ITM but ........

In line with my resolution in the previous entry to play more tourneys, I surfed around some of the major poker sites to see if I could find a tourney that was suitable for my needs. As you know, it is almost impossible to find a good tournament that starts in the 8PM to 10PM range Manila time as I believe this is early morning in the US and all the poker addicts are asleep.

Finally found one in Bodog. It was a daily $2,500 Guaranteed Tourney that started at around 10PM with a good structure. 5,000 in chips, reasonable buy-in, 10 minute blinds that escalated very slowly. Less than 200 people. So it was perfect.

Got to play this last night. Started out good. Doubled up in the early rounds when somebody overplayed his top pair against my set of 4s. Got another good break when my QQs held up against an open ended straight draw. Before I knew it, I had a big stack around the middle of the tourney with half of the players eliminated. I believe I was in the top 5.

Then something happened. It wasn't that I was card dead, because I still got some good cards. But all my plays were not working out. If I raised pre-flop, somebody reraised all in and I had to fold. My limp ins were not being rewarded. I took some beats with good cards. And finally I made a bad call with an A8 against an A10 which crippled my stack. All these coupled with the blinds and antes going up.

When we were nearing the bubble, I was barely hanging on with around 10xBB. Just decided to fold and stay tight. A couple of rounds later and we were ITM. But I was severely short stacked. Finally decided to make a stand with Q4 suited against the BB who called with a K2. No improvement and that was it. Busted out in 15th place for a win of $30.

Should be happy with the ITM but obviously I'm not. I am trying to analyze how I lost the big stack and I think I was guilty of "fancy play" syndrome. My stack during the mid-levels was enough to comfortably make it ITM and still have a lot of play left for the final table. But I donked off majority of it overplaying some hands.

Damn .... I have to consider this tourney a critical lesson in stack management. I think it was the first time that I had a big stack like that in a tourney. In previous ones, I would normally be about average stack or slightly below and just maintained this to the final table by being aggressive near the bubble. So believe it or not, I wasn't too comfortable with the big stack because I didn't know what to do with it. Heheh.

The bad thing was, with the good structure and slow blinds, the tourney ended at 1AM. And that was me busting out in 15th. If I had made the final table, it would have probably ended at 2 AM. So if I decide to play this tourney regularly, it would result in me having only around 5 hours sleep before getting up the next day for work. And I don't think I can survive with 5 hours sleep on a daily basis.

So right now, I have decided that I will probably play this 2x a week. Maybe only on Fridays and Saturdays and we'll see what happens from there.

As to my SNG playing, still managing to play one or two games every night. Up and down is the term I would describe my results. Will ITM, lose a couple, ITM again, then lose a couple again. Am up a bit this month in SNGs, but only around 50 dollars or so.

Also heard about the $1,000 freeroll sponsored by nick (Poker Filipinas) on the occasion of his birthday. I admire this really great gesture to the local poker community. Unfortunately, cannot play this one as I will be in Palawan for a business seminar. But I am sure all the participants will have a blast. So Kudos to nick and GL to everyone !