On Moving up and Taking Shots

When I first decided to move up to the .50/1$ games last month, the plan was to play 50K hands at that limit and re-evaluate from there if a promotion was in order. After a month and half, it's pretty much safe to say that those projections were a bit too much on the safe side.

Since I play Poker for fun, I'm extremely fortunate if I can manage to put in 25K hands in a month. On average, I'd say I have topped at the 20K mark since march. My benchmark is the amount of rakeback that I earn monthly. I usually aim for 500$ per month. This is a pretty reasonable amount for the stakes that I play since it proves that I've made a valiant effort of putting in as many hands as I could in said month.

With that said, I figure I'll be around the 30-35k hands by the end of September and I definitely believe that a promotion is in order. Why? Because staying within your comfort zone in this game will hurt you in the long run.

When I first moved up to .50$/1$, I was already over-rolled for those stakes. I wisely decided to cut my teeth at this level first before sitting at 1/2$ too quickly. The result? I promptly dumped 1/3 of my online roll on the tables in a month. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Bankroll nits never progress, they stagnate. How can you improve if you keep playing against the same level of competition for extended periods of time? Getting my head kicked in for a whole month did more for my game than beating up on .25/.50$ retards ever could. I had to re-invent myself, learn to three-bet light in position, when to pull off squeezes, when and how to properly defend your blinds, etc. All concepts that were not really applicable or necessary at the lower stakes.

I also realized that the games themselves were not that much tougher once you figure them out. In other words, playing at the lower levels would also have hurt me where it matters the most: At the bottom line.

Now I'm not advocating that you run up to the highest stakes possible that your BR can tolerate ASAP, Lord knows that is not my style. On the other hand, I actually think that it's just as bad, if not worst, to stagnate at one level with 100+ buy-ins.

If there's anything to take from this text, it's this: Take safe shots, challenge yourself and reach for the stars. Your bankroll and your game will improve as a result.

Holidays, Poker, Work and Tilt

*Mic check, mic check, is this thing on?

Right, so where was I this time? Mostly travelling along the south shore of Montreal for a bit, enjoying the festivities of the International Beer festival amongst other things. That was the fun part of my absence.

The less fun part resolves mostly around tilt. Some Poker related but mostly from work. Nothing to do with one specific person, more with the moronic way they run things around here. I guess the worst part is that these morons can't basically do ONE thing right when I'm not here. Actually, I'd be quite glad if they failed while at LEAST trying to do something but no, it's almost as if they simply won't function if I'm not around.

It's pretty much gotten to the point that I specifically take my holiday at the absolute quietest times of the year just so I'm not totally swamped when I come back. You'd figure these idiots would do something to at least accommodate me but alas, I still wait in vain. I can't wait to find something else and see how they manage without me.

So in a word, I've been so swamped at work that the blog had to take a bit of a backseat.

Believe it or not, I still found lots of time to play Poker though! Let me rephrase that, I still found lots of time lose enormous amounts of money at Poker though! Nothing really special, running a bit bad and playing like absolute arse make for a bad recipe. Here's a graph that was taken a few days before the end of August.




You can add another 700$ down the drain on Cake Poker which almost adds up to a 2000$ loss; or 20 buy-ins if you will. The big spike in there was where the whole thing really went down south, a 12 buy-in loss in one day. I had stopped after four but I was so pissed at the various coolers and suck outs that I couldn't stay away. Boy did I learn the hard way the value of stop losses.

I did earn 520$ of Rakeback for the month and another 500$ since the start of September which takes me halfway out of the hole. If anything, a downswing forces you to take a step back and look at your game as a whole and make the necessary adjustments. The big thing for me was to bluff (read c-bet) a lot less, especially out of position. I've also layed down small pocket pairs in and out of position in three bet pots lately. It's all about controlling the swings and pushing the big hands really hard. Not the most exciting Poker to play but I can't really argue with the results.

I'll grind some more cash tonight although I'd really like to play a tourney. I might try to satellite my way in the 50-50. We'll see. I will be back tomorrow.

Later