One Year as a MTT Grinder

Tomorrow I wave goodbye to Australia for yet another overseas trip. Making my sixth trip – and second for the year – to Las Vegas, I’m happy to say that this time it won’t be for work!

During the WSOP I managed to meet a girl that satisfied all the requirements – she was beautiful, had a great personality and was completely her own person ... all this in a town that is known for having girls that can at times be described as being manipulative, money-hungry and fake. It was a whirlwind romance that continued once I arrived home, and with no big plans on my calendar for the year, I decided to head back over to enjoy some quality time with her until I return home for the Aussie Millions in early January.

Now I of course do plan on playing some poker while I’m there – with the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza and Caesars Palace Poker Classic the main focus – but I’m not going to let it rule my life, although I’ll be living in a town that is known as the gambling Mecca of the world. What I am going to do before boarding my flight is take a look at my last year in poker which represents my first year as a MTT grinder online.

In October 2010 I decided to make the transition on PokerStars to play MTTs instead of low-limit cash games. Mainly due to the fact I wasn’t enjoying cash games, I wanted to challenge myself in the world of MTTs, and consequently went about it following strict bankroll requirements. With roughly $2,000 to play with, I played MTTs with buy-ins from $1 to $11 as I slowly began tinkering with my game, watching training videos, discussing hands with friends and basically just trying to become a better player.

My style of play is fairly solid. I definitely am not a hyper-lag or a mega-nit, and when I began my MTT career I was cashing at an ITM rate of around 21%, which many (including myself) thought was unsustainable in the long run. However my solid game did have a flaw in that I struggled to produce any big scores until around the 400-MTT mark I managed a 5th in an $11 [1r1a]. Now after roughly doubling my roll, I began to simultaneously play on Full Tilt Poker as I went on a massive breakeven run on both sites up until the WSOP. On my return to the online felt I managed to snag the massive $25k score in the $55 BIGGER as well as the $5k score in the $3 rebuy just a few days ago. Combine this with my second place in the ANZPT Melbourne $100k GTD for $16,500 and my smallish bankroll went BOOM up to roughly $45,000.

I am happy to admit that my past month or so saw me go on a heater with those three decent dinks, but I feel it was somewhat of a justification to the hard work and thousands of hours I’ve lodged at my desk and from behind my computer.

Looking at my stats on PokerStars (where I predominately played), I feel extremely satisfied – especially when you consider that I do play fairly small buy-in tournaments for my bankroll and do prefer to play tournaments with large fields. What I was most satisfied with is ticking off everything on my “Poker to do List” for 2011 with three months to go.

• Number 1 in Geelong on Pocket Fives
• Top 30 in Victoria on Pocket Fives
• Top 100 in Australia on Pocket Fives
• Have a four-figure online score
• Have a five-figure online score
• Final table a major tournament live and online
• Win a tournament live and online

Scott Peel knocked me off the number one spot in Geelong, but I’m happy to say that I’m currently sitting at 16th in Victoria and 54th in Australia on the Pocket Fives rankings. I also managed to achieve the remainder of the list – some numerous times – to make 2011 my best poker year to date!

The scary thing is that 2011 isn’t over!

I may not be able to play online, but I’ll be having a big crack at the Venetian and Caesars Palace deepstacks while also playing cash games on the side. I plan on spending plenty of time watching training videos and sifting through hand histories so that I can keep my game solid and at its peak ... watch out 2012 Aussie Millions!