I listen to all of Bart Hanson's Cash Plays podcasts on pokerroad (most are pretty good - check out the Samoleous interview if you haven't), and one of the shows had him discussing the idea of negative EV hours with a psychologist.
The basic gist of the idea was that a lot of poker players focus on logging hours no matter the circumstances, when oftentimes playing when you're in a bad mood or when there are no good games going is giving you diminishing returns to the point where you would actually make more money by just not playing.
After the WSOP left, the games here have been shit. Just total, absolute, utter shit. The Bellagio, Venetian, Wynn, and Caesar's all had 10+ 2/5 games and 4+ 5/10 games going during the series on a weekday and maybe 1.5x that on a weekend. Now, there are 3 tables going on Friday night at the Wynn, which I have never seen in the 6 months I have been living here.
A lot of local grinders are leaving town to take a little vacation post-WSOP. I'm starting to think that might be a good idea. Fuck the hours.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
God Bless the WSOP (June Results)
I ran really hot this month - This, combined with the atrocious play of a crazy influx of donkament tourist players led to a great month.
The WSOP is such easy money - this is sadly my first winning WSOP out of three years, but before I think I had such tremendous leaks in my game that I really didn't give myself a chance to win.
I have seen crazy shit here on a daily basis that just makes me go "wow." I can't believe players are this bad still.
I have also seen a lot of the internet grinders come out here and try to grind $2/5 and $5/10. Some do okay and some fail miserably not because they don't know the game, but they play way too fast and lack discipline/patience. If they were to play seriously for a few months though, it would be easy for them to make the necessary adjustments I'm sure.
So on to the results:
Hours: 112
Total Earnings: $6,141
Hourly: $54.83
July may be a big month; I am playing in a $100k freeroll tomorrow at the Wynn, top 10 get $10k, probably will be 200-500 entrants. I have played less than 5 live tourneys in my life and easily less than 50 MTTs online, but I have read HoH and have a basic understanding of M,Q, inflection points etc. so we'll see how I do. Structure is fast so I am just hoping I can hit a draw while I still have chips to get my money AI to gamboool. We'll see how that works out.
The WSOP is such easy money - this is sadly my first winning WSOP out of three years, but before I think I had such tremendous leaks in my game that I really didn't give myself a chance to win.
I have seen crazy shit here on a daily basis that just makes me go "wow." I can't believe players are this bad still.
I have also seen a lot of the internet grinders come out here and try to grind $2/5 and $5/10. Some do okay and some fail miserably not because they don't know the game, but they play way too fast and lack discipline/patience. If they were to play seriously for a few months though, it would be easy for them to make the necessary adjustments I'm sure.
So on to the results:
Hours: 112
Total Earnings: $6,141
Hourly: $54.83
July may be a big month; I am playing in a $100k freeroll tomorrow at the Wynn, top 10 get $10k, probably will be 200-500 entrants. I have played less than 5 live tourneys in my life and easily less than 50 MTTs online, but I have read HoH and have a basic understanding of M,Q, inflection points etc. so we'll see how I do. Structure is fast so I am just hoping I can hit a draw while I still have chips to get my money AI to gamboool. We'll see how that works out.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
May (is it May already?)
This month went by in a haze. Most days I woke up and didn't know if it was Tuesday or Saturday. I played a shit ton of hours this month, mainly because my numbers were horrid.
A lot of this was due to losing in flips, which was kind of funny in a wow I lost $1000 to a millionaire kind of way. I also took four shots at $5/10 NL, maxbought at $1000, and promptly busted out of the game within 4 hours in three of those four times, always either ahead, supercoolered, or getting a great price on a draw and missing. Live poker is a bitch in that a single hand can make or break your month. If I hit my flush in the $5/10 where I stuck it all in with the nut draw on the flop, I make an extra $4000 this month. Instead, I lose $1000 in the hand.
I am sick of the variance of live poker. I have played about 600 hours up to this point, which is probably good for roughly 24,000 hands, a paltry sum. Maybe I should start playing some 100NL online...
Hours: 136.5
Total Earnings: $2,208.00
Hourly: $16.18
I made about as much as a Starbucks Barista this month.
The games at the World Series are fantastic right now. I am going to make an optimistic prediction for June and say $7k FTW!!!
A lot of this was due to losing in flips, which was kind of funny in a wow I lost $1000 to a millionaire kind of way. I also took four shots at $5/10 NL, maxbought at $1000, and promptly busted out of the game within 4 hours in three of those four times, always either ahead, supercoolered, or getting a great price on a draw and missing. Live poker is a bitch in that a single hand can make or break your month. If I hit my flush in the $5/10 where I stuck it all in with the nut draw on the flop, I make an extra $4000 this month. Instead, I lose $1000 in the hand.
I am sick of the variance of live poker. I have played about 600 hours up to this point, which is probably good for roughly 24,000 hands, a paltry sum. Maybe I should start playing some 100NL online...
Hours: 136.5
Total Earnings: $2,208.00
Hourly: $16.18
I made about as much as a Starbucks Barista this month.
The games at the World Series are fantastic right now. I am going to make an optimistic prediction for June and say $7k FTW!!!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
April Summary - Was the Money Really Worth Stress Taking a Year off my Life?
April was an incredibly stressful month for me. After running great in the previous month, I had high expectations and planned to take some shots in the $5/10 game. I had also turned down a real job in the real world partly because my profits were coming in so nicely from poker.
Big Expectations + Pressure + Overconfidence = Bad Results
I tried to run over people, thinking I was the greatest in the beginning of the month. I had losing sessions of $985 and $800, respectively, in the first week of the month, primarily as a result of playing poorly. It took me a solid week to get in the black, which is unusual because I book wins in 71% of my sessions and I am usually pretty good about keeping my losses small.
Once I finally did get in the black, I promptly blew another $750 playing terrible at the Bellagio, trying to make up for lost time by booking a big win. Instead, I gamboooled too much, put my money in terrible, and lost a big number.
I finally made a vow to just play my normal game and stop worrying about the numbers. After making a nice $922 today, I made an incredible recovery to post very solid numbers for the month. Not Joe the Pro numbers, but good numbers for me and great considering the demoralizing start. I really wanted to just shut it down for the month after the first couple of weeks but I stuck it out and am proud of the miraculous comebackI made. It is nice to run like God once in a while.
Hours: 116
Total Earnings: $4,433.00
Hourly: $38.22
Big Expectations + Pressure + Overconfidence = Bad Results
I tried to run over people, thinking I was the greatest in the beginning of the month. I had losing sessions of $985 and $800, respectively, in the first week of the month, primarily as a result of playing poorly. It took me a solid week to get in the black, which is unusual because I book wins in 71% of my sessions and I am usually pretty good about keeping my losses small.
Once I finally did get in the black, I promptly blew another $750 playing terrible at the Bellagio, trying to make up for lost time by booking a big win. Instead, I gamboooled too much, put my money in terrible, and lost a big number.
I finally made a vow to just play my normal game and stop worrying about the numbers. After making a nice $922 today, I made an incredible recovery to post very solid numbers for the month. Not Joe the Pro numbers, but good numbers for me and great considering the demoralizing start. I really wanted to just shut it down for the month after the first couple of weeks but I stuck it out and am proud of the miraculous comebackI made. It is nice to run like God once in a while.
Hours: 116
Total Earnings: $4,433.00
Hourly: $38.22
Sunday, March 30, 2008
A Great March!
Part of the problems I had from February stemmed from playing a bit too fast and creative. I tried to slow down and play a little bit more solid in March, and had good results doing so. I can really build up some big stacks though playing fast, the problem is I sometimes get so juiced up that I can't slow down once my opponents adjust.
So here are my March numbers:
Hours: 127.5
Total Earnings: $6,049.00
Hourly: $47.44
I think I really turned a corner this month in terms of becoming more comfortable with a style of play that works here in Vegas. I still make a lot of moves, but I am getting more familiar with when to pull the reigns back a little bit.
The games should be getting better and better as we get closer to the WSOP. The side games here are usually sick, especially the $2/5 at the Rio.
So here are my March numbers:
Hours: 127.5
Total Earnings: $6,049.00
Hourly: $47.44
I think I really turned a corner this month in terms of becoming more comfortable with a style of play that works here in Vegas. I still make a lot of moves, but I am getting more familiar with when to pull the reigns back a little bit.
The games should be getting better and better as we get closer to the WSOP. The side games here are usually sick, especially the $2/5 at the Rio.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
A Terrible February
Gah, what a bad month. My results are horrible - granted, I took a week off this week to go snowboarding, but my numbers are still ridiculously low. Part of the reason is that I took a shot at $5/10 and lost a big number when a rich tilting tourist who had raised the last 5 hands in a row blind called my AI 4-bet with KQo to my JJ and flopped KQ. There goes $1500 (yes he called off $1000 w/ KQo!)
Anyway, here are the #s:
Hours: 102.5
Total Earnings: $1,642
Hourly: $16.02
These figures have actually dropped since I moved to Vegas from Chicago, which is surprising considering Vegas' reputation for soft games filled with tourists. This has been true to an extent, I guess, but there are definitely a lot of skilled grinders that are in the games with me - for the most part we lay off each other but there are really only usually 2 or 3 soft spots in my 9-handed games, about the same as Chicago.
Anyway, here are the #s:
Hours: 102.5
Total Earnings: $1,642
Hourly: $16.02
These figures have actually dropped since I moved to Vegas from Chicago, which is surprising considering Vegas' reputation for soft games filled with tourists. This has been true to an extent, I guess, but there are definitely a lot of skilled grinders that are in the games with me - for the most part we lay off each other but there are really only usually 2 or 3 soft spots in my 9-handed games, about the same as Chicago.
Friday, January 25, 2008
January Results (Warning: Brag Post)
With January coming to a close, it looks like I am headed to have my best month ever. I was very lazy this month. I took the first week off for New Year's stuff, got sick for a week, plus my fucking alternator died out on my fucking car today (read post here in my blog that I spend a lot more time on and is actually readable most of the time), so my live month is done.
I am current sitting on a robusto $477 in my Full Tilt account. I'm going to try multitabling some .50/1 and see if I can build this up a little bit, or go busto. I am not much of an online player at all; In fact, I really dislike playing online, but I figure that this will be a nice challenge and will ultimately make me a better player. Let's see if I can't turn that into a grand by next month.
So, here it is from my best month where I simultaneously recorded my best session (+$1687 after 10 hours) and worst session (-$560 after 1.5 hours).
This Week:
Earnings: $95
Hours: 13
Hourly: $7.31
Yearly:
Earnings: $4901
Hours: 86.5
Hourly: $56.66
I am current sitting on a robusto $477 in my Full Tilt account. I'm going to try multitabling some .50/1 and see if I can build this up a little bit, or go busto. I am not much of an online player at all; In fact, I really dislike playing online, but I figure that this will be a nice challenge and will ultimately make me a better player. Let's see if I can't turn that into a grand by next month.
So, here it is from my best month where I simultaneously recorded my best session (+$1687 after 10 hours) and worst session (-$560 after 1.5 hours).
This Week:
Earnings: $95
Hours: 13
Hourly: $7.31
Yearly:
Earnings: $4901
Hours: 86.5
Hourly: $56.66
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