Knocked Down

Time to get up again.

Brutal weekend. Again. I've been told when it goes bad, it goes BAD. I don't know how it wasn't worse to be very honest. How I've managed to hold myself together playing all these games has to be a testament to my dedication, discipline, and perhaps stubborness and stupidity.

I tried finding hands that I played wrong, or scared, or moronic. I even sent a couple to some people, all of whom have solid poker sense. So far, no indications that I really did anything out of line. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about that. On one hand I could at least try to fix something if I was doing something wrong and then blame that for what is happening. On the other hand, all I can control is the decisions I make. If my decisions are good... well, not much else I can do is there? Oh, I could hang myself but that would hurt too much.

Sometimes I am a slave to stats and numbers. I looked at my all-in EV graph again and about fell out of my chair laughing. The damn thing looks like I made it up. No one can run that bad... oh wait, yes I can. After I sulk about my luck sensibiity always comes back to me and says one of two things. First, imagine what it might feel like to run that GOOD. If you believe that things balance out, then its coming... I haven't ever had a good run anywhere near as extreme as this bad one. Second, I look at it as how well I've been able to get myself into favorable situations.

Looking at the graph for my past play, its been very steady and consistant over time. Of course it ebbs and flows, I've had high points and other low points. In the end it pretty much balances out and my actual EV stays pretty steady with my expected EV. We are talking tens upon tens of thousands of hands. I really just can't worry about how the last 10 or 100 or 1000 have went. I have to keep going, just like I always do. MDFR is still my biggest point of emphasis no matter how much I really want to lament my "luck".

Typing about it is one way to get it off my chest. Knowing that as I write this junk what the answers are to my bad luck problem reminds me of that fact. I know everyone goes thru this and they have all come out of it for the better. I've already have experiences with downswings, just not at the volume I've played the last few weeks. Perhaps that just makes it feel more severe than it really is. I'm thinking the upswings will feel the same way... when I can't miss a card, lose a key flip, just plain win more often than I should in the short-term. I know its coming.

I'm just hoping that when the big upswing does show up I'll be too busy playing so many games that I fail to notice.

Mid-January Update

So far I've done a decent job at keeping my volume up. Both weekend sessions this year have been good, each with about 90 games and about $1200+ in buy-ins. The ABI is down a little but that is a result of my slightly stricter requirements and the fact my roll has been diving since November.

This past week has been solid in results. I came close on a number of events, taking second twice, third once, and a couple other final tables. I did win a 90-man turbo MTT on UB and have kept a strong pace toward my volume goals. The best thing about all of this is the fact that I'm still having fun, even with bad results and increased play. Then again, that has always been the case. I enjoy the challenges, whether its the players, the game, the downswings, or myself. I'm happy I don't have to fight myself very often, I have enough to fight with.

Speaking of fighting, I've been battling some sort of virus or what-not since Sunday night. I took Monday afternoon off from work and I just now left work Friday morning since I was feeling all stuffed up with shit. My voice partially left me beginning Wednesday night and hasn't come back yet, so no video recording for me right now. I'd just strain my voice even more trying to do that. I want to review my 90-man win and see how often I screwed up but I may need to wait until next Wednesday to do it.

As far as this weekend poker-wise, I think I'll try a couple of the mini-UBOC events. I think there is at least two I can play so I may give it a go. I'll play The Dime on UB and the $5000 GTD on Bodog like I have the past few weeks also. I was going to take Monday off and play a big Sunday schedule but Cameron is off next Friday from school and it happens to be his 14th birthday, I'll take that day off instead. I might have taken both days if I hadn't gotten sick... oh well.

I might still go to jai alai tonight, depends how much Maggie wants to go. We may skip out not because of me but more because no one else is going tonight. Might be a blessing in disguise considering my health. Tomorrow morning we'll all go see The Green Hornet though, then after we do lunch I'll sit down for my poker session. I may cut the Saturday portion short if I still feel icky but I'm hoping to make it through as usual. I might need to cut Sunday instead since I really like some of the late Saturday/early Sunday games.

I got a comment about my bankroll and such and I think I may do a post on that also. I don't think revealing my BR info is a big deal, it would be different if we were talking about personal finances and junk like that. My poker bankroll is outside of all that anyway, that is until poker comes to an end. Then the bankroll comes in much like a retirement fund or a severance package would... at least that's one way to look at it. If I feel better I may do that later today.

As for now, I feel a nap coming on.

Getting Serious

I decided to take a little step forward with my poker "career" and make a concerted effort to play on a more consistant basis this year. I don't have any specific plan in mind this time since I want to keep my options open. I am hoping to play enough to at least qualify for bronze Iron Man on FTP, Silver Star on Poker Stars, and with some luck the third tier (COntender?) on UB.

At the least I'm going to put in solid sessions on weeknights, where I play about 3 hours each time. I'm also looking to play a full schedule on Saturday (at least 30 games) and also extending my Sunday afternoon play into the evenings more often. Hopefully by commiting more volume to poker will result in some good things happening soon.

How is it going so far? Well, my volume is good as I've played almost 100 games in these first three days of the year. So far so good! Too bad I'm still mired in the worst downswing I've ever had as this weekend was a brutal series of coolers and huge bad beats. With more volume comes the chance that this type of thing can happen more often, and I understand that. I just hoped it wouldn't hit me so hard the first weekend of the year, LOL.

I won't go into examples since its pointless to do so. Eventually it will come around and I'll run just as hot, hopefully in spots that I can take advantage of it in a big way. Because of my increased volume and more "serious" play, I've decided to put a "protected" bankroll plan into place where I'll require more BIs for the bigger games. This takes me out of a few of the $55 games but I think its for the best in the long run. Considering what has happened so far its a good idea I did. If I play well I'll be back in those games soon enough... its only been three days.

Tomorrow will be the first weeknight with my extra volume, maybe something good will happen. As long as I keep getting my chips in good (and so far my review of my play has shown I have) I'm just bound to hit something. I've done it before and I'll continue to believe I can do it again. Wish me luck!

2011 Has Arrived... Now What?

As we turn the corner from one year to the next I find myself wanting to make more big plans and meet high expectations. Last year I had a specific plan in place and then discovered that its not always going to go according to plan. Not that 2010 wasn't a good year since it was successful, however I just felt that I could have done more. I few ideas I had didn't pan out they way I thought it might since things around me change unexpectedly, which is fine. Despite that I feel 2010 was a success.

I feel I've only touched on what could be possible for me in poker last year. I had my share of ups and downs when it came to how things were running, the end of the year was on the downswing though. My fortunes turned a bit south in the last two months and perhaps this is why I feel that I didn't do as well as I feel I could have. Maybe it left a bad taste in my month, I don't know. Still, while I didn't get to play quite as much as I had planned, I did play more than the year previous and all in all I was successful at it.

This year I plan on doing more... and when I figure out just how much of that I want to actually plan out I'll make it known. For now I just want to concentrate on the new year with a positive frame of mind and let it fly. We'll start that today.

Almost Ready...

... to actually make an entry about 2010. Since I have a couple days left I'll wait.

I can report that December has been a down month but not near as bad as November was. My computer's hard drive took a dump early this month and I lost everything I had on it. I did have a few things backed up but not nearly as current as I should have. I was able to get most everything either restored or recreated but updating my PokerTracker database took many hours. Hopefully I won't be too lazy about backing that thing up anymore.

I still have to update a few things here and there but I'm up and running once more. Poker-wise I've not run too well but I have had a number of close calls and "almosts", perhaps the next one will get there. I did finally win one of the new "On Demand" super-turbo multi-table SNGs on FTP yesterday and overall that game has still been a good game for me. I haven't played a bunch this month since I've been taking time to recover the computer losses (oh, and I guess time with the family for Christmas) but once the new year hits that'll change. I'll get into that in more detail then (and once I figure out exactly what the details are).

Until then, lets see if I can make the last few hours of this year count.

November

I found some time to write on the blog again at the same time that I actually thought of taking time to do it, so here I am. Too bad I don't have anything good to say about how poker has gone this month, its been a rough go of it here in the last four weeks. Variance is a bitch, I can say that.

I had a few chances for some really nice scores but as it happens they all either blew up in my face or fell a bit short. I was 3rd in a super-turbo MTT a couple of weeks ago and I have done well in the 54-man super-turbo SNGs I've been playing but outside of that its been rough. I did get some solid time in with playing more tables at one time and I can say I had very little trouble with it. I was surprised how well I was able to still make good decisions despite having 4-6 more tables going. In fact, it was fun to have all that extra stuff going on.

Yesterday did help bring me back a little though I still came up short in a couple things. I was deep in a $44 turbo MTT on Stars and ended up getting 3-outted on the river for the what would have been the chip lead, instead I got 13th for about $250 or so. Still a nice result in a 700+ player field. The other almost wasn't THAT close, but I managed $350 in the Turbo Takedown by finishing 225th out of 18000+ runners. That was a bunch of fun, even with all the folding I had to do, LOL. Its not often I get to push 150K and be considered "short" (if you wanna call 14BBs short, that is.)

I had a couple of very strong volume Saturdays, though both days were stinkers profit-wise. All I know is that I have been playing very well, especially with the quality of my reads on opponent's hand ranges lately. Too bad I've been awful at winning those 80/20 flips recently or we could be talking about a whole lot more. As it is, I keep coming to the conclusion that I have to stick to the process and play the games. I've been down before, I'll be back up again.

Since the upswing can start anytime I'll play in the home game tonight and see if I can get the ball rolling again. At the very worst I'll play the best I can and see where it takes me. Since I'll be off from work for a full week after Christmas, December looks to be a big month for getting some volume in. The more chances I have to do good, the better my chances to get there.

Taking Time To Update

Not a whole lot happening on the poker front since the Daytona Trip. One thing of note that I did do was a simple experiment with mass multi-tabling 45-man turbos on Stars. I decided to simply "stack" all the tables in one place so that only the active table comes up. That way I can simply and easily make my decision and wait for the next table... rinse and repeat. I got up to about 15 tables at one point and really didn't have any serious issues with not having enough time or fumbling with decisions. On occasion I had a new table pop up in the wrong spot or issues with games I busted in staying up, but overall I actually did well enough to turn a profit... and even won two of them!

October ended up as a positive, mainly on the strength of the two big hits I had. Outside of that and the steady pace of the 54-man super turbos I've been playing I ran fairly badly in most other things. I'm glad I was able to mostly take advantage of the few chances I did get to hit a score... and often that's what it really comes down to in the end.

Outside of poker, we just got back from a short weekend Bahamas cruise. I love cruises for the most part since everything you really need is included (like food!) and there is always the casino... I know, I'm a degen. I actually didn't spend all that much time down there this trip, not to say I didn't sit down for a while either. Mostly I played bad games like roulette and Let It Ride with my wife (she likes those games). Overall we were up slightly in the casino and had a fun time doing it. I got to play a little bit of blackjack on the last night and turned a small profit there also.

The one thing I sorta half-wish I did was try to play one of the sit-n-goes they had. I really told myself I wasn't going to go to play poker (I do that enough already) so I didn't really consider it. I took a look anyway and had to wonder if I missed out. First, the buy-in was $75 for 1000 chips, OK, I can do that. Then I read further. Immediate rebuy for $40 gets another 1000, hmm alright. First 30 minutes is unlimited rebuys. Hmph. Then the add-on after the rebuy was another $40/1000 chip deal. Wow. That could get expensive. $155 minimum for that game? I don't think I really wanted to take my casino money and blow half of what I put aside on that, no matter what my chances were. One positive that made me consider it was that it was Winner Take All.... now THAT'S a prize pool. I decided to stick to my pre-cruise decision and pass on them.

Ah, but then I made the mistake of actually WATCHING the play in one of these things. I'm thinking I could have won without looking at my cards. I figured these guys that played would be bad, I knew this... but wow, these gentlemen really had no clue. The one I watched, NO ONE took the add-on, even with only 900-2000 chips in their stacks and the blinds about to turn to 200/400. Not one guy. I saw guys bet and fold to all-ins getting better than 3:1 odds more than once, then make sick calls with king-high the next hand. I saw other things I just can't care to mention here. I had to leave before somebody won since I'd have been tempted to mug them on their way out of the casino.

Bah, its OK... no guarantee I'd have won, but they did have 4 of those games at least. I'm sure I'd have liked my chances in winning one of those but I didn't really have the $600+ to find out for sure. Plus, if I end up as the only one doing any rebuys and add-ons, what is my return really gonna be? Then again, I'd have the chips that they wouldn't and could likely survive a few more hits than they could have. Meh, maybe when I have a $50K bankroll I'll give it a shot. :)

Well, that's all for now. I'm hoping to get back to playing online on Saturday and going strong from there through the Thanksgiving weekend. We'll see how it plays out. I may go back to Daytona again in a couple weeks for another run at that same MTT and we have a few movies we wanna see (Mega-Mind and Harry Potter) so a little time gets taken up that way. Still, should be a good month for volume since I plan on doing a couple more runs and the Stars megatabling thing. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!