January Review

[Moozh]

January is over and I thought it would be a good idea to look back on the month and go over my experiences. I'm going to try to be a little bit different than a lot of you here in that I'm going to try to post all of my exact numbers (winrate included). Hopefully this post won't pop too many blood vessels.

First, some quick background on me and why January was unique enough to warrant an entire post. I joined 2+2 and started playing seriously last January. Since then I've posted here on and off and gradually moved from .50/1 to 2/4. Last October, things at my job took a turn for the worse and I decided to leave and take some time off. Poker had no factor in this decision. Fortunately for me, I live fairly cheaply and had a good amount of money saved up. I figured I would tutor and play poker to subsidize myself for a few months before finally returning to the working world sometime this year.

November and December went very well with regard to my winrate, but I was also working on some other projects and only logged about 5,000 hands each month. Around late December, I decided that I should really try playing poker seriously for a couple of months just to see what happened. Thus, my goal for January became 1,000 hands per weekday. Since I uaually quad-table, I firguerd this would mean about 4-5 hours of poker a day. Entering the month, I had a little over 10k hands of 2/4 on record with a very solid rate.

The month started off slow because I was visiting my parents and was often busy doing things with them or with friends from home. The month didn't truly get started until the second week when I flew back to my place.

I'm sure most of you remember the crazy bonuses this month. Empire and Party helped get my month off to a good start. I went through the first few bonuses in a couple of days. I pretty much broke even due to a 100bb downswing from the 12th through th 14th on the poker side of things, but I wasn't worried because the bonuses were keeping me afloat and I figured it was only a matter of time before I started winning. Was I in for a surprise...

After a nice +150bb run my second big downswing started around the 16th and lasted through the 24th. There was a four day skiing trip stuck in the middle of that, so in all it lasted about 5 days. I managed to drop a good 100bb. To be honest, while it bothered me, I wasn't too worried or drained by it. First and probably most important, the skiing trip really split it into two separate 50bb drops, neither of which was so terrible. Second, I had been running extremely well over my first 10k and I knew I was due for some turbulence at some point. I figured I was just paying my dues before I returned to my regular winning ways.

One thing the downswing did that surprised me was to increase my motivation. I knew from reading the forum that 100 swings were commonplace, and I believed with full confidence that I was a winning player. I knew that eventually, things would turn around and I would start winning again. Since the only way to turn things around was to play through it, play through it I did. Power through it is more accurate, as I started logging well over 1,000 hands a day. My peak was probably around 1,800 in one day, which included one 5 hour 6-tabling session.

Naturally, things eventually turned around and I was back on track. My rate for the month was not good at all, but I figured with some serious playing, I could salvage what was left of the month and finish respectably. Things were going well and I quickly made up my downswing and tacked on an extra 75bb. I was extremely relieved to be winning again as I had been having doubts about my ability and all that.

Which brings us to downswing number 3. This one was by far the most difficult to deal with emotionally. Anytime I started putting together any sort of a winning session, I would lose a couple of big pots in a row and before I knew it I was back in the hole. Nothing was holding up. Aces were breaking even, AK won once out of 10, tens and jacks were hopeless, 2 and 3 outers abounded, small pots were mine for the taking, big pots were filled with my money and shipped across the table. It felt like the sky was falling.

Two 100bb downswings could be attributed to running bad, but a third one really began to shake my confidence. Gone were my chances of finishing the month respectably. At this point it was all about damage control. Were my first 10k hands a total fluke? Was I only a marginally winning player at best? I began to fret about every play. Cursing myself when I failed to make a fold. Even worse were the hands where I folded a winner. I had always made mistakes before, but now each one was tearing at me.

Naturally I started looking at my own play. Since the beginning of January, my aggression rating for the flop and turn had steadily climbed from about 2.8 to slightly over 4. On top of that, I noticed that I had been making more and more marginal calls. Stuff like JTo on the BB after a raise and two cold-callers. Over the course of two days, I dropped another 150 big bets. My winrate for January had fallen to about .5bb/100.

I decided to go back to my weak tight roots. I tried to stop making marginal plays. Raise the monsters, fold the rest. Don't be afraid to call down a bit more in big pots with scary boards. For one day I decided not to try any blind steals.

Whether or not the new approach had anything to do with it, things did turn around. Over the final three days of the month I had a great run and made back the 150bb. I finished the month at a disappointing 1.12bb/100 rate over 18,341 hands for a total poker profit of $827.19 (not including rakeback and bonuses).

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While I am really happy that I was able to put in nearly 20,000 hands for the month, I must say the results were a major disappointment. I said I had a very good rate coming into January. To be honest, I was running over 4bb/100 over my first 10k hands. Now, I will be the first to say this was unsustainable, but I really felt that I would be able to maintain a rate at or above 2bb/100. Now I'm not so sure.

I think there are also a few reasons for the drop. First, as I alluded to earlier, I think my game had become over-aggressive and a little bit too lose. As it is, I still don't have a good feel for it. How often should I be betting my missed overcards? Is it good to open-bet the flop with mid-pair as 3rd to act out of 5? as 4th to act? What if the board's scary, what if it isn't? These are lessons that I will continue to work at.

Second, I think a certain amount of the drop in my rate was caused by the hours I played. Playing 1,000 hands a day is a lot, and to do so you can't be as choosy as to when you're online. When I was playing fewer hands, I was able to limit my play to peak hours. Everyone knows Friday and Saturday nights are gold-mines, but it's hard to tell just how much more profitable they are than normal weekdays. I don't have nearly enough hands to make any significant conclusions, but it will be something I'll be watching through the next month.

Third, as many people have discussed on and off for every month I can remember, it's possible the games are getting tougher. Reading the forum, I noticed that a lot of people seemed to be really struggling this month. Of course, it's possible I just noticed this more because I was struggling as well. To be honest, I do think the games are getting tougher. 2/4 hands seem to be heads up on the flop much more often than I remember. It's also increasingly more difficult to find good $30 tables that last (especially during the day).

Now, that is not to say that the games are not beatable! At any time during the day, I always see bad players. Cold-callrs, loose limpers, maniacs, and weak-tighties. They're everywhere, and as long as they remain, the games will always be beatable. Throughout my downswings, I was dealt a horrendous amount of beats. And when you think of it, the only way to have bad beats are to have people willing to call you down with a losing hand. That implies that you should be making money in the long run. Thus, even though I had a rough month, I still believe strongly that the games are beatable for a good rate.

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Finishing up here, I have a few questions of my own, then my goals for February, and then my graphs and numbers.

First off, while I learned a lot this month, I still don't really have much experience. I now have over 30k hands at 2/4, but 20k of them were this month. Over the 20k of this month, I had 2 100bb downswings and a 150bb one. I was curious to know if this amount of variance is normal for that amount of hands or not.

Also, there is so much debate over how long is long term. The answer: LONG. Still it was also very strange just how abrupt my change in rate was from my before January numbers to my numbers for this past month (as you will see in one of the graphs). My current rate at 2/4 is now about 2.04bb/100 over about 32k hands. This rate includes two very distinct periods (one of about 4 and one of about 1). I'd like to know if I can make any sort of reasonable guess as to my true rate at this point.

Finally if there is anything else you want to add or say, please be my guest.

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My goal for February is simple. Over the past few months, I feel that I've gotten away from the forum, my greatest resource. Starting today, I will try to start posting AT LEAST one and preferable two hands a day here. My rule will be no AA-JJ, AK, or AQ hands. I'm much more curious about more marginal situations such as blind stealing and defense. I also will try to respond to AT LEAST twice as many other posts as I post myself.

February will be a telling month for me. If I can't clear more than 2bb/100, it's probably time for me to move on and start looking for other opportunities. If I can, I should be able to continue this experiment for a few more months.

Thanks for making it this far, and thanks for everyone's continued help and support on this forum.

Moozh

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January Winnings



January Rate



2/4 Winnings



2/4 Rate



January Stats


Aggression: 1.13/3.91/3.28/2.45

January Sessions

[runa]

That's a pretty long post...

I think you're definitely a winning player, and were on an early hot streak, but have hit a couple downswings since then and haven't hit another upswing. Your numbers look fairly solid overall, maybe the VPIP is a bit low, but overall you should be fine. Keep the faith.

[Moozh]

A bump for the evening crowd. I realize this is a long post and not necessarily easy to read. I half wrote all this for my own benefit anyway. I also figured others might be interested in my experiences.

Anyway, I guess I really want to know what a normal amount of variance one can encounter over a 20,000 hand stretch. Are three 100bb downswings normal? Is my drastic rate decrase from 4bb/100 to 1bb/100 within statistical limits? Also, if anyone else wants to share their January stories, that would be great too.

[Harv72b]

You've been playing far longer than I have, and you put in nearly as many hands in January as I have over 5 months, so I don't know that I'm really qualified to even attempt to answer your question.

However, that hasn't stopped me yet. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

One thing that occurs to me is that the sharp decline in your win rate could be attributable in part to the increased number of hands that you're playing. I know that I work about 45-50 hours/week, so when you combine that with the other essentials in life, I can generally only fit in about 2 hours/day of playing time. On my days off, when I try to stick it out for longer sessions, I find that my mind starts to wander and my play suffers as a result...I just don't have the mental discipline necessary (yet) to play long sessions. You could just be overloading your brain, although I'm sure it will catch up if you keep playing this many hands.

I know that my January featured a couple of fairly large downswings, one of around 125 BBs and another in the 70-80 range. I also had a couple of huge upswings and wound up posting very good numbers for this month, although primarily at 3/6; on 2/4 I was actually under 1 BB/100. Again, though, this was a much smaller sample of ~8500 hands.

I guess my proudest accomplishment for the month of January is that I never once got frustrated over the downswings, or started to doubt my play. I have finally learned to accept the variance, and to trust that for a solid poker player, what goes down must come up. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[runa]

[ QUOTE ]
One thing that occurs to me is that the sharp decline in your win rate could be attributable in part to the increased number of hands that you're playing. I know that I work about 45-50 hours/week, so when you combine that with the other essentials in life, I can generally only fit in about 2 hours/day of playing time. On my days off, when I try to stick it out for longer sessions, I find that my mind starts to wander and my play suffers as a result...I just don't have the mental discipline necessary (yet) to play long sessions. You could just be overloading your brain, although I'm sure it will catch up if you keep playing this many hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately I think part of his need here is really hastened by the fact that this IS his primary source of income...if some of the more experienced posters have anything to contribute I hope you'd lend a hand.

[vipchump]

Playing poker definately has its ups and downs, and just like you said the long term is Long. When I'm losing and starting to feel the confidence wane, I find that there a few options.
1) Take a break for a while. Go do something else that you enjoy.
2) Go read over some of the important poker books... ssh, top, hepfap etc... maybe you need to go back to the basics like you said. Though i'm not so much a fan of the weak tight approach. You might save a few bucks when you are behind, but you won't learn, and thats what pokers always about... learning.
3) Stop looking at your stats. Maybe you should sit down for a few days and tell yourself, "screw my vpip, pfr, etc, i'm just gonna play good solid poker." let the money take care of itself.

And of course...
4) Hit a local casino... oceans 11 this weekend??


Good luck, I know it will turn around... though I gotta say, you still did pretty well, ~2bb isn't anything to sneeze at.