November Review

Some good things definitely happened this month.

1. I achieved Supernova for the first time.

2. I had my highest volume month ever... nearly 200k hands.

3. I had my biggest winning month ever.

Of course my move up to 50NL went horribly, as usual. The last 10k hands were promising, however, and hopefully I have now adjusted to the move up.

50NL is just so dang nitty.. even at the 50bb tables. It seems pretty easy to outplay most of the players there but people just won't stick their money in as light as they would at 25NL. People also float a lot more and fold less to steals. This is to be expected and I have adjusted accordingly. The learning curve has been fairly painful, however. It didn't help that I ran $400 under aiev after moving up.

Monthly Review- November 2010
Cash winnings: $722.18
SNG/MTT winnings: $6.00 (VIP Tourney mincash)
Rakeback: $785.99 FPP value (14,045.74VPPs * 2.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP+4,002.79*3.5*1.6c)
Stellar Rewards- $300.00
Current Bankroll- $1,962.55+13,259.67 FPPs x1.6c= $212.15= $2,174.70
Hours played|$/hr: 120.95| $15.00/hr
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$1,814.17 profit

As you can tell by my graph, it could have been an amazing month, if only I had done decent after moving up to 50NL. The frustrating thing is, if I had stayed at 25NL.. I likely would have had a 3k profit month.

So my br is sufficient for staying at 50NL. I did cash out the $1k Supernova bonus but I won't be forced to move back down unless the BR gets under $1,500. Hopefully I run at least average next month. Wish me luck.

Goals for December are to get 100k fpps saved up to buy the $1,500 bonus by years end. Getting that should satisfy any volume goals.

Break even week

Well almost.. $-3.86 after rakeback. Not the worst result for my move up to 50NL although running $250 under aiev does suck.

Yesterday and today I have been thinking about play at 50bb tables... getting value from short stacks and skewing my range to allow villians to misplay against me. I won't go into any great detail but the early results are promising.

I have decided on my goals for the rest of the year. I cashed out my 1k bonus for reaching Supernova and my bankroll is now right at $2,200ish. I want to play enough volume to get the $1,500 bonus by years end so I can begin play at 100NL in January.

I am still on the fence about trying for SNE next year. It looks like I would need to play an average of 8 hrs per day at 100NL to get it. That's pretty dicey considering my job can take me out of town at any given moment. Unless of course I make enough in January and February to be able to quit my job.. but I am not burning any bridges until I am certain I can make it doing this.

SNE is definitely a big accomplishment and I really need a good challenge... I just need to make certain a go for it is right for me. I have never quit anything in my life, so when and if I make the decision, I will get there come hell or high water.

Variance continues

Another bad first sessions today as I was $150 under aiev. So far since moving up to 50NL I am 14 buy-ins under aiev.

I remember posting about this a few months ago.. where I got fed up with life as a TAG.. relying on SD winnings really blows. I switched back to TAG just to go for volume and possibly make a push towards Supernova this year and possibly elite next year. I am beginning to think I should just switch back to what I seem to have a knack for.. LAG play. The problem is, it is hard to play the same number of hands.. which makes elite very tough.

But.. I think I am not going to progress anymore as a player if I keep trying to be something I'm not. Playing my cards face up is not my strong suit.

I have some more thinking to do. I guess if I just friggin' ran good it would be easy. I probably am just frustrated right now because I always get boned when I move up to 50NL. Of course in the back of my mind I sometimes wonder if I can ever beat above lowly 25NL. I'll just keep plugging along, I still have to dump another $500 before I move back to 25NL.

Supernova!

Its hard to believe I am finally Supernova for the first time. In case you don't understand how big this is, it basically adds about $4/hr or so to my hourly rate at 50NL.. which at the volume I currently play, means another $600 in my pocket each month... the gains are even higher as I move up.

I ran like ass today and was down $400 at one point. I did recover a lot of it and ended up -$100 after rakeback. I was afraid for a bit there it would be my most epic one day downswing ever. Woo f'ing hoo 50NL, kiss my big white ass.

I do think I am getting a better handle on the play at 50NL.. I think I succumbed to fancy play syndrome during my first days of the move up. Its time to get back to basics going forward.

Anyways, I'm off to have a beer to celebrate! I will post my goals for the rest of the year soon.

What is it about 50NL?

I am not one to complain too much but variance, but this is getting really old. Every single time I move up to 50NL I get instantly doomswitched. Luckily, this go around has caused minimal damage to my bankroll.. most likely because my skill level is much higher now than it was earlier in the year. Also, I don't tilt off money after taking beats anymore.

Every day since moving up I have instantly dropped 6-8 buy-ins at the beginning of each session only to grind it back up by sessions end. I am now about break even for my move up to 50NL after rakeback and am 8 buy-ins under all in ev. I was absolutely crushing it today and it was once again cooler city. I was only able to play a short session due to it being turkey day. Here is the graph.

And here is the last 50k hands at 50NL.

I am not going to post any beats from today but I lost my first 5 all-ins in a row with 85% equity at worst. I am also 39 buy-ins under all in ev lifetime at 50NL (250k hands) but still up 22 buy-ins overall. Is this even friggin' mathematically possible? lol

I am now 1,800 vpps from Supernova. I will likely get it Saturday.. that is if variance allows me to stay at 50NL.

Running bad this month

So I am running bad this month.. not a big deal. I am at about 1.8ptbb/100 still which isn't too awful. The past Friday was the worst, 1 outers, 2 outers, preflop/postflop coolers galore.

What I try to do in times like this is just remember that over the course of a poker career there will be horrible stretches and all we can do is just focus on staying with our game and trudging through it.

So for the next week I will focus on the basics and try to prepare myself for the move up.

I have 3.9k VPPs left to achieve Supernova for the first time.. I will get there on Friday, Saturday or Sunday... depending on how much I get to play during the holiday week. Of course if I run really hot on Monday/Tuesday I could conceivably get there a lot faster as I am at about $2,300 in raw cash in my poker account. I am making the move to 50NL at $2,500 so we'll see what happens.

I am still very nervous about 50NL. I have played over 200k hands at that level and had two terrible downswings in that period. I am .53ptbb/100 lifetime so far at 50NL, however, so hopefully I have learned something in the past 9 months since I last spent significant time there.

If the month were to end today I would have my all time best month at around $1,800ish.. my previous best was $1,600. I still have 9 days to go, so unless something horrific happens, I will post my best numbers ever.

By the way, this is the first week I have successfully made it all the way through without looking once at monetary results. I am proud of myself for that fact but still find myself glancing back at an all-in table to see if I won or lost the hand. This is a big no-no and I have to break myself of it. My best stretches ever involve me not knowing or caring how I am doing and playing each hands separate from all of the others. This poker "nirvana" is something I am striving for.. its the hardest challenge to overcome for me.

For the next week I will look at my daily dollar results since I am so close to moving up. I will instead focus on not paying attention to how I am doing on a table by table basis. For example I have a bad habit of clicking back on a table to see if my big bluff worked or whatever. All this does is piss me off when someone calls me with bottom pair or cause me to get behind on my tables and start timing out. Another thing that is surely hurting my win rate.