After my “interesting” experience of my very first 109$ PKO tournament, I decided to go back to the levels that I clearly beat. And those are on-demand tournaments on ACR Poker between 6.60 an 33$ buy-ins. The most profitable for me seem to be 16.5 and 22$ tournaments but I can´t regularly play on ABI of 15-20 atm, since my bankroll is yet a bit too small. But I am confident that I will get there.
I had a very good feeling about my last 22$ tournament, and throughout, I absolutely dominated it. Sometimes, you feel that you are simply unbeatable which is tricky, because in fact, nobody at the poker tables is unbeatable.
But once I was able to 4-5x my starting stack, my game was very strong, I would say – and you are supposed to apply maximum pressure to medium stacks. At the same time, you better not constantly run into better hands and lose your stack again.
I took some marginal spots at times, like calling a 3-bet with 33 against a 7BB shorty who held AKo and hit, went down to 2-3x of my starting stack again at the final table. But in the end, I reached the final 5 that got a payout.
I think what I liked most about my last 22$ tournament win was that I never put myself at a high risk – and this is maybe one of my most important takeaways of my experience at the 109$ PKO tournament: you better have it, when it comes to a showdown.
I will play a few hundred more tournaments around ABI 10 in the next weeks, and see, how I go. I believe that 6.60, 11, 16.5, and 22$ are definitely levels that I can play profitablye, but 33, 55, and 109$ tournaments are outside my “comfort zone”, and before I can level up, I need to have a bigger bankroll and study more.
However, I embrace the process and am able to manage downswings much better nowadays. I am confident to get to a point, where I will play 33, 55, and 109$ with positive ROI but for now, I need to be realistic and stick with mainly 6.6, 11, 16.5, and 22$ tournaments.