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NY Giants Game Challenge update

Friday, June 5th, 2009 | Mark | Poker Articles, Poker Projects

Submitted by McTap, this article belongs to the Poker Projects series.

If you haven’t already, it might be a good idea to read the first installment in McTap’s NY Giants Game Challenge before moving on to the update below.

Just a quick little update on my NY Giants Game Challenge, and a some other points of interest. See my blog for more updates.

After being excited to go back and play on the fishy Mansion tables 12 days ago, and also to be able to bonus hunt a little quicker than on Poker Stars, reality quickly set in. It took me 7 days (12 tourneys) before I actually cashed and it was only a 4th place that paid back the BI only. Another 2 days of nothing before I finally started making the money again. Over the past few days, I managed to make all the money I lost back and then some (see BR stats on left side panel).

I am also over 40% of the way to my first $10 bonus, which I figure should hit within the next 10 days or so, depending on how much I play this long weekend. At this pace, I should be able to hit $30 in bonus (of the $200) before the end of June. If I can continue to increase my BR, I should be able to start double tabling these games to increase my bonus points faster. The problem right now is that playing in a $5+1 SNG is 1/20 of my BR (factoring in exchange rate) and that is not proper BR management. I did try the $2+0.40 SNG games but they were such a donkfest that I couldn’t play my normal game and win. I also couldn’t degrade myself to pushing OOP with any 2 cards, like most of the players seem to do at this level. So I decided to move back to the $5 games and have been striving since.

One thing that has come up a few times over the past 12 days is people getting their money in good when they are short stacked but losing to players who have pot odds, and the chance to knock someone out, call. I am totally for this. If you have the chips to call some one’s all-in and it doesn’t cost you more than 3 BB or leave you as the SS, then do it with almost any 2. If calling means committing more than 30% of your stack, then it is not worth it unless you have a strong hand, especially since the person going all-in probably has a pair or better, which would probably include at least 1 face card.

Case in point, on the bubble and I’m the BB. I have about 2500 and the blinds are 100-200. SS is UTG with 550. He shoves it all in. It folds to me. Now it is only going to cost me 350 more for a chance to win a pot of 850. Almost 2.5:1 and I also get a chance to POP the bubble. If I call, I will still have over 2100 chips and in the SB next. I look down at my cards and I have Q8o. I don’t even care about my cards, as I am getting the right price to call, so I do. SS flips over JJ and the first thing in my mind is I have 1 over -> 3 outs. The flop comes A88. BINGO! His hand doesn’t improve on the turn or river and he’s out. He starts losing it, asking how I could call with such a horrible hand. I respond, “priced in” which he doesn’t seem to understand. He starts dropping insults and such and I just ignore him. The part that got me is that he was so mad about the situation (bad call on my part in his opinion) that it made me think he takes this game a little more seriously than the average weekend player who’s only there for the fun. But his reaction to what happened made me think that he doesn’t understand the odds and game (I would have made that call with 72o). If you are going to get mad about a situation, try to understand what’s going on and why hands are being played. That should loosen the tilt edge a bit.

Another situation where I’m on the other side. Last night we are on the bubble, blinds are 200-400. I’m sitting with about 3000 chips and in the SB. BB is the SS with about 1200 (800 after posting). It folds to me and I look down at 88. I push the BB/SS all-in. He calls with T8s. I’m way ahead. Flop comes Q4T. OUCH! I don’t improve and SS doubles up. I comment on the nice catch and he apologizes. I respond that I am cool with it as I would have done the same thing. I understand why he called, as I could have been stealing with any 2 decent cards and he had a suited 1-gap connected cards. He probably figured he had ‘live’ cards and he was getting SS, so standing up to the blind steals was eventually going to be needed. Like I told him, I totally understand. How did I do you ask, well I eventually went out on the bubble as I called the aggressive CL when he raised my BB for the 3rd time in a row with ATo, only to lose to his Q6o that hit a 6 on the turn. Oh well, all part of the game.

Anyway, even though I’m off my pace a little, the BR is going up and should continue as I keep playing my B-game at this level.

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See you on the felt.

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