{"id":18795,"date":"2012-03-05T13:22:57","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T12:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/?p=18795"},"modified":"2019-11-01T11:05:24","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:05:24","slug":"poker-from-the-rail-activating-boomswitch-in-3-2-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/poker-from-the-rail-activating-boomswitch-in-3-2-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Poker from the Rail: Activating Boomswitch in 3…2…1…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Adding \u201cPlay more poker\u201d to your list of New Year\u2019s resolutions is a pretty easy one for most poker players to stomach — as opposed to cutting out fried chicken from your weekly diet or going to the gym at least five four three<\/span> two times a week — but it actually made its way on to my goals for 2012.<\/p>\n

The combination of living in the US and having dwindling online poker options and quitting my corporate day job in late 2010 to report on poker tournaments around the globe led to me writing many thousands of words about poker but precious little time to play poker myself.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

A final table finish in one of the Rio daily deepstack tournaments at the 2011 WSOP got the poker juices flowing again, and moving to Malta with my wife in late 2011 suddenly opened up the opportunity to play online again.<\/p>\n

How Does This Online Poker Thing Work Again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While I prefer playing live tournaments, my old live poker bankroll was decimated in the process of moving to Europe so it was going to be back to grinding away at the online tables as far as trying to spin up a bankroll big enough to take a seat at the PartyPoker<\/a> <\/a>Premier<\/a> <\/a>League<\/a> <\/a>tables<\/a> <\/a>with<\/a> <\/a>the<\/a> <\/a>likes<\/a> <\/a>of<\/a> <\/a>Tony<\/a> <\/a>G<\/a> <\/a>and<\/a> <\/a>Erik<\/a> <\/a>Seidel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unlike Chris Ferguson and other players who have successfully built up a healthy bankroll from freerolls and microstakes, I just don\u2019t have the patience to pull that off these days. I get impatient when anything on PirateBay takes more than 10 minutes to download, so yeah, grinding the micros wasn\u2019t going to be the ticket.<\/p>\n

The compromise to myself was give myself a couple of \u20ac100 bullets to plunk into an account, with absolutely no attempt at good bankroll management. If I busted those, then it\u2019d be nose to the grindstone as using the last \u20ac100 bullet in a responsible fashion.<\/p>\n

Jesus Wept<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I can\u2019t even remember where the first \u20ac100 deposit went, only that it was gone pretty much in the blink of an eye and a haze<\/a> <\/a>of<\/a> <\/a>monkey<\/a> <\/a>tilt<\/a> playing various MTTs and Sit n Gos with buy-ins from $5-$25. Yeah, yeah, I know; putting that much of your roll in play in any one tourney makes Jesus weep — among other things these days — but<\/p>\n

With a cheery cry of \u201cReload!\u201d (or perhaps some other choice muttered words) the good folks at Moneybookers\/Skrill merrily whisked along another \u20ac100 for me to donk off quickly<\/span> skillfully play into a handsome sum.<\/p>\n

Activating Poker Boomswitch<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Things immediately got off to a much better start the second time around, with a 3rd place finish worth $445 in a $4,500 NLHE deepstack tourney. Despite donating about half my starting stack in the first orbit I manage to right the ship and finally get things going, coming into the final table as the short stack but laddering up when the runaway chip leader jammed any two cards for the first 20 hands or so and knocked out half the table.<\/p>\n

Just a few hours after that score I had a dream run in a $22 NLHE 6 Max tourney, once again short early but catching fire midway through and never looking back, holding the chip lead virtually the whole way en route to a win worth $869. I pretty much relentlessly bullied the field from 30 players on and had the good fortune of some very soft tables that allowed it without much resistance.<\/p>\n

At times I struggle and manage to out-think myself when it comes to big stack play — easing up when it should become obvious to anyone that I\u2019m min-raising 90% of the time so I can\u2019t be holding much — but not this time, reminding myself to constantly pound away until someone made a real effort to stop me.<\/p>\n

Big Stack Poker<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sure, you\u2019re going to have to fold in some annoying spots when you keep 3-betting with hands like 84o or opening for a min-raise with J2s but all the uncontested pots you take down when your opponents meekly fold add up quickly.\u00a0Like any success in life, there\u2019s a lot to be said to finding what works and banging away at it until someone or something makes you stop.<\/p>\n

Some smaller scores since then and a nice run at the nosebleed $50 NLHE tables has me sitting at just over $2,000 at last count. Which, ironically enough, is an adequate bankroll to actually play the tournaments and cash games I\u2019ve been sitting in with little fear from the evil<\/a> <\/a>side<\/a> <\/a>of<\/a> <\/a>variance<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adding \u201cPlay more poker\u201d to your list of New Year\u2019s resolutions is a pretty easy one for most poker players to stomach — as opposed to cutting out fried chicken from your weekly diet or going to the gym at least five four three two times a week — but it actually made its way<\/p>\n

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