Winning Players No. 2

[Mikeyboy9361]

I love following the exploits of our better players on this site, George and Leigh in particular, these guys are obviously very good players, you can"t go so deep so regularly in the type of tournaments that these guys play, without being good! They must be winning players with the big cashes they have had!
What about the rest of us? For my part I play smaller tournaments and as many APAT events as I can, I consider myself an improving amateur and fully intend to continue improving! The thing is, if I have a decent win, I find it difficult to re invest and build the Bank roll, as my Good lady then expects a meal out on the back of my winnings! Her reward for my time in front of the computer screen! How does that work?
Any way I have thought back along the last year or so, looked at my deposits against my wins, live and on line, including buy ins, and I would say that I am a winning player, but only enough to continue playing if you know what I mean.
The type of small MTTs and SNGs I play I will never be rich, what I need to do is commit the time to playing some of these mega MTTs with the big pay outs, but this is very difficult when you have a wife and kids that expect more from a Dad than a Poker player!
So my question to you big tournament players is, how do you find the time to play them? And also what advice would you give to fellow APATers who wish to emulate your success? Do you have a fixed strategy etc?

[hi_am_chris]

Im going to guess that the better tourny players on here will say you have to put in a lot of volume which means playing eight or more at the same time time, when you play so many theres a good chance ull go deep in a couple but then again variance is a bitch

[kinboshi]

I tend to play cash.

[Chipaccrual]

First of all, it"s very nice of you to include me in the same sentence as George, but trust me, he is a far better player than I.

I have just interviewed him for an upcoming APAT podcast (coming soon   ) and he is a top guy with a superb attitude towards his poker and life.


As far as my poker playing goes, perhaps I should fill you guys in on my current circumstances.

I am a qualified accountant, but after taking a slight career change 18 months ago, was made redundant in December.  I decided to take the opportunity to have a break and do a bit of consultancy work on a part time basis and supplelement that with redundancy money and a good go at some poker.

So, the past 120 days have been quite good.  My OPR stats on pokerstars are :-

Winnings $11,249
Profit $5,909

Tournament 217
In The Money 36
ITM %   17%

That info is in the public domain, so happy to share.  Those stats are far better than anything I had ever achieved in my 4 years of playing poker.  So, what have I done differentely ?

Bankroll Management

I set up a spreadsheet with all my poker account balances on it and log every game I play.  Buy-In, type, no runners, finish, cash etc etc

So, there"s no more kidding myself about being a break-even/winning player.  It"s in black and white and I also log how I exit.  Was it a shove, was I ahead, that kind of stuff.

I"m not a massive one for pokertracker stats, as I play poker because I enjoy it and don"t want it to become too serious.

Tournament Choice

Before this life break, my poker playing would often inolve playing the next available tourney after having dinner, if I wanted to play that night.  No real thought about it and often would end up playing satellites, chasing the next dream trip to play poker live.

Now I target the types of tournaments I want to play and try to stick to tourneys that fit my buy-in, runners, structure.
It"s not easy, as If you get knocked out of one early, there is a desire to fire up the next available tourney.

Poker Philosophy

Finally, I have become more aware that you can"t win all the time and variance plays a big part in poker.  I used to play poker a bit scared.  Worried about getting knocked out cheaply, but I am now more aware of pot odds and positional play.  I don"t get annoyed (too much) about getting unlucky.  I now just get annoyed if I feel I didn"t play the hand well or as I know I should have.


But this is only a temporary lifestyle for me.  Whilst the work is there great, but I don"t think I could play poker full time at home.  Should have a job lined up for next month.   Fingers crossed.  

Well, enough of my ramblings, not sure that answers any questions really, but as I"ve typed it, I"ll post it.

Leigh

[kinboshi]

Great post Leigh.  The playing scared thing is so key imo, and you have to be willing to lose as long as you know you"re playing correctly.

Pokertracker is key for online cash players, but I don"t think it"s particularly helpful for tournament players (might be wrong though).

[rubertoe]

my comment that seems to have started a few threads - was just a throw away re-mark!!

As i said to Honeybadg - "you know what poker players are like - ain"t we all winners?"

I personally - Like Mikey Boy - tend to remove Large wins from BR - and the main thing for me is to be able to win enough to keep me in action at the levels that i play at as i play mainly for fun and the intellectual challenge or is that i am intellectually challenged - i can never remember!!!

[Mikeyboy9361]

Thanks for your post Leigh, interesting stuff, for me dealing with variance is the hardest part of the game. But I am coming to realise that you can do more than get your money in ahead, and then its in the lap of the poker gods!
I also play cash at low levels,25c/50c is my highest level, and have had some good wins, but there are massive swings. I find I am a little bored of cash at the moment and am now playing more SNGs.
How are you doing at the cash tables Dan?

[Chipaccrual]

Variance is a tricky thing.  To give you an idea of how often players cash, opr ranks over 700,000 players on stars.  Here"s a selection of players over the past 120 days. All info is in public domain.

Name	Ranking	In The Money	ITM %	ROI
Moorman1	4th	85/619	14%	147%
George2Loose	348th	49/344	14%	292%
shaundeeb	2nd	205/1558	13%	107%

So the best players are cashing 1 in 6 at best in MTT"s

So if you targetted a 1 in 10 cash, I guess that is a good starting point.  What"s other peoples thoughts ?

[Eck]

I tend to play cash.

I am leaning towards this if you are actually looking for a profitable way forward. I have always been a tournament donkey for the last couple of years as i learnt my way. I have had a good start to 2009, in profit over £10k, but this week i haven"t been feeling too great so didn"t want to play any of the long sessions that you need to be prepared to do if you play tournaments.

I generally would fire up 3 or 4 tournaments a night and that could lead to late nights, coupled with early rises for work etc i think this must have a bearing on me feeling run down. So on tuesday i decided to fire up one table and see what i could do with £100 that was in my virgin account (normally play on crypto & ipoker). I sat in a 0.5/1.00 Eur table and have played 3 very short sessions (just one table) had early nights, feel a lot better and have moved that up to over £900. I haven"t been doing anything spectacular but just playing fairly LAG at a 5 handed table. This could be the way forward i feel, certainly through the week for me but whether i give up on tournaments I am not sure.

I think the need for some kind of goal is helpful I am thinking of concentrating on the cash action during the week to pay for vegas in July and have a bit of fun at the weekends (when the wine comes out   ) on the tournaments tables.

Dunno if that helps or just comes across as some sort of random brag, hopefully helps.

Edit: typed this before you said you weren"t keen on cash but still posting anyway  

[Swinebag]

Variance is a tricky thing.  To give you an idea of how often players cash, opr ranks over 700,000 players on stars.  Here"s a selection of players over the past 120 days. All info is in public domain.

Name	Ranking	In The Money	ITM %
Moorman1	4th	85/619	14%
George2Loose	348th	49/344	14%
shaundeeb	2nd	205/1558	13%

So the best players are cashing 1 in 6 at best in MTT"s

So if you targetted a 1 in 10 cash, I guess that is a good starting point.  What"s other peoples thoughts ?

I dont think you should target cashing, but aiming to win (or at least top 3) when you go deep.
From an admittedly small sample on pokerstars 180 player SNGs I have an ITM of 19% (beat that moorman ) but an ROI of -45% due to the fact that I have yet to make a big score when I do cash.

[Chipaccrual]

I dont think you should target cashing, but aiming to win (or at least top 3) when you go deep.
From an admittedly small sample on pokerstars 180 player SNGs I have an ITM of 19% (beat that moorman ) but an ROI of -45% due to the fact that I have yet to make a big score when I do cash.

Good point, have updated table with ROI aswell.  Not a bad stat for George at the moment.  

[THEGUY84]

nice post guys im liking this.

Well i have started to focus more and cash day to day, with tourneys when I have time, but I am being really stricked with my bankroll at the moment.

It the cash tables I would say I was Tight Agro, but from watching cash games and as Eck mentioned above LAG seem to be the more profitable way to pay cash.

What you guys think??

Lookin at my stats my VPIP is 26.2%, PPR is 13%, 3 bet 4.7% and Agression factor is 2.7.

I am currenly slight down on cash games at the moment seem to be running bad and my night chasing my losses at higher level, but im up in tourney play which, is keeping me +.

From my stats above would do you think??

Keny

[George2Loose]

Thanks for mentioning me as a winning player. Anyone who looks at my stats though will actually see I was LOSING money on stars until a few recent wins. Why?

1. I was doing exactly the opposite of what Leigh is now doing. I"d fire up the first available tournaments whether I was in the mood or not.

2. I was playing too big. I went through a period where I was playing every Sunday major I could around 2 years ago. Spending close to 2 grand a week and I wasn"t nearly as good as I am now

3. Tilt. I am still working on this leak but am so much better than I was even 6 months ago. All it would take is one bad beat and I"d dump away my chips in all other tourneys cos I was still steaming.

4. Variance was killing me. I was losing at showdown everytime and it had a massive impact on my confidence/game/attitude. Everything! I tried to play through it but as any gambler knows, the more you lose, the more you chase.

I am being so much more prudent with my roll now. I don"t keep it online. It still doesn"t feel like real money to me if your clicking a few buttons to play

I take the odd shot (like the Sunday just gone)

As for family life- what can I say? I have the most beautiful and understanding wife in the world. We obviously both see the benefits of the money but she understands how much I love the game and how much more it makes our lives comfortable. She doesn"t work as a consequence which is great for us and the kids.

We also travel together when we can- and she also plays small stakes online so that helps when I"m telling her about a particular hand.

[noble1]

I love following the exploits of our better players on this site, George and Leigh in particular, these guys are obviously very good players, you can"t go so deep so regularly in the type of tournaments that these guys play, without being good! They must be winning players with the big cashes they have had!
What about the rest of us? For my part I play smaller tournaments and as many APAT events as I can, I consider myself an improving amateur and fully intend to continue improving! The thing is, if I have a decent win, I find it difficult to re invest and build the Bank roll, as my Good lady then expects a meal out on the back of my winnings! Her reward for my time in front of the computer screen! How does that work?
Any way I have thought back along the last year or so, looked at my deposits against my wins, live and on line, including buy ins, and I would say that I am a winning player, but only enough to continue playing if you know what I mean.
The type of small MTTs and SNGs I play I will never be rich, what I need to do is commit the time to playing some of these mega MTTs with the big pay outs, but this is very difficult when you have a wife and kids that expect more from a Dad than a Poker player!
So my question to you big tournament players is, how do you find the time to play them? And also what advice would you give to fellow APATers who wish to emulate your success? Do you have a fixed strategy etc?

being a everton supporter is a big help i find in being gr8 at poker  

Do you have a fixed strategy etc?

to become good at mtt"s you have to be good at reading other players styles and understand how important stack size and bet sizing is... position although important
in cash is not quite as crucial in mtts imo as being 1st to lead in a lot of situations and putting your opponent/opponents to a difficult decision can be key.
Bet sizing is a big leak in most players online and live and there is a lack of understanding how to control pot sizes..Being able to understand and think like the players that you are up against at your table is a key skill in developing into a very good mtt player as you will be able to adjust constantly to different players as they come to your table or as what happens a lot in mtts as you are moved from table to table..
The other keys skills are mega patience and the ability/discipline to put/fold big hands down in crucial situations..
You do not have to play a huge volume to improve your reading skills,just by watching and following other good players and practicing your hand reading is a good free way to develop as is reading forum posts and trying to understand how players go about playing there hands and there thought processes on how they would bet them and how they perceive opponent actions..

my list could go on and on but these points above are the meat of becoming good at mtts also it helps to be a true blue toffee supporter FACT   [a big heart is essential]

Variance is a tricky thing.  To give you an idea of how often players cash, opr ranks over 700,000 players on stars.  Here"s a selection of players over the past 120 days. All info is in public domain.

Name	Ranking	In The Money	ITM %	ROI
Moorman1	4th	85/619	14%	147%
George2Loose	348th	49/344	14%	292%
shaundeeb	2nd	205/1558	13%	107%

So the best players are cashing 1 in 6 at best in MTT"s

So if you targetted a 1 in 10 cash, I guess that is a good starting point.  What"s other peoples thoughts ?

remember to take in account field size and buy in when looking at stats as the higher buy ins are a lot tougher to cash consistently, also to find out if you are a long term winning player at mtts you need a sample size of 1000 mtts at least before you know if its just luck and variance...  

[kinboshi]

Being a bluenose would certainly help you get used to losing.