A weird month. I was thinking back to when I first started seriously playing this crazy game, and it's kind of nuts to see where I am today. I started playing "professionally" a little less than a year ago in November, just grinding $1/2 and being thrilled with a $150 day. This month I won $3500 in one day playing $5/10 and didn't even really feel anything.
I also had $2500 stolen from me by a pickpocket, which was a kind of sick feeling. I've had many $2000+ losing days, but it felt pretty unfair that I didn't even get to put my money in play before I had it just up and taken like that. It's pretty unfortunate, but a lot of times I have $3k+ in my wallet just because I want to have flexibility and be able to jump in a good game if I see one. Had to take two days off after that one, just sitting in my apartment feeling sorry for myself.
Anyway, this was the month where I finally kind of broke through the $5/10 barrier and had some moderate success. I won about $4500 in roughly 28 hours, giving me a fatty winrate of $160.71/hr. This was pretty nice considering that prior to this month, I was a $3400 loser in the game. Most of this was just due to running extremely bad, so hopefully this will be the start of something big.
If I can break through and be a consistent winner in the $5/10 game, I should be able to average somewhere around $75/hr and pull in $100k+ with a little bit of work. It's looking like I'm going to be making somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-65k, $42/hr at the end of this year, as a comparison.
So here are the numbers ($2500 pickpocket loss not included)*
Hours: 120.5
Total Earnings: $9,818
Hourly: $81.48
YTD: $39,770
After pickpocketing factored in:
Total Earnings: $7,318
Hourly: $60.73
YTD: $37,270
*Note: These numbers are not sustainable. I didn't really feel like I ran that hot this month, but I must have been above expectation to have such a good month.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
July Results
The games have been pretty bad the last half of this month. Additionally, I really don't feel like playing ever any more. Poker is just not really fun to me right now and I kind of wish I could be doing something more productive with my time.
Yesterday I played with Crazy Mike, this regular in the $100/200+ LHE games at Bellagio (goes by MrGatorade on 2+2). He bought in for $5k at a $1/2 nl game and was just pushing blind every hand, bragging about how the money was nothing to him because he was the best LHE player in the world.
He started yelling about how he would play anyone in the room/world in a LHE freezeout for $10k. Then he picked up and left because the floor tried to fill a seat next to him and he didn't like people sitting next to him.
The table offered the new player $70 to pick up and leave to keep Crazy Mike in the game and the player took it and ran, but CM left anyway. This got me to thinking a couple things:
1. I make no money comparatively to what I could be making
2. It is sad that I have to take the excess money that Crazy Mike doesn't care about to live off of
Hours: 103
Total Earnings: $5,133
Hourly: $49.83
YTD: $30,602
Yesterday I played with Crazy Mike, this regular in the $100/200+ LHE games at Bellagio (goes by MrGatorade on 2+2). He bought in for $5k at a $1/2 nl game and was just pushing blind every hand, bragging about how the money was nothing to him because he was the best LHE player in the world.
He started yelling about how he would play anyone in the room/world in a LHE freezeout for $10k. Then he picked up and left because the floor tried to fill a seat next to him and he didn't like people sitting next to him.
The table offered the new player $70 to pick up and leave to keep Crazy Mike in the game and the player took it and ran, but CM left anyway. This got me to thinking a couple things:
1. I make no money comparatively to what I could be making
2. It is sad that I have to take the excess money that Crazy Mike doesn't care about to live off of
Hours: 103
Total Earnings: $5,133
Hourly: $49.83
YTD: $30,602
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Negative EV Hours
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.
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.
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.
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