Bye Bye BBT3

**This blog has moved over here**  Updates will cease on  March 21

Alas I simply no longer have time to spend playing tournaments.  Getting the business off the ground is my primary concern and I'm spending all of my free time doing that.  I am playing SNG's during my scheduled live times because I enjoy that but I won't be playing much else for the foreseeable future.

I've placed a new post up on the Poker Tech Reviews blog welcoming EasyCure as a partner.  He has proven to be a hard working person who embraces the entrepreneurial spirit.  Please stop by and help me welcome him to the team.

Changing the Rotation

I've got to put some bankroll building back into my play. The MTT's have been slowly draining my resources so it's back to SNG's play. They can be a grind but I've got to play into my strength and that is the turbo SNG. I'll be working a new rotation which will cut down on the MTT's.

Started this by playing a few steps SNG's last night at Full Tilt. Took me two step one's to win a step two token. Turned the token into a third place finish for a little profit. Feels like my game hasn't dropped off too much so I should be able to hop back in without too many growing pains.

The steps will be my focus for the short term.

A Months End

Would you look at that? The graph actually ends at a point higher than it started.

I know... I'm amazed as well.

I took the NL cash game seriously this month (ie. not a single SNG played) and I have to say I enjoyed playing them. I've had a love hate, well... mostly hate , relationship with the NL cash game in the past but making the switch to full ring and not worrying about the money I may lose or win really seemed to help me.

Since I'm all about the money when it comes to playing this game, I've got to look at whether the SNG's or the cash games were more profitable for me. In the month of October I played 10.72 hours at the $24 turbos for a profit of $235.70. That comes out to $21.99 an hour which is nothing to sneeze at. At the .25/.50 NL game I played 16.57 hours in November for a profit of $338.60. That comes out to $20.43 an hour. That puts these two forms of poker at about dead even for me on the profitability scale.

With that in mind I'm going to stick with the cash games again this month. I didn't miss playing the SNG's at all which also surprised me. At least I have a backup if things turn sour for me.

SNG Maddness....NAH!

One would think that Full Tilt's SNG madness over the weekend would have played right into my strengths. I applaud them for the idea, but the implementation was poor. I simply wasn't prepared to devote four straight hours of multi-tabling. If I could have picked my own four hours it would have been easier but with their time restrictions I simply couldn't fit it in.

I really didn't want to fit it in either though. I've been playing the cash games over the past week (since Nov. 1) and been doing pretty well. I've gotten in 1,026 hands so far and I'm running at a very nice 27.5PTBB/100. This is well above expectation but I'll take it where I can get it.

October Meet November

Another month has come and gone and the older I get the quicker time seems to pass. I'm not sure what causes this phenomenon but I wish it would stop.

At any rate it's time to asses the previous months play and things went decently for me. I managed a 16.9% ROI on my SNG's and of the 4 multi-table tourneys I played in, I final tabled one. Not too shabby.

I'm looking to change gears in November and focus more on the cash games. The urge to play them has been building for a while so I'm going to give in. Abandoning my previously played 6-max cash games for the slower paced full ring should help ease the transition from SNG's. Beyond that there really isn't much to tell. See ya next time.

Iron Man Medal... Not So Special

One should always read the fine print. When I checked my Iron Man Status page and saw mention of a new Iron Man Medal, I thought, how cool. I was going to be rewarded for 12 months of consecutive Iron Man Status with a little token of my accomplishment.

Imagine my shock when I logged on to play last night and saw a few other players with medals. Then I found out that anyone who had qualified last month got one. That was completely sucky.

Since it's just a promotion tool for Full Tilt and not a real recognition of accomplishment I'm going to have it removed from my avatar.

A positive spin on the whole thing is that now I can tell who plays a lot when they sit down at the table.

My apologies for a disjointed post.

A Cold September

Sadly September was a losing month. When it comes to losing months though, this is the kind I would choose to have. I ended up down a grand total of 72 cents. That's right $0.72. When I receive my rakeback for the month it will be profitable but I don't like to count that as actual poker winnings.

On the SNG front I managed to finish the month with two good sessions which saved me. A total of 152 played for an ROI of 0.4%. Better than a negative ROI I suppose.

Having just completed my 12th consecutive month of Iron Man status at Full Tilt I'm not going to give up now. After this month my avatar will recieve the "Iron Man Chip" addon. Although I play with avatars turned off it may look cool. (Haven't actually seen one yet)

In order to maintain I'm going to keep playing the $24 turbo SNG's each day, but only four of them. If I want to play more after that I'm going to switch to NL cash games. My NL record has sucked this year and I want to put some time in to see if I can end the year in the black on these.

In other news; I've had a WoW (World of Warcraft) account for months but have never spent much time in game. I've finally found a character I like to play though so that is all changing. With renewed interest I will more than likely be spending my free time leveling up instead of doubling up.

Excuses are like...

and everybody's got one. While I'm playing more SNG's this month, I'm certainly not seeing an increase in my ROI. As a matter of fact, I'm faring much worse this month. In August I played 80 SNG's for a 15.5% ROI. In September I've played 114 so far with a 2% ROI.

I could equate my issues into forcing myself to play when I don't really want to, having other projects going, not concentrating, but those are all just excuses. The fact of the matter is that I'm not playing the way I know to play. No excuse makes up for the fact that I know I'm playing poorly yet make no effort to correct it.

Patience young padewan. If I could give one piece of advise to anyone wanting to play SNG's. That would be it. Patience is the single most important key to success at the low limits. I need to practice what I preach.

Where To Begin...

Let's see. I know my posting has been sporadic at best lately but I am still playing poker. In fact staying true to my word I'm still on track to double my play from last month. My problem is a severe lack of free time right now. I'm getting ready to embark on a very exciting, yet very scary career move.

Being known as the "tech guy" to all my friends I get called upon whenever someone has a PC related issue. Every time they call me, they also tell me I should work on computers as a business. I've heard this enough times that I've finally decided to do just that. It will start as a part time gig that hopefully grows into a full time job. I will be launching next week and getting everything ready has been very time consuming.

Playing poker has actually led to my being able to do this. You see all of my startup costs have been covered by poker profits. In fact, I believe that I will never have to spend a dime of "my own" money during the life of the business. I see no reason why I can't cover my small monthly costs (phone, advertising, etc.) with poker play.

This has led me to consider something within poker I've never really had to deal with before. Proper bankroll funding versus risk of ruin. I've really emaciated my bankroll during this process. The bankroll is currently sitting at about $750. I like to maintain a minimum of 45 buy ins but prefer 65 for SNG's. Presently I'm playing the $24 turbo's but I should be playing the $12 ones. Normally I would just drop down in limits and continue playing. The thing is that I believe I have proven to myself that I can beat these games. I feel it would take a severely freakish losing streak for me to be in bankroll danger. Thus I've decided to stay where I'm at and play a little thin.

At any rate look for some more frequent posting coming up. In the mean time go check out The Poker Grind.net and show some support for a new blogger on the scene.

Update: I received my money from Full Tilt a few days after posting about it so alls good.

And The Challenge Begins

The Heads Up Challenge 5 got underway today and I played my first match in the hearts bracket against the Surly Poker Gnome. I was fortunate enough to win back to back matches in the best of three series to move on.

To be fair I was running very good tonight. In my set of 4 SNG's I managed two firsts and a third. I then won not only the two matches against pokergnome but also one against some random player.

All in all an excellent night of poker.

300

I was reviewing my turbo stats for the year today and I found something interesting. I've played exactly 300 @ $6.50, 300 @ $12, and now 302 @ $24.

Since my games played at each level are identical I thought I would do a side by side comparison of my finish positions.


As you can see $6.50 was good, $12 was excellent, and $24 has been a bit of a struggle. I'm currently on my 3rd attempt of the year taking on the $24 SNG's and this time it's been going better. I still have work to do but since I'm currently only playing 4 a day it takes a long time to see if your really improving. Below is the chart for my last 50.



I've become profitable but the third place finishes are very much out of whack right now. The players are a bit more patient at this level so it takes longer to get short handed. I should probably start shifting gears a little earlier than I'm used to.

Is Anybody There?

I've been back from vacation for a while, I just haven't had anything to blog about. Still don't really but I thought I should make my presence felt. I'm still only playing 4 $24 turbos each day at Full Tilt so I can get my 50 points for Iron Man status. I haven't played a MTT or a cash game in forever. It's not that my interest is waining, it's that I have non poker activities taking up my time.

My kids and I decided to do a short film and this has been very time consuming. I'm loving the process of writing, editing, and effects though so I may have found a new hobby. I'll have to wait and see how it all turns out. My goal is to have the post completed by the 24th of this month.

Up or Down

Still no MTT's played this week but I did start playing the $24 Turbo's and the $50NL games by the end of the week. I'm going to see how things go and I may split time and different levels for a while. I'm not going to update the stats for SNG's based on every 100 anymore. Since I may be switching out at varying levels it will just be easier to start doing the stats on a monthly basis, utilizing the stats from that month only along with year to date charts on occasion.

Speaking of year to date I was looking at my best and worst day of play since I started with the SNG's this year.

After 1,048 SNG's that ranged from $5 HU to $24 Turbo's
best day: $193.50 on February 1st
worst day: -$410.40 on May 23rd

It would be so much nicer if those numbers were reversed. It's amazing that I'm still up after such a big loss day. That day accounts for me having a 5.5% ROI overall for all money levels combined this year.

June Goal

The last goal I set for myself was back in March as I emptied my bankroll down to $300 in a effort to see if I could rebuild. I considered that goal a success at the end of April and have since just been playing the SNG's.

In an effort to give myself something new to look forward to I felt I had to address my weaknesses as a poker player. So in no particular order I came up with the following:

1) I'm very risk adverse. I know I cannot resupply my bankroll so if it ever runs dry I'll have to quit playing for a while. As a result I don't handle downswings very well. It also means I'm very cautious about putting my bankroll at risk.

2) I get bored quickly. No matter how much I want to play the game, after about an hour or so my mind starts to wander and I make critical mistakes. This has been my achilles heel in the cash games. This is also why the turbo SNG's work well for me.

3) Don't like to study. This is a bit of a fallacy. When something is new to me I consume as much information as possible. On the poker front I've been playing for several years and I just figure if I have the time to study the game, I have the time to play. I'm quite certain this is the reason I'm more of a feel player than a math player.

4) Pride/Ego. This has always been a problem for me. I simply don't like to lose and rarely do so gracefully. Combine this with being risk adverse and I can sometimes spiral downwardly out of control. I don't consider anyone, and I do mean anyone, to be a better player than I either am or have the potential to be.

With those highlights in mind I've approached my next goal with some careful planning.

I want to post a positive month in NL cash game play.

This may not seem like much a high reaching goal, but when the above listed issues have reared their ugly heads, I've been a cash game loser over my three years of play. So how do I plan to address each of the above issues in my new goal:

1) Going back to a philosophy I adhered to when I first began playing this game, I'm installing a stop loss. That will be in the amount of one buy in per session. It also means that I'm going to limit myself to one table at a time and in an effort to have as little regard for the money as possible I'm going to play $25NL 6 max.

2) To curb the boredom I'm going to limit each session to 60 minutes. This seems to be my threshold but I will allow flexibility if I feel I'm really into the game. I may also extend it if I'm just having my way at a table.

3) I really still don't like to study. I will make an effort to do reviews of key hands from each session though.

4) I'm hoping 1 and 2 take care of number 4.

I'm not giving up on my SNG play. In fact I have qualified for Iron Man status for seven months in a row so far and I don't want to lose that. To make up my points I'll be playing 16 $12 Turbos at least 5 days a week.

The Duece (Statistics)

After dropping back down to the $12 Turbos I've managed to finish up just over 200 of them. That means it's stats time. I've been on a bit of a tread water/slight downturn over the last 80 or so.

I know I've been making some mistakes early in the tourneys. These could be avoided by tightening up a bit more. I'm falling into the rut that usually involves me loosening up and seeing to much post flop play. I don't know if it's boredom induced but it consistently happens when I playing one form of poker exclusively. I'm toying with some RAZZ play on occasion to see if I can mix it up. I might also look into Omaha. We'll see.

Anyway here are the pretty charts and graphs.

Stats:
Ran: 207
ROI: 27.9%
ITM: 45.4%
Profit: $693.90

The ROI/ITM chart really shows the drop off. My 10% drop off in ITM has resulted in a 30% drop in ROI.


The finish distribution is still very acceptable.

So You Had A Bad Day

Let's see... 29 SNG's played, 26 Out of the money, 18 in a row without a cash.

I now have a new single worst day ever.

At first I thought I was playing bad, then I thought I was getting sucked out on. I turned to Poker Tracker for the answer and loaded up the 18 consecutive losses. Nine losses were a result of me being behind when the money went in. Two were lost coin flips. Seven were losses where I was at least at 70% favorite.

Lost the ones I should have, couldn't call a coin flip, and lost the ones where I was a heavy favorite.

Bad day indeed.

I've gone from a 30% ROI at the $24 level after 69 tournaments, to a -4.1% ROI after 111 tournaments. I'm not going to bother with the graphs like I usually do because it's just to depressing.

For the immediate future I'm going to step down to the $12 SNG's until I can right the ship.

What Have You Learned

There are a few things you learn about poker from playing a decent amount of SNG's:

1) How to take a beat - Since SNG's are primarily a preflop game you really begin to develop a deep understanding of hand probabilities. Everyone who studies the game knows that there are few preflop dominant hands and nothing emphasizes this more than SNG's. The beats can really seem sick sometimes but if you can't handle them, you won't be a long term winner.

2) There is great value in mid range connectors - This relates back to number one. Do to the preflop nature of the game you will often be seeing all five cards. With this knowledge drawing hands gain value since you cannot be "bet" off your hand on later streets. This has also led to the opening up of my MTT game. Almost every tourney I play now (which hasn't been that many lately) I'm able to effectively trap my opponents and gain a decent chip stack early. This leads to the security needed to play more flops in the mid to late stages.

3) Aggression matters - Although aggression matters in all forms of poker, the SNG is aggression taken to the next level. I would never dream of limping into a pot in a SNG. Fold equity becomes paramount in the later stages and that fact must be exploited at every opportunity.

4) Being a Donkey is a good thing - Ok, hear me out. I don't mean that actually "being" a donkey is a good thing. I mean that if your opponents are incapable of understanding your play and often "call" you a donkey, then that's a good thing. To go along with this... never explain your actions to an opponent. You may have a completely valid reason for playing the way you did, but if his notes on you simply say "donkey", you have an advantage.

These things are paramount to success. Without the knowledge to wield them properly you simply cannot survive the SNG jungle.

Statistical Anomoly

Even after mentioning my incredible run it has continued. Deep down I know I'm running on the very high end of variance but damn I hope it last forever.

With the completion of my first 100 $12 Turbo SNG's I present the stats:

Ran: 100
ROI: 57.6%
ITM: 56.0%
Profit: $690.90

Told you I was running well. That works out to $36.17 an hour, by comparison I should really be at around $12 an hour based on my performance at the $6.50 SNG's.

It's not all blind luck and winning coin flips. I've really felt that I've been on top of knowing when to switch gears. I've adapted very well to my tables lately and that has really been a boost to the confidence level. Confidence fuels ones innate abilities and that's always a good thing.

The Screenshots tell the tale.

Superstition

I almost hate to post this. I'm running so incredibly hot in the SNG's right now I'm afraid if I tell anyone I'll crash and burn.

My sample size is still low for the $12 turbos. 60 tourneys to be exact. In that 60 I've managed a 53.3% ITM and a 44.4% ROI. That comes out to over $26/hour when I'm playing. That's a slight bit more than I make in my real job.

When reality decides to snap back I should settle down to a more believable 20% ROI. The run is nice, and I hope it lasts, but all good things do eventually come to an end. The players are a bit worse at this level than they were at the $6.50 turbos. I suppose most recreational players play the $12's and those that are struggling to really learn play the $6.50's. It's not all that suprising that it works out that way.

Anyhoo, my good fortune has resulted in some good bankroll building and I'm now at $1,038.08. It took me 49 days to go from $300 to just over $1,200 (I withdrew 200 a few weeks back). That is certainly a lot faster than I did it when I started this blog way back when. I will therefore consider this bankroll building experiment a success!

Recent Success

I've been on a bit of a tear lately. Last night playing in the PSO league and also in The Mookie I managed to final table both. In the league event I was a dominant chip leader through most of the tournament and then got unlucky at the final table. In The Mookie I held the chip lead as well for quite a while but then I tightened up to much when we were down to the final two tables. This left me without enough ammo to mount much of a fight at the final table.

The two events were eerily similar.
PSO League:
71 entrants
180 Minutes of play
7th place

The Mookie:
73 entrants
182 Minutes of play
6th place

Pretty weird huh?

Anyway the $12 turbo SNG's have also been going well and my bankroll has seen exponential growth this week. I'm now up to $908.70.

Let's see how long it takes to give it all back :)