tigerbalm.sitngogrinders.com

As some of you may already know, I have recently been accused of advocating false information in my videos and furthermore playing markedly differently when i’m not recording. This attack came completely by surprise in a most inappropriate arena. TheLipoFund has it in his mind that I am an evil genius bent on ruining your game and my reputation (such as it is), and he posted on our 2+2 thread saying as much. Many believe his intentions are to sabotage grinders, but nothing is known for sure.
This hardly needs to be said, but any and all accusations by Lipo or anyone else that I am in any way misleading anyone or concealing anything at all ARE COMPLETE NONSENSE. I hold nothing back, such as it is. I guess we’ll see what happens.
…anyway. Running a little bit better now. Still many days of suckouts and coolers, and that still feels standard, but some intermittent bursts of good fortune here and there have been much appreciated.

Thanks to all who played in GoSox’s HU tourny on Stars yesterday (May6.09).

My live video on low stakes 45s should be out soon. With part two of the PowerPoint series on middle rounds soon to follow after that.
GL guys, thanks for stopping by.
Leave me a comment!

Hi Guys,
Sorry i have neglected my blog a bit. Since about the end of January up through the writing of this post, I have been running way below average. It’s a familiar combination of worst-case scenarios: cold cards, suckouts, and coolers. I have managed to keep my head above water, so to speak, but 3 months of sighing has taken its toll on my patience. I try to have no memory of the losses, and just start fresh every session, everyday.
…Let’s see, I have a Step 6 ticket I’m waiting to gamble with. In case you’re interested I started at Step 2. The only Step 6 running now is the WSOPME which is 2 packages out of 12 players. I figure there will be easier ways of sat-ing into that, so i’m probably going to wait for the APPT to start up again.
Every once in a while I’ll trow a Step 2 into my session and see what happens. A couple days ago I was playing a Step 4 and made a major bonehead play, due to playing too many tables and really just lack of focus. Step4s are not turbos, so although they all started around the same time, all my other games were in large blind, push/fold spots. I picked up AQ in the step 4 and it looked like the nuts at first glance so I isolated someone’s 1400 shove. Whoops, it was only 50/100. the guy had 88 and it held. I was down to <400 and came back to 1400, blinds still 50/100, picked up 88 in the SB and shoved on the BB who had about 3k and he basically snapped me with JTo (bad) and hit, so i finished out of the ‘money’. I don’t like either of their plays but still it was all my fault and a good reminder to stay on your toes and never get complacent.
I also started mixing some 9mans in to reduce my volatility a little bit; which hurts my TLB points but who cares lol.
OK guys, that’s it for now, GL
I’ll try to check back here soon!

These are my results for $16-18, $27-18, $12-45, and $27-45 in that order. 

tigerbalm	627	$2.32	$15	16%	$1,454	Super Tilt	PokerStars	E18-18 S10-15	x
tigerbalm	561	$3.89	$25	15%	$2,181	-	PokerStars	E18-18 S20-30	x
tigerbalm	1,287	$4.49	$11	38%	$5,775	-	PokerStars	E45-45 S10-15	x
tigerbalm	1,075	$6.99	$25	26%	$7,510	-	PokerStars	E45-45 S20-30	x

If you’re looking at my ROI and then back at yours, and then you watch my videos and think you are following me, you may be wondering just what accounts for the gap (between your ROI and mine).  A fascinating question.  You got me.  I certainly follow a fairly strict set of sng guidelines, but within those parameters, I vary my play quite a bit, sometimes almost at random, but more often as influenced by the recent actions of one or more of my opponents.  I guess what I’m driving at is that I’m almost always willing to go against conventional wisdom if there is enough evidence that the action in front of me is something other than baseline.  I do not know of any easy rules of mnemonics ; the best I can do (and probably the best anyone can do) is to provide the most complete and honest explanations for my play (via videos) and to offer considerate and thoughtful advice on any questions of your own you may wish to ask me.  Please do.  See you at the tables. Good luck.

Hey guys,

In the <4 weeks since my last post I have done well.  On Jan 1, I played 45 sngs and finished with an Avg. ROI of 283% for the day.  Not bad.  Some highlights included: 2 Wins in $60 45’s, 2nd in a $60 90, 3rd in a $38 90, 2nd in a $12 180, and a Win in a $33 180man.  All told, a nice way to start the year. 

I’m also going to repaste an updated sharkscope for me now, because i like the way it looks.  :)    (the one of the top is the results of my big day on Jan 1.)  

Username	Games Played	Av. Profit	Av. Stake	Av. ROI	Total Profit	Form	Network	Filter
tigerbalm	45	$102.58	$26	283%	$4,616	-	PokerStars	1/1/2009 1/1/2009	x
tigerbalm	7,669	$6.59	$19	35%	$50,521	-	PokerStars		x

Hi guys,

Hope you are all having a wonderful and lucky holiday.  I have kept my goal so far and have played as of today the 26th 833 sngs, on my way to surpassing my goal of 1000/mo.  My sharkscopefor the past month (including the last week of november) is as follows:

The 29% is fairly representative of an average return for me when compared to my career sharkscope of:

My December avg profit/game of $9.85 pleases me.  In a conservative estimate of 25 games per day (or two sessions of 12) playing 25 days a month I’m looking at about $6k/mo.  Not bad.  The 881 games tracked indicates an average closer to 35 games a day (or 3 sessions of 12) assuming 25 days of play per month.  Needless to say, if I keep at the rate I’m going I shouldn’t have anything to complain about. 

I also achieved Platinum Star for the first time this month, and extra FPPs are always welcome. 

GL at the tables guys

Hi All,

First I’d like to thank you for coming; it’s nice to have you.  Some of you may know this already, but my name is Kurt and I play sit and go’s on PokerStars under the name ‘tigerbalm’.  I’d like to tell you a little about who I am and what I play.  As I said, my name is Kurt, but my friends call me Kurt (you can just call me Kurt).  I’m 27 and I live in central New Jersey in the US with my wife, Paola, our husky, Blue, and our chinchilla, Bunny.  I drive executives back and forth from the airports with a Limo company quite a bit, often at odd hours, so I play when I have time.  I do well at finding time, though, because I play quite a bit, in the neighborhood of 500 games per month.  I am going to attempt to bring this number up, hopefully to double it.  I finally got my 20″ Monitor in the mail I bought with FPPs which allows me to comfortably play at least 12 tables with no/insignificant overlap.  I play the occasional mtt (usually a turbo or 6max so it doesn’t take all day), but my primary focus is on small buy-in multi-table sitngos: 18man, 45man, as well as some 180man–all turbos.  I would expect a ‘normal’ session of 12 tables to include three 180s, two to three 18s, and six to seven 45s of varying buy ins.  I don’t want to say much more right now, except Thanks again for visiting! Check back soon for candid insights that will blow your mind!  I also recently qualified for and played in the APPT Manila, so I’ll be saying a few things about that as well.  Don’t forget to check out the other SitnGoGrinders contributors! 

OK gang, take care.

Best of Luck,

Kurt aka ‘tigerbalm’