Observations

Well I sit here reviewing my Poker Tracker stats and here are the financials. All of these figures are from .50/1.00 play at Party Poker, Absolute Poker, and UlimateBet.

89 sessions, $208.25 won, 5,389 hands over 94.62 hours, $2.20/hour or 3.86BB/100 hands.

Nothing to be upset about here. 3.86/100 hands is very respectable from what I’ve been reading on the other blogs. When I started this process I stated that I wanted to take home about 5.15/hour. This has tuned out to be a bit far fetched. In the last two weeks though I have seen my BB/100 drop from the 5BB to the 3BB range. I have though quadrupled my actual hands played since then. With those stats projected out, the upper 2BB\100 range is probably a much more accurate read of my playing ability. Still nothing to be too upset about.

The question now is how do I go from 2BB, to 2.5BB, then 3BB/100. I thought when I started this that playing multiple tables was the answer. It took me a few days to get used to but I can now follow my hands without trouble. I can follow my hands, but not the tables. I feel this is a big distinction. When playing two tables I am playing the cards, not the cards and the players. Perhaps with time that will change but I’m going to drop back to playing just one table at a time for now. I will be operating in more of a comfort level that way. It seems that my swings are just over exaggerated when playing multiple tables. This was more than likely a pure product of my play. They say that playing two tables should just even out your BB/100 but I can’t remember ever having that many losing tables in succession. Almost every night I would have 2 losers to every winner. When I was playing one table I would have 1 loser to every 4 to 5 winners. I just hope that I don’t get bored because of the waiting involved to act with one table.

Another option would be to change levels. Recently several other bloggers have made the move to the 1/2 limit. They have reported success here since the play seems a bit more straight up. This would be something I would consider but I don’t feel my bankroll could handle it. I’m maintaining a bankroll of 300 right now and I would need 600 to comfortably move up. Since an increase in funds is not an option, neither is moving up.

A change of venue is in order. I had such a good run at Party Poker before the last two weeks. It will be difficult to leave but things have not been going my way. I will still play at Party but I’m going to be putting more time in at Absolute. I think I touched on this last week but I’ve decided to play Fri-Sun at Absolute and Mon-Thur at Party. I know I said I was taking the weekend off but my wife works tonight so I might put in one hour at Absolute before bed.

Now starting hand selection. Since I was struggling recently I had dusted off the chart of starting hands I made from Sklansky’s book. I have been referencing the chart over the past week and a half. Since going back to the chart my preflop percentage dropped from my normal 30% range to the 20% range. I wasn’t playing too many hands out of position before according to the chart, but they did allow me to make plays I’m not making now. This has been a product of the multiple tables. Perhaps now I can get back to playing my game rather than a text book game.

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