Return to the Ring

Poker gave me a nice warm welcome back in the early going this month as I couldn't seem to lose. The hot run continued when I took a little shot at $2/$4 and then my fortunes quickly changed as I lost all my monthly winnings and more. From that point on the rest of November was up and down and finished somewhere just north of even, due largely to a good night on the tables tonight.

Towards the end of the month I settled into $1/$2 short handed and found that game to be surprisingly nice at Poker Stars. I also had a blast messing around with some HORSE and Razz and donated to a number of limit tourneys along the way as well.

Although my winnings were pretty low this month, my bankroll got a little padding due to an old deposit bonus for $120 that had been sitting around on Stars which got cleared on the way to reaching Silver Star status.

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After losing a couple hundred at $2/$4, it seems as though I may have settled into a comfort zone at $1/$2 6-max limit. Much to my surprise, I had never really worked my way up to that limit previously. I got curious the other night and wandered back through my blog and realized that I had only taken shots at $1/$2 back when I was playing more regularly and had quickly scampered back down to lower limits. In order to progress to $2/$4, I suppose I will have to take a few months off then lose a pile at $3/$6 before dropping back down to $2/$4. Alternatively, I could learn to play poker I suppose and just improve my game and move up like semi-normal people do.

Somewhere along the way in the last couple weeks I knocked off a bunch of Poker Stars VPP points and will hit the silver star level very shortly. This of course makes me wonder how easy or difficult it would be to get to the gold level but I have really been enjoying NOT grinding a pile of hands for bonus reasons, so I will try not to ponder that question too much and just enjoy being a silver star for now.

I was the victim of a pile of bad beats the other night! Really bad beats! Oh, the horror. Last night I inflicted a number of bad beats on others. Oh, the horror. I know which I enjoyed more but I have to wonder which night I was playing better (of course this is a moot point as I was clearly playing perfect poker both nights).

Win some, Lose some

For kicks, I took a small break from my ultra-conservative bankroll management over the weekend and jumped from $0.25/$0.50 6-max LHE to $2/$4. Pretty natural step, right? After winning a quick $100 I couldn't remember I was always so conservative with my bankroll. Then after losing an even quicker couple hundred back, I remembered.

Bad luck plus bad play at higher limits than one is used to does not equal good results apparently. What a shocker. Although, one side benefit of the little run at higher stakes was clearing an old June deposit bonus that had been sitting at Stars.

Perhaps I'll settle into $1/$2 for a bit although $3/$6 looks awfully tempting.

$1.37 per hour

It is a damn good thing that I do not rely on poker as a source of income. According to my records, I have earned $1.37 per hour with my elite poker skills. Adding bonuses to the mix ramps that figure way up in excess of $6 per hour, almost competing with the fry guy at McDonalds.

Even still, this makes poker infinitely more profitable than any other hobby I have ever had and for the most part the time spent on poker is only replacing other leisure type activities. So boooya, ship it.

Counting My Outs has a new home and destroys my hourly poker earn rate.

Who the hell banned poker!?

So, I go away for three or four months and the online poker world falls apart? Sheesh, way to go slackers.

I sorta slept through the whole ordeal as it happened and still don't know the whole story, though being Canadian, I think I'm free to go play with the Europeans at any of the US banned sites. It sounds as though the biggest single change is Party drying up with the loss of the US customers. I did my part to help them on their way by withdrawing almost all my funds and finally realizing a true poker gain with a real live actual deposit in my bank account, which I keep waiting to be reversed for some reason. So, finally one year after I started playing online poker at all, I have a few grand in the bank to show for it. Or a few grand less bank debt owing, whatever.

On the flipside of Party drying up, it looks like a good chunk of all that business landed at PokerStars and it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch. I understand that Full Tilt is chugging along well too but am not playing enough to bother opening an account there for the time being.

We hit Las Vegas for a few nights in late October and had a great time. I played some 2/4 and 3/6 limit while there and ended up a couple hundred in addition to the minor liver damage done while playing. I saw lots of very nice looking poker rooms while there yet ended up doing all my play at Bally's, which hardly counts as a poker room, but it was handy and attracted nice juicy games. The 2/4 game bore a striking resemblance to 0.05/0.10 online. I had always heard that the live games were like that but really thought it was an exaggeration until I saw it myself.

Since getting back from Vegas, I have played a little bit online at PokerStars. In an attempt to lure me back, Stars has been letting me win more than my fair share with something like 19 winning sessions out of 20. Hah, I'm not going to fall for those online rigged tricks. I am just messing around with a bit of 0.25/0.50 6-max limit and 0.50/1.00 HORSE. I really enjoy playing HORSE because the ending is always a surprise. With the exception of the H, I have no clue what I'm doing as the ORS and E are complete mysteries to me. Fortunately, everyone else at the table usually sucks even worse than I do. At one point, we were 7 hands into Stud and I was still playing Razz and still wasn't the worst player at the table. Hard to beat that for fun!

All joking aside, I'm not sure why I'm winning but I think a huge factor has been short sessions. I'm not chasing any bonuses, not trying to grind out a pile of hours or hands, I'm just playing for short periods mainly for fun and it seems to be working. Oh, and I'm obviously catching a crap-ton of the upside of variance. I loaded up pokertracker onto my new laptop after a few sessions and then tracked a couple and if I recall correctly, the general thought is that a 28BB/100 win rate is not sustainable.