Dec 15

Not much posting, basically due to a lack of playing.

I’d been dreading, or at least not looking forward to the first two weeks of December because I knew it was going to be busy. Two gigs, two meetings on top of regular family responsibilities and I went into a bit of a depression in the middle of it. I guess it was a good thing that I wasn’t actively grinding during that period.

The other day I realized that two of my other hobbies make money for me as well. Playing music gets me paying gigs, and for the last two years even the NFL football pool has won me money as well. Last year I won two weeks by myself which returned almost 3 x the $150 buyin for the season, and this year I won 1/2 of a week and 1/8 of a week, before winning a week by myself again so I’m almost up 2 seasons worth of buyins again this year.

The nice thing about NFL winnings is that I have a computerized system that I’ve developed that requires a small amount of data entry each week but which by mid-season does a nice job of making good picks with little effort or thought on my part. A few minutes of data entry of stats and I can send off my weekly picks the same day the spreads come out. By the time the games come around I’ve forgotten who I picked so I don’t agonize over the games from a pool perspective.

~

The only poker I’ve been playing in the last couple of weeks is some private freerolls, and the $1.50 + 0.20 Super Turbos on Full Tilt.

For some reason these really fit my mindset lately;

• minimal thinking,
• just wait for the right times to mash the “all in” button,
• it’s so cheap that winning or losing doesn’t matter,
• I can watch television, play Lexulous, or read emails while I play,
• the players are pretty inexperienced so I don’t have to agonize over my play here either

Heh, pretty obvious that I’m down with some general lethargy these days.

Dec 1

After what was probably a small down session, only playing 4 tables of 25nl FR because I only had 40 minutes to play, I was left still trying to figure out where my head is at in terms of poker.

I’m gonna ramble here, ’cause I wanna trace what I’m not sure that I’m clear on, at least at a conscious level.

So, after maybe 3 months away from multitable grinding FR during the past summer, I sporadically restarted in September, I think with a session or two at 10nl to get going, then switching to 25nl. Even during Sept I was focussed on the Tilt bonus for playing at least 2 tables for 25 days during the month so I didn’t get many real sessions in, and I didn’t count playing on Tilt as it usually only lasted 10-15 minutes and only on 2 tables.

In October I started playing more sessions, played a few at $50nl FR, then allowed myself to get distracted with Tilt’s new holiday promotion. Gradually I pulled myself away from that and back to grinding 25nl on Stars with the odd table or two of 25nl on Tilt mixed in.

Back last spring I was having a heck of a time with 3-6 tables of 25nl FR. Now in the fall I was finding 8 x 25nl FR to be pretty much guaranteed money; running over 20 bbs/100 (10 BBs/100) and having long streaks of consecutive winning sessions.

But I’d been starting to play scared. Not scared money, but I think scared of losing and bringing down my win rate.

In some ways it makes sense. Take into consideration my struggles in the spring with mulitabling 25nl, and that period being only the most recent example in a long series of separate periods playing 25nl all of which had difficulties of different types, and to now have given the impression that I’ve finally “solved” 25nl for myself sets myself up for failure eventually, especially given that I know that running over 10 BB/100 is ridiculously hot. In other words it’s pretty unlikely that I could maintain that rate over the next 10,000 hands, but in spite of that, to not do so is going to be disappointing.

So I’m a bit stuck, actually. Options include things such as:

• getting back, targeting at least another 5,000 hands or so while trying to play well and not self destruct (that’s the worrisome part)
• trying 10-12 tables of 25nl, though it’s hard to find enough tables with enough decent stack sizes that I can get on in a one hour session as it is
• re-starting, taking a step back to 10nl again before sitting at 25nl in order to give me some time away and get some balance or perspective
• go back up to 50nl, where I’m already rolled and have some experience and see how that works in comparison. I think the 3 sessions in the last period were something like 8bb/100 which is decent. Those are included in the 20bb/100 above
• I can always try something else altogether; a SnG project, focus on my Tilt or Party bankrolls, trying more than 8 tables

During this period I’ve made 24 buyins at 25nl or 12 for 50nl. Or 6 for 100nl for that matter, pushing my total bankroll into a comfort range for 100nl. Maybe the money matters too much, which is why I don’t push myself up? Or maybe the total money doesn’t matter too much, which is why I don’t push myself up.

Nov 26

I’m up to 8,456 hands of 25nl on Stars now since Sept 1, playing a paltry total of 23.4 hours, running a ridiculous 20 bbs/100 and averaging $18.66 per hour. Last three one hour sessions I was up $77, $34, $55, and that’s with a couple tables from Tilt mixed in (which finally had an up session), meaning only 6 or 7 tables are counting toward this Stars total.

Add in the brief stint at $50nl and it’s 10,000 hands, and up just over $500 in total, over 29 hours of playing over the past two and a half months.

Maybe I’ve finally figured out $25nl FR?

In the process I also cleared a small re-deposit bonus at Stars putting my total poker bankroll (all sites together, plus cash-out winnings which sit in a separate bank account) over $2K. A little over-rolled for $25nl, but it’s this whole thing of grinding, getting comfortable, moving up in stakes, then getting distracted or tired of grinding and going off and doing things. Last summer I tried to start a new roll on a new site, and before that I switched to 6 max for while. Most recently it was getting distracted with the Full Tilt holiday promotion bonus which started me playing some $25nl on Tilt. I keep starting at $10nl or $25nl, working my way to $50nl and then veering off.

But I’ve never run this well at $25nl in previous attempts, nor with as many as 8 tables as I’m doing now. Each time I get off the horse and then come back to it, maybe I do a little better.

20 bb/100, or 10 BB/100, is supposedly the maximum sustainable win rate. If I had the time and inclination it would be interesting to see how long I could maintain it. I saw a player’s graph somewhere of someone playing 0.01/0.02 over thousands and thousands of hands over a looong period of time. He had a few thousand dollars in total winnings at that level but for some reason apparently never moved up. Or maybe he continued to play at that level as well as at other levels just for the heck of it. I don’t know if that’s the direction that I want to go.