-folded after timing out the first time. Though he was a pain in the butt his actions actually benefitted my by slowing down my blind off time since we were getting in fewer hands per blind level. Eventually I got to the point of no return where I had zero fold equity and had to try to fold my way to the money which I was eventually able to do thanks to some microstacks who got squashed before I did. After I cashed I got it in twice with ace high. Won the first thanks to a fold but lost the second to QT who caught a T.

$40.50 of infinite ROI sugar in the bank which brings my cashier total to $277.57 which is the highest it's ever been. Quite pleased with how my first freerolls went and am looking forward to pulling down some bigger cashes in the future.

Bad stretch

In the past 24 hours I've been on a perma cooler.

* QQ loses to AJ
* TT notched by JJ
* KK out flopped by QQ
* 99 finds KK
* TT finds JJ
* 99 has 22 hit a set
* AK hits top/top and loses to AA
* QQ vs AA
* JJ vs KK
* JJ vs AA
* 22 vs AQ flip gets counterfeited by double paired board
* QQ vs KK

You get the idea. I can't recall a streak where I ran into so many big pairs. I'm pretty sure that this is just the dark side of variance because I'm doing EV+ moves but just getting coolered by better hands. That run took me down to -$38 against the rake and not even being profitable with rakeback. I'm going to do some data mining to double check my numbers to see what's what in the Rush world.

HOTD: Double shot

Nickel NLHE Rush and I'm in the SB when I pick up bullets with a fresh stack minus a BB and a SB. MP raises it to 4xBB, I repot to .65, shove, call. He shows AK and after I get past a broadway/paint-ish board I  double up.

Normally I click the "sit out" button when I'm in the middle of a big hand so that I can take my profits off the table but I missed the boat this time and I'm dealt into the next hand receiving AQos in the BB. I'm heads up against an MP limper and am forced to see an AdTs7s flop. Not a bad hand/flop to get for "free" so I pot it and figure that will be that. Instead the limper, who has me covered, shoves. Yuck. Three things were going through my mind - first, don't go broke in a limped pot; second, this guy is on a draw and the right thing to do for this hand is to call; third, the fact that I'm double stacked is making me lean away from calling here. In the end I go with what I feel the numbers are telling me is the right move and call. Villain shows down KJos with a dead backdoor flush draw since I have his suit covered and a gutter with a tooth missing since I have a Q. Board double blanks and I scoop a record $7.40 pot.

PS - I had the sit out next hand button during the second hand so I can put the sugar in the jar.

Halfway back

After bottoming out at -$19.56 in .02/.05 NLHE Rush yesterday, I've battled back to recapture half of the deficit and now stand at -$9.78 or about 5 buying to the good in the past day. No real stupendous hands, just getting my money in good and getting paid.

I did suck out a J when I got it in JJ vs QQ but that makes up for the time when TT stacked off to my shove with KK and caught a T.

Flopped a set of eights and boated on the turn then allowed Q high to throw me his chips.

I tried to steal with A/rag and got called to see a AK8 flop. Check check. Second K on the turn and I check call since I don't buy what he's selling. Third K on the river, I check then call his shove with QQ and double through him.

I tried to steal with 8c9c then hit top two. Potted the flop and got called. Villain turns a pair then stacks off with KJ.

Got coolered when I saw a flop with TT on a J88 flop, checks thorugh. T on the turn which gave me second best boat to flopped jacks full.

In general there aren't a lot of hands to dissect in Rush. All I'm doing is folding crap, stealing when I can, playing premium hands really fast, and playing my tighter pre-flop stack off range against villain's looser pre-flop stack off range. Not really rocket science and makes for boring hand histories.

HOTD: Is the Seven-Deuce game on?

Nickel Rush Hold'em and I'm attempting a long range steal since the tables are so tight. I'm basically potting every hand where I am first to the pot. I pick up 72os three off the button and I make no exception to my hand requirements for stealing. SB and BB defend. Flop is A2Q two clubs. It checks to me and I figure I might as well rep the ace so I throw out a pot sized bet of .51, SB folds, BB calls. Well I'm done with this hand now. This is why I have dumped so many chips today. If the steal doesn't work I need to just bail on the hand. Turn is another deuce. BB checks to me again and I shove the rest of my stack in. BB calls with A4os. River is a seven to boat me up. Yeah, I'm THAT guy.

Did I say break even on Rush?

Well that was a short stay above water. Since break even I've dropped about $20 or 10 buy ins. Not sure how much of this I want to blame on myself but here are the biggest hands I lost in that stretch.

* Ax9h on a four hearted board. Lose to Qh. This was a steal attempt that I ended up following up on. Plus I had exceeded my $2 limit and should have cashed out before this hand. Terrible decision making on my part.

* Aces cracked by K6. Pre-flop, he potted and I repotted to put 1/3 of my stack in. He flopped two pair and that was that.

* AQ vs AA on A67 flop. I potted pre and he flat called behind. I briefly considered that I was up against AK but figured AK would re-raise...and I was right. He didn't have AK.

* 99 vs JJ with both being overpairs to the board.

* 88 vs KT flip. Pre-flop, there's a pot sized bet and KT flats. I repot, everyone in between folds, then KT shoves. I cannot give him credit for 99 or better so I get it all in. T on the flop.

* AK vs 55. A33 flop and I decide to slow play it. 5 on turn and I stack off.

* JJ vs QQ with both being overpairs to the board.

* 99 vs Ah6h. I flop second set and he can't let go of his heart draw which comes on the river after the money went in.

* AcKc vs TT flip and I miss.

* AsKs vs 77 flip and I miss that one too.

* TJos on T6Q 9 board. I get it in on the turn with a pair and open ender and lose to KJ who was already there. Also a blind steal attempt that I should have just dumped after the steal failed.

* J6 vs A4 on 46A J ... board. Yet one more steal attempt that I followed through with. Free card to let me make my two pair then I got it in.

All of those hands cost me 2/3 of a buy in or more. Got my money in terribly a few times and got unlucky on others. Biggest lesson learned: after a steal attempt fails let it go. Blinds were up for the asking today and I was indeed feasting on them a great deal. I probably would have been up for the day if I did nothing but steal blinds when I was first to the pot but instead I decided to flush those chips down the toilet. Also need to be better aware of more skillful players during the day who will flat with large pairs. That's a big hole I dug for myself and it will take some doing to fill it up again. Though I hate to use rakeback as a crutch I am at least still EV+ including RB but I am really targeting being EV+ against the rake as my benchmark. Yeesh, what a day.

$26 coin flip

In order to try to monetize my Iron Man medals I used 140 of them and bought a $26 tournament ticket which is good for any $24+2 or $25+1 tourneys. The one I chose was a Step 3 single table tourney which paid out five of the nine spots. 1st and 2nd got a Step 4 ticket worth $75. 3rd and 4th got a replacement Step 3 ticket. Fifth place got a Step 2 ticket. Table is playing pretty tight. I raise one hand with AQ and get folds. Then I pick up QQ in the 3rd blind level, 25/50 with T1500 starting chips. I pot it to 200, get raised by the SB. Yuck. If I'm beat I'm beat but I'm not folding queens in this structure so I shove and get called by AKos. King on the flop but adjoining jack gives me running straight possibilities. Turn is a brick and the river taunts me with another king. That coin flip would have put me in the chip lead and I likely could have coasted into getting a 3rd or 4th place finish to get a Step 3 ticket which I could have converted at the cashier window to get $24.70 in cash after they take the 5% transaction fee. Darn. Oh well, I will be earning many more medals in the future and will get plenty of chances to convert them into cash. Just didn't work out this time.

Breaking even on Rush

Just finished a strong session at Nickel Rush NLHE. 539 hands in 28 minutes to the tune of $9.74. No real magic going on as the hand histories show. All of my big win hands are a who's who of category 1 hands including my two favorites, AA and KK. They say how important table selection is and while Rush doesn't strictly have tables they do have player pools and it looks like the morning crowd might be the people I want to harvest chips from more in the future. Plenty of action and players stacking off light. In fact I just turned off steal mode completely after some initial playback and went purely with my ABC rush formula. OK, actually it is more like AB as in either fold or shove.

17,688 hands overall with $1.90 of profit against the rake which translates to over $21 including rakeback. Still early though.

MMM: Full Tilt Academy

Sushi Cowboy,


Since you have shown previous interest in other Full Tilt Poker promotions I think you would be interested in the Full Tilt Poker Academy where you can take tests and complete achievements to earn credit toward store items and freerolls similar to the Iron Man program. There are instructional videos and follow up quizzes which can qualify you for monthly freerolls depending on how well you do. You can also accept challenges where you need to accomplish specific tasks which show your understanding of the concepts taught at the Academy. You can find more information on the Full Tilt Poker Academy website. I hope to see you enrolled soon.


Thanks for being a freak and a very weird dude  valued player on Full Tilt Poker.
Howard "The Professor" L.

Dear Professor,

I'm one step ahead of you. I actually have already enrolled in the FTPA and have started in on the challenges. I'll be participating in this month's freeroll having aced Phil Gordon's Sit and Learn on 5 common Hold'em leaks. It's an interesting program and you guys are really living up to the "Learn" part of your Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros.

Sushi Cowboy

Road to the WSOP Main Event

FTP has a new series of tournaments called "Steps to the Main Event" which allow you to pick which step you want to come in on in order to get to the main event. Instead of referring to a tourney as a satellite, super-satellite, super-super-satellite, uber-satellite, or whatever, they have different steps (1, 2, 3, etc.) at set buy in levels so you can come in on the level that you want.

I traded in 20 of my accumulated Iron Man medals for a Step 1 ticket which is equivalent to a $3 + .30 buy in. It was an 18 player sit and go. Top four players get a Step 2 ticket, good enough for a an $8 + .70 tourney, while 5th through 10th places get a replacement Step 1 ticket so they can get back in line and ride again. With more than half the field cashing I figured this would be a good way to take a (long) shot at getting to the WSOP.

Third hand overall is the first I played. 44 in the SB. MP raises to 105 (out of 1500) and he has already shown to be aggressive. Maybe he had it, maybe he didn't. Don't know since there was no showdown but raising twice this early I figure he wants to either jump out to a lead early or go home. One caller ahead of me so I call with just the BB behind me who I assume will come along too based on pot odds. He does and I'm already getting more than 3:1 plus big implieds if I hit. Swing and miss though I get a free card on the flop which misses also. Oh well.

Next hand, same guy min-raises. I have KT suited on the button and decide to see a flop since I've got to be good against his range if I hit. Flop come out and the good news is that I hit top two pair, the bad news is that they are all diamonds. Checks around to me and I fire a pot sized bet which is all I'm going to put out there. Either I take it down or I'm done with the hand unless I boat up. Two folds and the original raiser flats. Turn is an offsuit trey, check, check. River pairs the turn card. He checks to me and I check back. He shows Ad3d for the flopped nut flush plus a side order of trip threes. Nice hand/board. That puts me at about 2/3 starting stack. Still room to maneuver but I'm not liking my position. Fold for a couple orbits and end up with J7 in the BB. Flop is A67 rainbow, checks around. Turn is a J for two pair and I pot it after it checks to me but get one caller. River is an A. Ick. Worst card ever but I'm in too deep so I shove and get called by A6 which was ahead the whole way.

Dead end on that road but that will not be the last shot I take at the getting to the WSOP.

Tinkering with the formula

I'm finally starting to use Hold'em Manager for things other than making pretty graphs. I've been running analyses on my Rush Poker hands looking for ways to squeeze more EV out of the hands that I'm playing and the first thing that has become clear is that blind stealing is a way of life in Rush. It is very rare to get a walk in the BB mostly because you will almost always get someone betting from the cutoff, button, or SB in an attempt to steal blinds since it is so easy for Rush players to auto-fold and move on to the next hand, a condition that does not exist in the same way at standard tables. So after a few sessions of mixing that into my game I ran a filter on my Rush play and it indeed is definitely profitable to steal blinds. Of course you get played back at by people who know you are stealing and by people with real hands but that doesn't diminish the fact that you're better off doing it than not doing it. At first made pot sized bets then I got a little greedy and tried doing min-bets to save money when I got raised but then I got played back at more often or had to see flops then fold so I'm back to making pot sized bets to steal. If you're going to steal you have to make it believable. Even though it's obvious that you're just trying to steal people still have to have a reasonable hand to call with. Long live the gap concept. One thing I like about blind stealing is that it is super-low variance since a pot sized can only cost me .17 maximum and taking down the blinds pre-flop is rake free which makes blind stealing sugar just that much sweeter. The real beauty of stealing in Rush is that you get new opponents every hand so it is very difficult for people to pick up on the fact that you are stealing at every opportunity. I also started raising with my second tier pairs from EP/MP after running my JJ or QQ into AA/KK too often but that resulted in folds so I figured, hey, if this works for good pairs then I can do it with ATC so I started steal attempts whenever I was first to the pot. I mean, who would figure that I'm going to try to steal blinds from UTG+1? I must have a real hand, right? Well, yes and no. It does work to steal but there is just too much territory to get through since anyone in between can wake up with cards and HEM bears that out. It is not EV+ enough to try omni-stealing so I'm throttling back to just LP steals.

Now I treat Rush as though I'm in the late stages of a tournament, I want to steal blinds often enough to not get "blinded out" so I pick my spots a little more carefully and just try to maintain my starting stack until I get a premium pair to go to war with. If all goes well I can just tread water with blind steals until I can get involved in hands with huge equity. So that is the strategy for now. I'm about 16,300 hands into NLHE Rush with only part of that incorporating the latest formula so the jury is still out but I feel that it is definitely rooted in a solid foundation. We'll know more after I grind through more hands.

Run Bad Illustrated

The chart says it all. The green line is what actually happened in my latest Rush NLHE session whereas the red line reflects what my EV was for the hands I was involved in.

* AK all in versus AJ spikes a J on the flop.
* AA loses to KJ suited who calls a shove on the turn with a backdoor flush draw and a gutter.
* KK vs TT preflop loses to T on the flop.
* Shove with KK and get *called* by A9 suited, A on the flop.
* QQ versus AJ preflop, spike a set  on KQ4 flop, T on river to give villain broadway.
* JJ loses flip with villain stacking off pre with AQ.
* QQ versus AJ and 99 all in pre, A on turn.
* QQ versus AK and A7, K on flop.

That's just how it goes sometimes. I'm satisfied by what the EV line tells me which is that I'm getting my money in even or better. 300 BB of negative variance is a bummer and it's too bad that the cards didn't fall the right way but I'm in it for the long term so this is nothing but a concentrated lump of run bad that will get smoothed out over time.

10,000 hand Rush check up

I figure 10,000 hands is a reasonable number to start getting a feel for my EV on Rush. Just finished a session and am currently at 10,848 hands, $.92 of profit (>$12 with rakeback), and .17 BB/100. Not riveting but at least it is EV+ against the rake. Keep in mind that this included about 1200 hands worth of throwing away everything but two hands of pocket aces back when I first started and was only after the $25 bonus. That also includes my disaster session of -$9.97 when I broke from my formula. Remove those sessions and I'd be up about $17. I'm going to keep plugging away to see if I can sustain EV+ by just playing uber TAG. If this works out then I can just do some turbo grinding, make a little bit of sugar against the rake, make a lot of rakeback, and reap the fringe benefits of the Full Tilt promotions. That's the plan at least.

Second month of Iron Man silver in the books

For the second month running I racked up 25 days of 50 or points which is enough to snag me silver status in the Iron Man promotion. I also earned at least one point per day for each day in April so I qualify for either the One-A-Day freeroll or 15 bonus medals. After much investigation I have decided to start playing the freerolls instead of converting them to bonus medals. They have restructured the Iron Man store and removed the $26 and $75 tokens which were what I had planned to purchase as the best deal. They still have token equivalents as well as tournament tickets to their "Steps" series of tourneys, FTOPS tickets, and Mini-FTOPS tickets. So basically the only thing worth buying are tourney tickets. I can still get cash or FTPoints but those are poor values in comparison plus they count against your rakeback in some way or another. Since the Iron Man freerolls are open only to Iron Man participants I am going to work on those because I've heard that many players don't show up. Maybe because they don't realize that they need to opt out of the tourneys and don't know they are enrolled or perhaps they just had too much to drink the night before and don't want to get up and play a donkament in the morning. Whatever the reason, it works in my favor. They are supposed to be reasonably easy to at least mini-cash and they have a very flat payout structure with people on 2+2 saying that they pay 30% of the field. I'll know more after I play my first freerolls which will be on May 8th in accordance to their second Saturday of the month schedule. Sweet!

Stick to the program!

After a series of successful sessions of Rush I decided to mess with the formula, much to the detriment of my earn rate. Instead of shoving or folding I started to set mine, raise pot sized bets, cbet, etc. In other words I was kinda playing poker and it did not go well. AK versus AQ on an AQx flop, buh bye stack. Pot sized raise JQ steal attempt sees a J high flop and I pay off a set of sixes. Suck out by an underpair after a three way pot forms. You get the idea. While there are definitely tweaks to the formula that should be made I need to fold in one variable at a time and not make wholesale changes. I am unfortunately now EV- against the rake. I am however EV+ through the miracle of rakeback but I really want to avoid that crutch. I do remain committed to riding out .02/.05 Rush until my curve stabilizes to see how the EV does over a large enough sample set.

Yummm...Kool-Aid!

I must confess that after sipping from the cup of Rush Poker I now have developed a thirst for this sweet colorful over-sugared new ambrosia. Having experienced the delicious taste of success I decided to delve in to Rush again with the intent of finding out whether I can play it profitably or not against the rake so I jumped back on to the .02/.05 NLHE tables and plunked down a buy in. Sure enough, I have been EV+ with my uber-TAG formula which, simplified, is fold everything and shove premium pairs. As ridiculous as that sounds it has stood the test for over 7000 hands since people will call off ridiculously light. Pocket deuces to a shove? Sure, why not, since ducks have an edge against any hand that includes a deuce in it; otherwise, it is basically flipping or crushed. I think people think that only AK and air shove into just the blinds. Oh well, works out for me.

The real beauty of Rush is that it works well for me. I can employ my absurd play style and get paid. It is EV+ against the rake which means it is even more EV+ with rakeback. It is fast, as in 1500 hands/hour fast when I play four Rush tables at once (they don't allow any more than that) which translates into way more Full Tilt Points/hour and that significantly cuts down on the time needed to harvest them. More points/hour means that I can clear my Iron Man requirements in a fraction of the time which translates to faster and easier clearing of my 50 points and/or being able to target the 100 point days which would allow me to move up to gold or even iron categories and all of the benefits that entails. The big win will be when the semi-annual bonus comes up since Rush will allow me to easily clear the bonus that I am currently on pace for. I had previously calculated that I would need to clear 89 points per day which would have been a stretch before but it will now be trivial to collect the entire bonus so sometime in July or August I should have an additional $200 on the ol' bankroll...minimum. If I bump up my Iron Man status then I would get even more bonus money available to me at the mid-year break.

To paraphrase a common saying..."stuff" just got real.

MMM: In a Rush?

Dear Sushi Cowboy,


Based on our records of your play on Full Tilt Poker it seems like you do a lot of multi-tabling and it is for players like you that we have created Rush Poker tables. Is there anything we can do to get you to try them out?


Andy B.
Team Full Tilt

Dear Mr. B,

Funny you should mail me about that. As it turns out I got a promotional offer to try Rush Poker when it first came out. I forget all of the strings that were attached but I thought that a first time deposit was one of the conditions and I didn't want to have to run around trying to get money online and cleared fast enough to take advantage of that promo so I passed.

However, last week I got a pop up offering me $25 to clear 50 Full Tilt Points at Rush tables with no other requirements. That just so happened to coincide with a busy week for me and I was looking for a way to score some quick points because of my schedule so I actually did try it. You seem like a numbers guy so you can appreciate that I did the math and figured that I had a no-lose proposition available to me. After looking over the figures I found that the highest pot size to (SB+BB) ratio was at the .02/.05 NLHE 9 handed tables. Based on the average pot size I calculated that I could play and fold *every* hand until I amassed 50 points and still come out well ahead. With an average pot size of .75 that means .05 rake or .05 points each hand roughly. 50 points would therefore be 1000 hands and at a nine handed table that's 111 orbits. At .07 in blinds per orbit it is going to cost me less than $8 in blinds to get $25 with zero risk.

Since the offer expired last Sunday I decided to give Rush Poker a try on Thursday. I was running behind schedule on grinding out 50 points and figured I could make up the balance very quickly on Rush. I played 414 hands and was extremely passive to say the least...I had a VPIP of exactly zero. Despite that stat, I did actually win three hands by getting two walks and a free showdown with AQos which was good for TPTK and a massive .14 pot. I just played long enough to clear my 50 points for the day then I quit. I tried to time it so that I could get as many free hands in as possible but it's tough to know exactly in Rush. I double checked my figures and indeed I was down $3.15 and earned 18.43 points which is right in line with the expected burn rate. So far so good.

On Friday I figured I would finish off the balance but I also decided to loosen up my starting hand requirements a bit and play aces by shoving my full stack into any pot where I pick them up. My second session was even more successful. I played 833 hands and actually lost less than my first session even though I played twice as many hands thanks to five walks, two uncontested showdowns (sixes held up and Q8os made two pair), and two hands with aces (one hand I shoved UTG and got called by QdJd and Ad2d while 88 doubled me up in the other).

All told I was down $6.18 for all hands but netted out $18.82 which was even more than I had planned. I'm EV- at Rush without the bonus payouts which I attribute to my microscopic VPIP even though my win at showdown percentage is good. I'm not fully sold on Rush Poker yet but I can see it as being a possibly EV+ game if I tweak my ranges a little more since people are clearly willing to stack off light.

Thanks for bring up the topic Andy and we'll see you on the felt!
Sushi Cowboy