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Throughput
Aug. 31st, 2009 05:06 pmAs I wrote at the beginning of the month, August was always going to be a "hard work at the tables month". I had no holiday booked. no significant weekend events, and there was a bank holiday thrown in to boot. In other words, it was an ideal to month to "see what I can do".
Aims for the month and [x] if achieved
[x] 30,000 hands (31,609)
[x] Win at more than $10 a hundred ($11.59)
[ ] Average more than 300 hands an hour (287.5 hands per hour)
[x] Win more than $30 an hour ($33.33)
[x] Make Supernova on Stars (just achieved it!).
I actually "ran bad" on Stars, and a couple of tired bets last night probably cost me $300. But, the numbers don't lie, and the EV for the month, at 14,348 hands, was $1171.36. That's just over $8 a hundred. However, various bonuses (even at pre-Supernova level) add a staggering $500 or thereabouts to that, which brings me up to $11.60 a hundred. For the moment, I can live with that. However, that's Sklansky dollars. The "real" dollars were $5.50 a hundred in open play and $9 a hundred after including bonuses.
Party Poker came to the rescue. Over 11.5k hands I clicked in at $9 a hundred EV in open play, boosted to $14.50 EV a hundred including bonuses. However, I "ran good" in the $2-$4 games, and that boosted my real results to $13.50 a hundred in open play, and $18.20 a hundred including bonuses.
Since I was putting in a large proportion of the 108 hours that I played this month at six tables a time, you can effectively multiply these numbers by three for the hourly rate.
Things were let down at Pacific, where I mainly played the "mug" tables which are 50c-$1. Except that there are fewer mugs these days and more ABC nits looking to take the mugs' money. When idiots did come along, I couldn't do a thing right. Net result, loss of $127 in open play over 5,400 hands (EV loss was nearly twice that), although $120 in rakeback compensated for this.
I think that the last straw came at Pacific when they told me that I couldn't cash out back to Neteller. The "live customer support" was worse than useless, with the poor guy tieing himself in a million knots trying to come up with an explanation for me not being able to see a Neteller option. The e-mailed response 48 hours later was at least comprehensible, but wasn't satisfactory. Apparently you can only withdraw to Neteller if you made a deposit via Neteller (which I did), and after that, it has to be by wire or cheque. I asked for the cheque in dollars. We'll see what currency it actually arrives in.
((I should point out that there is a "get-around" here. I just deposit $500 again via Neteller and then two weeks later, take out $2,500 to Neteller, which is what I did the first time. That's what makes the restriction so stupid and annoying.))
But, like I say, the value has gone at Pacific, although the weekend higher stakes games are still attractive. The problem is, there's only one of them. Pacific has a penchant for crashing once or twice a week. And its 6-max tables are the same as the 10-max tables (I mean, with 10 seats!) but only 6 players can sit down. That's often nice for the new player coming in (hey guys, choose whoever you like to be on your right!) but isn't so good for the players already sitting down.
So, it looks as if I am back to just Party and Stars, which is one site too few to stop me getting bored.
++++++
I also played a couple of hours of low-stakes 2-7 triple-draw on Stars, partly inspired by the introduction of 8-game tournaments and thoughts in my mind that here there could be some serious value if I brushed up on triple draw, razz and limit-hi-lo 7-card stud.
It was weird playing triple draw, like going back six years to when poker was a journey of adventure and fun, with new situations cropping up all the time and the learning curve being very steep. This month at NLHE has, to be blunt, been "work". That was something I expected. I wanted to know if I could take playing 30k hands without dreading the thought of sitting down to play. The answer is, well, sometimes I didn't feel like it -- most times, it was ok. And once I got into the swing of it, it was fine. But I felt as if I were reaching the limit. If I had no job, how many hands could I play each month without burning out? Certainly not 100,000. I'd hate the game within three months if I did that. So, somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000. And the right mental attitude.
I was getting towards that right mental attitude near the end of the month on Stars. 99% of plays were routine. I knew that some mistakes were inevitable. I didn't let the mistakes get to me. And the good or bad breaks were neither here nor there.
So, overall, a satisfactory performance, and not "a lost month", which was how I felt some of the time while looking at seven Stars tables, with all that lovely weather outside! I watched less TV than normal and probably read fewer words in books. I "focused" nearly all of my time for the month.
Oh, and I finished that last piece of wallpapering in the spare bedroom -- the ghastly bit underneath the window to the right of the sink.... THAT was an achievement.
________________
Aims for the month and [x] if achieved
[x] 30,000 hands (31,609)
[x] Win at more than $10 a hundred ($11.59)
[ ] Average more than 300 hands an hour (287.5 hands per hour)
[x] Win more than $30 an hour ($33.33)
[x] Make Supernova on Stars (just achieved it!).
I actually "ran bad" on Stars, and a couple of tired bets last night probably cost me $300. But, the numbers don't lie, and the EV for the month, at 14,348 hands, was $1171.36. That's just over $8 a hundred. However, various bonuses (even at pre-Supernova level) add a staggering $500 or thereabouts to that, which brings me up to $11.60 a hundred. For the moment, I can live with that. However, that's Sklansky dollars. The "real" dollars were $5.50 a hundred in open play and $9 a hundred after including bonuses.
Party Poker came to the rescue. Over 11.5k hands I clicked in at $9 a hundred EV in open play, boosted to $14.50 EV a hundred including bonuses. However, I "ran good" in the $2-$4 games, and that boosted my real results to $13.50 a hundred in open play, and $18.20 a hundred including bonuses.
Since I was putting in a large proportion of the 108 hours that I played this month at six tables a time, you can effectively multiply these numbers by three for the hourly rate.
Things were let down at Pacific, where I mainly played the "mug" tables which are 50c-$1. Except that there are fewer mugs these days and more ABC nits looking to take the mugs' money. When idiots did come along, I couldn't do a thing right. Net result, loss of $127 in open play over 5,400 hands (EV loss was nearly twice that), although $120 in rakeback compensated for this.
I think that the last straw came at Pacific when they told me that I couldn't cash out back to Neteller. The "live customer support" was worse than useless, with the poor guy tieing himself in a million knots trying to come up with an explanation for me not being able to see a Neteller option. The e-mailed response 48 hours later was at least comprehensible, but wasn't satisfactory. Apparently you can only withdraw to Neteller if you made a deposit via Neteller (which I did), and after that, it has to be by wire or cheque. I asked for the cheque in dollars. We'll see what currency it actually arrives in.
((I should point out that there is a "get-around" here. I just deposit $500 again via Neteller and then two weeks later, take out $2,500 to Neteller, which is what I did the first time. That's what makes the restriction so stupid and annoying.))
But, like I say, the value has gone at Pacific, although the weekend higher stakes games are still attractive. The problem is, there's only one of them. Pacific has a penchant for crashing once or twice a week. And its 6-max tables are the same as the 10-max tables (I mean, with 10 seats!) but only 6 players can sit down. That's often nice for the new player coming in (hey guys, choose whoever you like to be on your right!) but isn't so good for the players already sitting down.
So, it looks as if I am back to just Party and Stars, which is one site too few to stop me getting bored.
++++++
I also played a couple of hours of low-stakes 2-7 triple-draw on Stars, partly inspired by the introduction of 8-game tournaments and thoughts in my mind that here there could be some serious value if I brushed up on triple draw, razz and limit-hi-lo 7-card stud.
It was weird playing triple draw, like going back six years to when poker was a journey of adventure and fun, with new situations cropping up all the time and the learning curve being very steep. This month at NLHE has, to be blunt, been "work". That was something I expected. I wanted to know if I could take playing 30k hands without dreading the thought of sitting down to play. The answer is, well, sometimes I didn't feel like it -- most times, it was ok. And once I got into the swing of it, it was fine. But I felt as if I were reaching the limit. If I had no job, how many hands could I play each month without burning out? Certainly not 100,000. I'd hate the game within three months if I did that. So, somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000. And the right mental attitude.
I was getting towards that right mental attitude near the end of the month on Stars. 99% of plays were routine. I knew that some mistakes were inevitable. I didn't let the mistakes get to me. And the good or bad breaks were neither here nor there.
So, overall, a satisfactory performance, and not "a lost month", which was how I felt some of the time while looking at seven Stars tables, with all that lovely weather outside! I watched less TV than normal and probably read fewer words in books. I "focused" nearly all of my time for the month.
Oh, and I finished that last piece of wallpapering in the spare bedroom -- the ghastly bit underneath the window to the right of the sink.... THAT was an achievement.
________________
