Au revoir Full Tilt

I cashed out most of my money from Full Tilt tonight. After nine not-very-happy months it seems clear that, even including rakeback, I am little more than break-even. The laggier style on Full Tilt calls for a more ABC "heads-down, look at my own cards because opponent's range is so wide" kind of approach than comes naturally to me, and the wider variety in playing styles looks to make even eight-tabling tiled a difficult proposition.

However, it was, strangely, a single hand that caused me to say "oh, fuck it, enough is enough – let's just stick to Party and Pokerstars:


In fact it goes back to earlier in the evening. I had started off very well, with my AA holding up against KK and AT (winning 76% shots comes as a surprise these days).



$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, March 08

Table Aethra XVI (Real Money)

Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: oQ|Lelik ( $52.90 USD )
Seat 4: 32dreamer32 ( $41.40 USD )
Seat 5: Incognito*52 ( $53.85 USD )
Seat 7: Keperi ( $113.00 USD )
Seat 8: sgk31 ( $313.25 USD )
Seat 9: Hero ( $98.50 USD )
Keperi posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
sgk31 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
32dreamer32 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ A♣; A◊; ]

Hero raises [$3.00 USD]
oQ|Lelik folds
32dreamer32 calls [$2.00 USD]
Incognito*52 folds
Keperi raises [$13.50 USD]
sgk31 folds
Hero raises [$30.00 USD]
32dreamer32 raises [$38.40 USD]
Keperi raises [$99.00 USD]
Hero calls [$65.50 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ T♠, 4◊;, 5♡; ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 7♣; ]

** Dealing River ** [ 2♣; ]

Keperi shows [K♣;, K♡; ]
Hero shows [A♣;, A◊; ]

Hero wins $114.20 USD from side pot

32dreamer32 shows [T◊;, A♡; ]

Hero wins $122.20 USD from main pot.


From then on it got a bit tossy and near the end of my session I lost a 54%/46% in an irritating way. This brought my EV back to about level for the session, and I quit about $50 up,

$100.00 USD PL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, March 08,
Table Pyrrha XIII (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ( $104.50 USD )
Seat 2: sinnnger ( $132.30 USD )
Seat 3: Kulturbeutel ( $31.90 USD )
Seat 4: 1papa1dee1 ( $124.25 USD )
Seat 7: FelD77 ( $40.75 USD )
Seat 8: Nickster8 ( $155.55 USD )
Seat 9: Trippen180 ( $33.50 USD )

Trippen180 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Hero posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [ J♣; J♡; ]
sinnnger folds
Kulturbeutel folds
1papa1dee1 folds
FelD77 raises [$2.50 USD]
Nickster8 folds
Trippen180 folds
Hero raises [$7.00 USD]
FelD77 raises [$22.00 USD]
Hero raises [$66.00 USD]
FelD77 calls [$16.25 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7◊;, 2♠, K♠ ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ J♠ ]

Woop woop. Anything but a ten.

** Dealing River ** [ T♣; ]

Oh.

Hero shows [J♣;, J♡; ]
FelD77 shows [Q♣;, A♣; ]

FelD77 wins $79.00 USD from main pot.


So, I wasn't in the best of moods for my daily Full Tilt session. But it all went relatively quietly. I was about $3 down and had reached the required 125 FTP points to go towards my Silver Medal target for the month.

So, about three hands from the end of the session, this occurred:


$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, March 08,
Table Erick (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button

Seat 1: XaXe1989 ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 2: AnyLord ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: SNOWKER ( $28.70 USD )
Seat 4: Acesdown711 ( $140.65 USD )
Seat 5: hero ( $105.50 USD )
Seat 6: thekingofgin ( $77.30 USD )
Seat 7: kdkime10 ( $115.35 USD )
Seat 8: juanmik2 ( $62.90 USD )
Seat 9: richterswil ( $26.20 USD )
juanmik2 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
richterswil posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to hero [ A◊; A♡; ]

XaXe1989 folds
AnyLord folds
SNOWKER folds
Acesdown711 folds
hero raises [$3.50 USD]
thekingofgin folds
kdkime10 calls [$3.50 USD]
juanmik2 folds
richterswil calls [$2.50 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 6♡;, 6◊;, A♣; ]
richterswil checks
hero checks
kdkime10 checks

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5♠ ]
richterswil checks
hero bets [$5.00 USD]
kdkime10 calls [$5.00 USD]
richterswil calls [$5.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ Q♠ ]
richterswil checks
hero bets [$10.00 USD]
kdkime10 raises [$20.00 USD]
richterswil folds
hero raises [$67.50 USD]
kdkime10 raises [$86.85 USD]
hero calls [$19.50 USD]
kdkime10 wins $9.85 USD

kdkime10 shows [6♠, 6♣; ]

kdkime10 wins $217.00 USD from main pot

hero doesn't show [A◊;, A♡; ]

Now, I've lost hands like this before, but it was a combination of it being one of the last hands of the session, of a good start to the evening turning to crap, and of every step forward at $100 buy in over the past four months coming up against a setback such as this, just as I thought I was getting on top of things.

I looked at the FTP balance and thought to myself "Fuck, I'm probably no more than breakeven since I got that rakeback deal and started playing in Italy. "

Blimey, I really wish I had never gone to that shit hole of a country. It's been a downhill path ever since.

In fact, I see that after a run of three good months in September/October/November (on Full Tilt), I've lost every month since then. In open play I'm now $1100 down on rake of about $3500 – which is roughly on a par with breakeven after rakeback and bonuses. So there comes a time when you have to accept that you are doing something wrong and that perhaps it's best to focus elsewhere.

The Youngster made the valid observation that this game is getting close to solved, and when you add in the inevitable snippets of collusion, there's no shame these days in being unable to beat the rake. And that's just about the position I am in when it comes to Full Tilt. Sure, I could probably focus on four tables, really bum-hunt for fish, and grind out a pathetic profit. But I've never really been comfortable on the site – ever since I started playing limit there in 2005 or so and my first 12 pairs of kings ran into six pairs of Aces.


So, out the money came (I'd fallen from a BR of about $2900 to a BR of less than $2000, which was another reason to walk away. I wasn't going to go skint there again, which is what happened in the three months after UIEGA in, er, October 2006?

I've still got a couple of freeroll tournaments to play, and bundles of IronMan Medals and FTP points that I can convert into other freerolls. When the inevitable "reload bonus" appears I might grind that out at $50 buy-in four-tabling, just to see how it goes. But, for the moment, it's over on FTP.

I was always likeliest to bite the bullet on FTP rather than on Stars or Party, simply because my bankrolls on the other two sites are so much higher, and I have always felt more comfortable playing opponents there. The downside is that just two sites can get a bit boring. The upside is that it will make my targets this month on those two sites considerably easier than they had previously looked.

I'm still a bit up this month (and I'm considerably up in terms of expected bonuses generated but not collected), but I'm still down for the year. Still, it's all rather minor in the grand scheme of things. Next big re-evaluation will be at the end of June. One thing I am really thankful for is that this is not my living. The past few months have shown me how I'm really not cut out for the professional's life.

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