First live poker tournament

Today I played in my first live poker tournament at Sands Casino in PA!

As you can see...it was a $100 buy-in.
Here is the blind structure for those of you who might be looking to play in this soon.




















They were 20 minute levels and you start with 10,000 so you only have the first 2 or 3 levels to sit back and play tight before the blinds start creeping up on you. This is a very fun tournament to play, and it is run on Monday's and Tuesday's at 11am. The average number of entrants is around 85 and the cap is 200 though it rarely gets to that number unless it's a holiday weekend or something. 
The top 9 got payed starting at $200 for ninth all the way up to a massive 1st place prize of $1,300.

Today there were 71 entrants, and I ended placing around 32nd or so, which I'm really happy about. I think I played great while even making a few "what are you thinking?" calls. In the first couple of levels my goal was just to see some cheap flops and try to hit, with some minor success. Levels 4 + 5 were where I had to tighten up and use my position to win pots as the blinds grew higher and higher. I busted 2 people in level 4 which got me up to 17k before the first break and color up (avg was 16k). It felt good to be hanging strong, and that I didn't bleed chips, get blinded down, and then have to shove in level 3 like a the noob that I actually was. I got aggressive when I needed to, but I know that I need to focus on being more aggressive in the middle stages of the tournament (which is where I know I struggle).

2 and a half hours later I'm down to 13k in level 6 and the blinds are 600/1,200 so I've got around 10 or 11 big blinds and I'm in push/fold mode. I'm UTG and I pick up JKss and raise to 2,400 and I get one caller. Flop comes Ax 5s 6s so I shove my last ~ 10k and he calls. Obviously, I'm chasing a flush draw, but I cant afford to let the big blind get to me in the next hand or I'd really be crippled. He flips 56 for two pair, so I need my flush to hit. turn 9. River is a 6. HOORA-nope. I hit my flush BUT it also gave him a full house and my hopes were dashed :(

In retrospect, the better play would have been to shove pre-flop because 56 would have been folded, even if I won the blinds I'd be alive for a better hand to come along, so that was a deadly mistake I made. I learned and will remember it for next time!

 What do you remember from your first tournament? How well did you do? Let me know!

Promoted to Platinum! :O

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! I can call myself a Platinum league player now!

 There isn't much to say in the way of how the game played out. If you've read my posts in the past then you know I went 2 rax poke into 2-1-1 all-in. This was my placement match for the start of the new season and after I won the game, I nervously waited as the "loading" symbol began to spin. I literally jumped out of my chair as I saw the placement screen with a shiny new platinum symbol next to my name! 

I've gotten to play around 25 games in the new league, and it is rough. I am hovering between 30-50th place. I was so nervous within the first 10 games of not winning any and getting instantly demoted. Luckily for me, that didn't happen and I've been clawing my way up the ladder. There are a couple observations I wanted to make about the jump from Gold to Platinum.

1.) Faster Players

Plain and simple, there's a noticeable jump in the speed at which people are playing. I've noticed that people are playing from 70-200APM (Actions Per Minute). While you don't need 200 APM to win, these players don't give up as easily and try to use their speed to micro their way out of what would be a sure loss for a slower player.

2.) Better Macro

This is one thing that I attribute a lot of my losses to. I NEED to work on better worker producing from all of my buildings so that I am hitting all of my benchmarks. A solid platinum player has the basic mechanics perfected and this allows them to be confident in engagements because they will have the maximum army size possible relative to a given time in the game.

3.) Unorthodox Builds/All-ins

So, either people will play super standard, but hit all of the benchmarks and do everything they need to, or people will come at you with a 1 base all-in that is different to what I was used to playing against in Gold. Following is what I faced in Gold, and what I'm seeing in Platinum(G/P).

vs. Z - Baneling Bust/8 pool

vs. P - 3 gate robo expand/void ray all-in or 4 gate or Cannon Rush

vs. T - Mass marine/MECH or heavy drop play

It sucks because every game I'm stressing over what is going to be coming at me regardless of scouting. I still have to do a bit more studying on what I see as I scout and how I'm going to respond to it. It's like getting used to playing against a whole new style against each race.

4.) Less Zergs/More Protoss

 I'm pretty sure this has been proven statistically, so I'm not surprised. As you move up in experience
there are less and less Zerg's competing at the higher levels. As a result of this, I have been plying a TON against Protoss, which isn't a bad thing! I'm very comfortable in this match-up, as you would know from my win-rate vs. them, and I know my build almost to perfection.


Just wanted to post a little bit of Starcraft related news after that massive post about 2012 :D

Good luck this season everyone and look for Reedy on the ladder! If you run into me feel free to say hi!
  

TvP 2-Rax poke into 2-1-1 all-in

Hey there!

As promised, I have made a tutorial for the build that I talked about in my last post and that I used all during season 8 to a get a TvP win rate of 63%!

Here is the build order:

10 supply
12 rax
14 gas
15 OC + marine (reactor after marine)
16 rax #2 (tech lab right after)
17 supply

^^that is all you need to set up the poke.

Remember
-It's just a poke, try not to lose all of your units
-Push with your first marauder
-constant 2 marine 1 marauder production
-rally to the front of his base(or a marauder)
- Decide based on what you see whether you will keep harassing or head home to build up an army.


In the event that the poke didn't win the game (which it won't a lot of the time)
- take 2nd gas + factory (add tech lab once done)
- build starport right after
- goal is to push with 3 tank (siege finished), 1 medivac, and a ball of army.
- tech lab on starport-start banshee as you push out.
- Lastly, pull 8-12 SCVs and get over to his base ASAP.

Good luck and I hope this build brings you a lot of success!

I must be doing SOMETHING right.

I am on FIRE right now. I started today ~11th place

As usual, here are my win ratios by race for the day:

TvT 10-0

TvP 3-4

TvZ 5-2

I was so surprised when I was working out the win rates and I hadn't lost to Terran all day. This used to be my worst match up, and I know the exact reason. I was stuck in the mindset of "marines can do anything" and "you can win without tanks". While it is possible to dos, I have found that it is much easier to just do a better job at building tanks than your opponent. A lot of the Terrans I played today just had build orders that were slow, and couldn't defend against a push in the mid game. So, I have succumbed to using tanks, but apparently it is working really well for me!

Protoss...well, I don't really know. I still use the Halby 2-1-1 build that I made a video for (you can find it on my blog), but the stupid buff for the observer build time is allowing the Protoss to easily counter me because they know what is coming a good minute ahead of time. It's frustrating, but I'll have to figure something out. This is turning into my weakest match up because I simply don't know what to do. Maybe give a mech a try? If you have any suggestions leave a comment!

Speaking of mech, I have been obliterating Zerg players using the DeMuslim push into thor/banshee/marine. I have not face much of a challenge using this style of play. It took some getting used to because I love marines, I always felt that Mech was so sluggish, but the amount of damage it can handle is incredible. If you bring along SVCs to auto-repair you have almost invincible units.

I'm going to be going more into about this match up in particular for this post because I think Zerg is the race that low level Terrans, like myself, have A LOT of trouble handling.

I'll try to keep this from becoming a wall of text, so I'll leave a lot of talking to be done in the video.

Here I will post the build order that leads up to the initial first push. This push is designed to take out the Zerg's third base at around the 9:30-10:00 mark. So here we go!

DeMuslim Push Build Order 3-1-0 into 3-3-2

10 supply
12 rax
14 supply
16 gas
17 Obital
20 CC
21 Factory
23 (reactor on rax)
    - Rax #2 (tech lab as soon as done-start stim)
    - Rax #3 (tech lab as soon as done-start combat shield)
    -ebay (start +1 attack)
    -bunker
    -supply

NOTE
This is a VERY basic build order, and you do really need to watch the video because you need to put the buildings in the right places. At the 10:00 minute mark, or whenever stim finishes you need to push out and try to take down their 3rd with what should be, if done perfectly, a $3500 dollar army including research. You'll have stim, combat shield, and +1 weapons, and this push will be very deadly.
From here, as the name of the BO suggests, you need to throw down 2 more factories, and 2 starports. From here I like to transition right into mech. So for your next push you'll have thor/marines/banshees and he probably won't expect it. You end up teching up real quick after the first push and it makes it hard for the Zerg to catch up. Just make sure you continue to deny his expansions, while adding on your own.

             DeMuslim Build into mech - TvZ

After of day of kicking some ass, I guess/hope you would be curious as to how much progress I made today. Well, here we are!

I'm 1st place in Silver league!! I'm going into tomorrow with a 9-game win streak. I would be ecstatic if I got promoted :)



P.S. Next post will be focusing on Terran, to those who are stuck trying to win dreaded tank wars :)

-Kyle

6 Rax Rush V2

Like I promised in my last video, I would be posting another game play that went a bit more typical than a Nydus worm in the back of your base : P

So here it is! Just a few pointers that I'll also mention in the video:
Split your marines
Keep as many troops alive as to build your army,  
Contain the Zerg
Expand (~8-9 minutes) so you can maintain marine production/
Take double gas as you expand, then get at least combat shield to continue the contain.
Lastly, if he doesn't quit you want to keep him on 2 bases until he runs out of minerals.

Check out the new video!

TLO Six Rax Rush -- TvZ

Hello everyone!!

I'm on break again, and I'm going to try and push out at least 2-4 videos this week. This one is TLO's Six Rax Rush.

I will post a more standard using this build when it happens, check out the video to find out why it might not be such a "typical" game.

He is the build order that I use to execute this build.

  10 supply
  12 rax
  14 supply
  15 Orbital Command
~17 build 5 rax
- spend money on ONLY marines. You should push out around the 6:30 mark(or 35 supply) with about 17 marines.
- you should have about 18 SCV's mining.

Set the way point to the front of the Zerg's base for reinforcements and continue building only marines.

Enjoy!