The streak is dead

Before yesterday's session, I had a streak of making it to Station 2 13 straight times. As a reminder, Station 2 is when you outlast at least half of the field in an MTT. The streak ended yesterday. My downfall was another failure of heart in the one tournament I entered. I need to get my mojo back.

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     307   81   176        0

delta: $-50,000
2025 balance: $-1,134,000
2025 blue distance: $1,134,000
balance: $15,163,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.46 (1294 of 3121)

A failure of heart

I only played one tournament yesterday. The most memorable hand was one I'm not particularly proud of. I was dealt a big slick, and was up against two opponents. I bailed on the turn when the board paired, and one of my opponents put in a sizable bet. I figured I was up against either two pairs or trips, so I folded. Both opponents went to showdown. The pot was won by the opponent who had an ace kicker to go with the board's pair. Had I not bailed, I would have won the pot, since my king would have kicked his other hole card. The only scenario where my folding on the turn would have made sense was if an opponent had bet big enough to put me all in if I called, and that hadn't been the case. I realized I'd demonstrated a failure of heart, which is a sin against poker. I got my just reward, being bounced out of the tournament shortly afterwards.

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     366   99   134        0

delta: $-50,000
2025 balance: $-1,084,000
2025 blue distance: $1,084,000
balance: $15,213,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.47 (1294 of 3120)

My second worst poker January

My worst poker January came in 2022, when I lost just over three million play dollars. With only three sessions left in this January, it's highly probable that it will remain my second worst one. The most memorable hand of yesterday's session was the one that bounced me out of the first tournament I entered. I hit the rail with pocket tens, so it was both a poxit and a prexit.

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     445  117   161        0
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     349   81   170        0

delta: $-100,000
2025 balance: $-1,034,000
2025 blue distance: $1,034,000
balance: $15,263,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.49 (1294 of 3119)

Jump streak

As I've mentioned before, when no detail from a particular session stands out, in order to produce a halfway interesting post, I must resort to widening the scope of my focus to recent trends. It took me a while, but I finally found a trend I could talk about in this post. Including yesterday's session, the last nine times I've made the money, I've cashed at least one money jump up from a min cash. Not much to crow about, but beggars can't be choosy :-)

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     395   99   149        0
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     310   81    51   109000

delta: $9,000
2025 balance: $-934,000
2025 blue distance: $934,000
balance: $15,363,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.51 (1294 of 3117)

Nothing to complain about

If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of playing poker, it's that you should never complain. Certainly, there will be times when you'll feel hard done by the poker gods. The thing to keep in mind is that it's much easier to remember bad luck than it is to remember good luck. It's all too easy to treat good luck as if it's skill. If you're really honest with yourself, you only ever get into a position to complain heartily about bad luck after you've already been the beneficiary of a lot of good luck.

This is an excerpt from my February 11, 2017 post. In the last tournament I played yesterday, some tremendously bad luck prevented me from making the money. However, the bad luck was only possible due to the tremendously good luck I'd been the recipient of earlier. Here are the details:

The good luck: when I was severely short-stacked and in the big blind, the forced bet caused me to "fall in". Miraculously, every other player at the table folded, so I won the antes and the small blind, and was still alive. The most incredible part of this good luck was that the player in the small blind had a better than average stack, and only needed to call with a very small percentage of his/her remaining chips in order to put me at risk for my tournament life. 99.9% of poker players would call in this scenario. I would call in this scenario every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

The bad luck: on my final hand of the session, I was dealt a big slick, and shoved. I got one caller, who turned over another big slick. My opponent's big slick was better, since it was suited (hearts) and nine wasn't. I would chop the pot if I could just fade my opponent making a heart flush. I had a 90.67% chance of chopping the pot and a 2.17% chance of actually winning it, meaning I had just a 7.16% chance of losing it. However, lose it I did, when my opponent spiked a heart flush on the river. Had I chopped the pot, I would have made the money.

I'm not complaining, since I have nothing to complain about. That's just poker, and I'm totally fine with it :-)

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     323   81    32   142000
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     392   99   163        0
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     339   81    84        0

delta: $-8,000
2025 balance: $-943,000
2025 blue distance: $943,000
balance: $15,354,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.51 (1293 of 3115)

Money jumps

The title of this post is deliberately ambiguous. Is "jumps" a plural noun, or a verb? Actually it's both :-) The way all MTT payouts are structured, the gaps between the payout levels dramatically increase as you head from the bottom to the top; moreover, the number of paid places at each payout level decreases, until you reach the final table, where just one place is paid per level. Therefore, the higher up the ladder you go, the bigger the money jumps (a plural noun here) get. Also, the more the money jumps (a verb here) around from stack to stack.

This is an excerpt from my October 21, 2016 post. In yesterday's session, I made the money in both tournaments I entered. Not only that, I made multiple money jumps in each. In the first, I moved up the ladder five times; in the second, three times. I'm happy to be out of my slump, at least for the time being :-)

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     326   81    28   143000
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     272   72    39   113000

delta: $156,000
2025 balance: $-935,000
2025 blue distance: $935,000
balance: $15,362,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.52 (1292 of 3112)

Two memorable hands

Two hands stand out from yesterday's session. I don't remember which came first, and also don't remember which tournament either came from. I simply remember their outcomes, and how they made me feel. I won one hand, and lost the other. In the hand I won, I was short-stacked and went all in with Q9o (queen nine offsuit). Four of us went to showdown, and I won the main pot with a queen high. That meant none of us had been dealt a pair, none of us had paired the board, and none of my opponents had better than a jack high. The odds of that happening are tiny indeed, and I felt extremely lucky. In the hand I lost, I flopped top pair with a good kicker, and was the only one to call a bet made by a player acting before me. The turn put a third diamond on the board and we both checked. The river was a blank, my opponent went all in, and I called. I lost to a diamond flush my opponent had made on the turn. My stack was suddenly on life support, and I felt schooled.

style flavor    buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     271   72    58    89000
MTT   NLHE       44000   6000       9     349   81   144        0

delta: $-11,000
2025 balance: $-1,091,000
2025 blue distance: $1,091,000
balance: $15,206,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.48 (1290 of 3110)