Disappointing volume

I haven't been able to play near as many hands as I'd like but turns out it's a good thing. It means my rl job has finally started picking up a bit do there's a lot less pressure on picking up some dough other places. Hopefully one day I can rely mostly on poker to make a living, but it's very nice to have something to always fall back on.

I have often wondered how things would be were I like 20 in 2003 just discovering poker. I was always kind of a nerd and a wiz at every game I played. I am pretty sure I would have likely been one of those "internet wiz kids" and made a killing off the game in the early years of the boom.

I saw a video recently on bluefire poker on how poker has become a kids game. It's actually pretty good and I recommend checking it out if you haven't already.

Ultimately I have no regrets. I have a fairly lucrative career that allows myself and my family to live a comfortable lifestyle on my income alone. My wife is a stay at home mom and we are able to raise the kids ourselves solely and put them in good schools.

Poker has always been just a hobby but of course I have always dreamed of turning it into something more. I guess that is why I work so hard at it in my spare time. I firmly believe it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. I have never quit on anything in my life and I won't start now.

Getting back to this month; I am running decently at 50NL and kinda meh at 20NL. Better than vice versa for sure. I am + about $500 after rakeback so far and almost have my 'roll on one of the sites big enough to hit 100NL. If all stays on track I will be fully grinding 50NL/100NL by months end. No rush though, I am actually enjoying my grinds lately. It's amazing how fun this game is as you begin to actually figure out what you are doing. :)

By the way, Cake has still not processed the $2,500 I cashed out on the 12th of February. Over one month and counting. I read somewhere that the average is 2-3 months right now.. which is pretty dang ridiculous. Living in the land of the free and we have to deal with this BS. I truly love the South but man do I hate conservative politics.

On another note, I was just looking at my stats and noticed that I hit 2 sets in the past 9 hours of play. I do only play 400 hands an hour but that still seems pretty dang low. I sure am glad that making sets are but a miniscule part of my strategy.

Imagine the post I would be writing if I were still the 12/10 full ring super nit I used to be and had gone that long without a set. I'd be whining like crazy about the big downswing today.

I will close with this today's run good graph. (only +$50AIEV).

February Graph

Decent volume but little money due to the cashout on 2/12. However, I have just gotten back to 50NL on both sites, +$620 since cashout at 10NL/20NL.

Now I am 12 tabling 20NL/50NL, about $350 from moving up to 100NL on one site and $600 on the other.

Here is last February's graph:


Goal for March is at least 40k hands of volume.

100K Hand Stats

I have now played 100k hands since seriously getting back into online poker. Here are the positional stats:



Now if only I could put in 100k hands a month.

I did purchase a 21" monitor which will allow me to tile a few more tables. I am trying to get my hands per hour up from 450 to around at least 600. This should give me an hourly rate increase of around $5 or so.

My ideal number of hands would be in the 750 range, I am going to experiment once the monitor comes in and try and find the optimum setup. I will post the results here and screenshots of the new monitor once it's setup.

Changed my "business" plan a bit/cashed out some

I cashed out $2,500 as a rl necessity because we are currently building a house. In order to qualify for a loan we needed a bit more liquid cash in the bank before we can get approved. Long story short, I am self-employed and show a lot of deductions on my tax return.. therefore it is hard as hell to show enough income to qualify for a loan these days. Even though our mortgage will be the same as our current rent that we have been paying 4 years, it doesn't matter to the mortgage company. Since the financial crash due I can't blame them, it's just a pain.

At any rate, I moved a bit to another poker site and now I split my time between the two. I have $650 0n the main site and $350 on the other. Since it's a 33% rakeback deal on both sites, there really is no incentive to put in all my volume in one place. Besides, the cashout time on Cake poker sucks so I like having some of my roll on another site which I can access funds quicker on.

I am now grinding $10 and $20 NL. I have also been experimenting with my bet sizing and bluff frequencies quiet a bit as well. Better to do that for lower stakes imo.

I also will be trying a bit more aggressive bankroll management plan for a time. It seems as though for the most part my daily fluctuations are usually not more than 4-5 buy-ins one way or the other so I am taking a calculated risk. I have no problems moving up and down if I hit a swing, so I am not worried about tilting it all off.

I am putting in a lot more volume lately and try to get in at least 2k hands a day. I would like to at least put in 50k hands a month going forward. I have plans to get a 24" monitor once we are in the new house, I definitely need the extra desktop space as I can only tile 12 tables at a time right now. And that is with significant overlap. I just want to be able to tile 16 tables with a little overlap so I can increase my hands per hour from the current 420ish up to around 550 or so.

On another note, I went and hit golf balls the other day for the first time in like 2 years. I hit the ball pretty dang good considering and look forward to hopefully getting a regular game together in the next few weeks. In case I never mentioned before on the blog, I am a 2 handicap and averaged around 76 a round back when I played a couple times a week in a my 20s.

Golf is a lot like poker in many ways. It's very much a mental game and you have to control your emotions in order to succeed. The only difference is you are only playing old man par and that bastard is the ultimate grinder!

Downswing now = breakeven stretch

Today I finished my comeback from my big downswing last month. I didn't really have much time to play due to real life obligations, so it took a little while.

Here is my graph since the downswing:


Tomorrow I will add a couple of tables of 100NL and slowly transition into playing the next level. Last time I think I got carried away by loading 12 tables of 100NL right off the bat.

I will try to remember to post my weekend results here on Monday or Tuesday.

Still rebuilding

Thus far I have recovered about 2/3 of what I lost in the 100NL fiasco. It's amazing but as soon as I moved down I instantly ran normal again. This crap can really mess with your head.

All-in-all I know I am a better player for having gone through such ridiculous swings. Due to analysis of my play during the last nosedive, I made a couple major tweaks in my game that has really cut down on the variance.

I am looking forward to getting back to 100NL instead of having the normal feeling of dread.

Back to 50NL

I am $900 under AIEV over my first 3k hands at 100NL. This is like a repeat performance of early 2011 where I ran 4k under ev over like 2 months.

I have now lost to a gut shot when all-in 5 straight times... two of those times was on the turn.

Is that even possible? Seriously.. what are the mathematical odds of that happening? I better buy a lottery ticket.

The whales keep trying to hand me their money but the poker Gods won't let them.

Oh well, that's poker.

With 1/3 of my bankroll gone, I am moving down. I am not going to give up. When I hit 3k I will give 100NL another shot. I can't get F@#$@ forever.

Just to cheer myself up...

...here is my 50NL graph from the past few weeks.



I'm going to try and channel that run good mojo going forward. :)

Moving up= you can't win at showdown

After smashing through 50NL with a 12bb/100 win-rate over 30k hands, I finally made it to 100NL.

Excitedly I fired up some tables. There is probably some sub-optimal play here and there as I adjust to the regulars, but overall I feel I played very well.

I wasn't really paying attention to how I was doing, although I did notice that I was losing some races.

After the session I checked the graph and almost threw up.


In 3 short hours I blew a weeks work at 50NL. Good times.

I know that this kinda stuff happens, but it's odd that it seems to always happen as soon as I move up. It happened multiple times at 50NL before I got a foothold, now it here we go again at 100NL.

This is the kinda thing that woulda really bothered me a year ago. Now I know I just need to grind enough hands to turn it around. If I have to move down, oh well.. no biggie. I'll be back at 100NL in a week or two. :)

-----------------------------------------
(Continued- 2 hrs later)

It's been one of those days where my opponents mystically hit whatever combination of runner runner if all-in on the flop or 1 or 2 outer if all-in on the turn.

This may seem like a small sample, and it is.. but since I only play 2-4 tables at a time, it's like 8 hrs of play today. What a strange game this is.

Well, I'm $200 from having to move down. Almost 1/3 of my BR gone since yesterday :(


I wish somehow this graph showed the 9 times that I flopped the nuts and got all-in on the turn or river only to find out they had turned a gutshot or some other wierd suckout. 9 times. That's a lot of dough.

It's funny though, I haven't run this bad since my first move to 50NL in February. I am not going to get frustrated, tomorrow is a new day.. I'll be back strong then. This is why we practice BR management, no?