September figures

[peterbirks]

SITE/STAKES	$5-$10	25c-50c(PLO)	$5	$25	$3-$6	25p-50p	Grand Total
Party Poker	-$155.00				$261.00		$106.00
Ultimate Bet		-$220.00			$69.50		-$150.50
Betfair	$61.00		-$47.95			$5.00	$18.05
Stan James				-$27.50			-$27.50
PokerStars	$155.00				$180.50		$335.50
Winnings	$61.00	-$220.00	-$47.95	-$27.50	$511.00	$5.00	$281.55
Hours	28.20	23.75	7.50	1.00	31.75	1.00	93.20
Avge Per hour	$2.16	-$9.26	-$6.39	-$27.50	$16.09	$5.00	$3.02

 

Well, I "saved as HTML" this time. Net result is nicer, I admit, but I can't figure out how to reduce the height of the cells! Changing the "height" parameter(yes, even I can work that one out) doesn't seem to make any difference, no matter whether I do it in points, percentages, or just as a simple number. Much of the Office coding is utterly incomprehensible (as well as being pointlessly bloated) and it's hard to see how it links in with the Live Journal restrictions.

At first sight this is not a promising month. $270 in bonuses and oly $280 profit. But I was happy with it. I can take a Zennish attitude to losses (indeed, a series of losses) at this level. I have lost $180 today (although I got $100 of that back in a bonus), but I felt quite calm and in control, which is the important thing.

I was also somewhat cheered by Roswell's figures. Roswell is what I would call a typical very good young American player. He can win absolutely bundles at $15-$30 ... and then will always find some other means by which to lose it back. Then he will beat himself up about it, promise never to try $100-$200 or $10-$20 NL again, or something like that, and go back to the $15-$30 grindstone.

Anyway, that wasn't what cheered me. What it was that gave me a calmer outlook was the revelation that over 30,000 hands or thereabouts, at which he won $20,000, there was a period of 14,000 hands in the middle where he lost $1,000. As Roswell points out, the margins are so thin at upper levels that you can play for a very long time before you can even be sure that you are a winning player.

The point here is that, for 14,000 hands, that could mean seven months or so for me. This makes my chart for this year somewhat easier to bear (a kind of decent rise through to May, then an atmospheric air-sucking leap over a six-week period, followed by stasis for three months) and easier for me to understand. Basically, at 2,000 to 3,000 hands a month, this is quite within expected levels of variance.

By playing $3-$6 I think that I reduce my variance significantly (at least, that is how it seems from the past couple of weeks' play). I'm not sure that I really want that, in the long term, but at the moment it's the right thing for me.

+++++

Picked up Hero from HMV yesterday. And that is what I'm just about to watch (again!).

Comments

Go With What You Know

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Peter,

It is common for players after experiencing a significant downswing and in order to protect their bankroll, to drop down in limits and play those games that they know they can beat. Although you are not on a downswing the past month overall, your figures here certainly argue for you to stick with 3-6 for a while to beef up your roll imo. And while doing that, if you reread and study your poker texts and past hh's to try to see why you are not doing as well at 5-10 or plo. In particular plo seems to be where you either need more study and improvement or at the very least a rethinking since it is known to have higher variance. I play fulltime and one of my strongest factors in my overall plan is seeking the best (easiest) games to make money. Sometimes this means playing mostly plo and other times mostly nl, and in fact I have found myself playing nl a lot more lately (this is despite the fact the big online nl games have overall much tighter players, but they are often better because those players are much easier to read than good players in plo). Although I no longer play limit, if I thought I could make more there I would do it although I would not like it.

I know from your past posts that you have beat 15-30 overall but don't like playing that as much from a bankroll perspective if I have understood you correctly. But it seems that if you dedicated a few months to grinding it out in 3-6 exclusively you might well get your roll to a point where you could play 15-30 maybe half the time and thus produce a bigger earn. If I were you, I would drop the plo for a while for sure.

Good luck and good skill,

BluffTHIS!

Re: Go With What You Know

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Thanks Bluff:

The $3-$6 is a temporary thing. I have a prejudice against playing with my own money and I have deliberately drawn down a lot of cash from the online sites -- thus disproving the thesis that all the money ends up being taken out of the biggest game! In a sense, it's hard to decide what my "bankroll" actually is. If we count all dollars, then it's about $20K. If we count all winnings as yet unspent, it's a bit larger than that. If we ignored the Schwab account, it's about $10K. If we ignore the Neteller account, it's about $5K. And if we take individual accounts, it's about $1K. Confusing huh? Anyway, the $3-$6 is because the account where I am playing is only $500 at the moment, so I need to build up that individual bankroll.

As for the PLO, it was always a "learning experience" rather than a profit centre. I'm still quite a bit up for the year and the hourly rate isn't that bad. Its major problem is that it is hopeless for clearing off bonus dollars on UB.

Speaking of which, the target for this month is simply to clear off those very UB dollars. There have been two $200 bonuses in the past few weeks, and I have only cleared off $100 of it. I want to get the other $300 out of the way by the end of this month. UB can be a pig of a site early evening my time, so it's mainly a matter of "find any action game, no matter what the stakes" (er, within reason, of course).

Like you, I find winning in tight games at the lower (3-6 and 5-10) levels not that hard. The multi-tabler playing 8% to 10% of hands at limit is virtually an open book.

I think that the "hour of 15-30 here and there" is a good one. Try to build up the proportion of the time that you play at higher stakes gradually. I'm now moving up and down limits without much care -- adapting to "the game" rather than thinking about the stakes. This is good all-round practice.

PJ

Re: Go With What You Know

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Strange. I posted quitea long response to this, and it hasn't appeared. Let's see if this one does!