My journey. Nathan vs the Variance Monster.

I've decided to post my results on ftr as i am now playing fulltime and think some public accountability can only be a good thing.

I'll try to post a graph each week to see how my progress is going. I currently 6table 50nl full ring on ipoker with 35% rakeback.

Will withdraw 70% of total profits(inc rakeback) each week. I plan that reinvesting 30% each week will allow me to move up to 100nl in august and 200nl in Sept/Oct.

The following two posts are from the June results thread, I decided i shouldn't clog up somebody elses thread with them. The following two posts give a bit of background on my recent poker play.

Nathan

My post virginity broken after over a year. This is the last 3 weeks since I switched to Full Ring playing full time. Really need to move up but keep having to withdraw from my bankroll as i'm a newly graduated poor student. I spend 5 hours each day studying poker theory and 5 hours playing, 7 days a week- i know, i have no life!

Does anybody have advice on moving up and living off earnings at the same time? My current plan involves withdrawing 70% of total profits(inc Rakeback) each week, reinvesting the remaining 30%, playing 50,000 hands a month. I like to keep a 40 buyin+ bankroll.

I really don't want to move into employment just yet as i make more 6tabling 50nl, and have an illness that will make working for somebody else difficult to say the least. So for now I need to live off my poker earnings whilst at the same time still moving up in limits. Any advice would be great. Sorry if this is a thread hijack.

Nathan

This is my lifetime graph whilst at iPoker since around April 2007(maybe did 100,000 hands on Full Tilt and party during 2006 without any clear direction or specific strategy- made most of my mistakes on these sites).

I thought i'd post this as it shows how the stresses of university and other external factors really screwed with my results.

Oh, and i want to say a big thanks to all the reg posters at FTR, you've all helped to shape the game that I play today.

Nathan

Nathans Friday feeling goals for the week:

1) 12000 hands by friday 13th July
2) Reread NLHTAP for the 673rd time over the next 7 days
3) Increase my "attempt to steal blinds" number by 5-10% and aim to reach a figure of 30-40%
4) Avoid marginal situations in favour of decreased variance (never push draws when I know my folding equity only just justifies it)
5) Have more specific notes on the regs at my tables (I hate CDpokers note taking feature-it only allows a few lines!!!)
6) Improve my table selection further, aiming for 2+ nits to my left instead of just 1.
7) Move tables when my table selection criteria are no longer met
8) Never ever tilt - there is no excuse for this
9) Start observing 100NL tables in anticipation of my move up
10) Be the best player at 50NL full ring on the ipoker network (OK maybe this is a bit ambitious)
11) Resist the urge to play in non peak hours - Make sure all my 40 table hours are completed between 5pm and 12am GMT.
12) Update my blog

My stats from the last week/12000 hands

I felt too tight after reviewing my stats from the last week, so yesterday before my session i decided to change things up a little bit. I was aiming to tighten up a little in the CO+1 after passive limpers and loosen up my steal attempts. Anyway here were the results, I really like the adjustments that I made as I managed to increase my steal attempts by 10%, my button vpip by 5% and my button pfr by 8%. Obviously it is over a small sample but i am much happier with the composition of my stat %s. I'm particularily pleased with the increase in my steal attempts by 10%, mainly because I was also making an effort to not steal from loose passive blinds/limpers. Due to my table selection when I steal from the CO/CO+1 I usually have nits infront of me on the CO/button

Anywho, here are the stats

I must say thats one of the nicest graphs I've seen for 6 max. Really consistent stuff.

I've never withdrawn weekly to live off earnings but when my bankroll used to get high (for me this was around $5000) I'd withdraw most of it, say $4000 as this helped greatly with university costs.

I'm now building up so that I can move to higher levels and withdraw on roughly a monthly basis without affecting the limits I can play at.

I'd suggest you withdraw every couple of weeks but I think that 70% may be too much if you want to build as well. Maybe taking 40% until you reach the higher limits you want to will be a good plan, as once you get there you can adjust and take as much as you like.

Thanks for the reply. The graph from before was 50/50 between full ring and 6max with a few ventures into heads up play. I considered withdrawing less than 70% but kinda needed the cash after finishing uni this summer. I feel that my variance has been consistently low enough to warrant withdrawing weekly as i've not really had more than a 5 buyin downswing this year, this occured at a bad point in my life where my focus on poker was low.

At the moment if i continue to win at 4ptbb/100 + rakeback then reinvesting only 30% of earnings allows me to have reinvested 30 buyins every 6 weeks, and thus enables me to move up levels every 6 weeks.

I am sure that when I move beyond 50NL my lower variance style of play will become less profitable, however I do not envisage this happening before 200NL.

My plan for the next 12 weeks therefore is to reach 200 nl full ring, at which point I would like to reduce the amount of tables I play from 6 to 2 to enable my game to be focused on outplaying the regs/multitablers aswell as the donks.

Here is my lifetime ipoker graph excluding my donkish venture into heads up play.

I feel like i'm at a crossroads today. I've just started my session for the evening 6 tabling the 50NL 10 man tables on ipoker and at least 5 of the 10 players on each of my tables are regs that I see everyday. This seems crazy to me that there are so many regs on the 50 NL tables and it's really made me reconsider where i should be playing. My previous ventures into 50nl 6max on ipoker have been characterised by much higher variance than full ring as you would expect. I don't feel as comfortable playing 6max but i feel that I have to in order to be amongst more fish. The regs on the 50nl full ring tables on ipoker are by no means good players but they are unfortunately there everyday.

I feel like I now just have to accept the higher variance of playing bad lags at the 6max tables and learn to adjust to this. The threat of variance is definitely holding me back though - my graphs at full ring 50nl are so steady and pretty, but the playing conditions are worsening each day. A big part of my success so far has been table selection but over the past day or two it's become much more difficult to find a good seat on each of the 6 tables of full ring.

I don't know if i'm specifically asking any questions with this post, i'm just really confused as to what I should do. Should I six table full ring 50nl with the regs or 4 table 6 max with the donks? I really enjoy lagging it up positionally at full ring but hate been laggy at 6max.

What do you guys think? Should I move back to 6max? I just can't seem to decide. Are any of you full ring players having similar concerns? Or any 6 max players considering switching to full ring in the hopes of reduced variance?

I think my ptbb would probably be 6-8 at 6max based on past perfomance with annoying levels of variance. Whereas at full ring my ptbb is now 4-5 but getting ever so slightly lower each week. I get through 300 hands/hr 6tabling 10man and 300 hds/hr 4tabling 6max.

Perhaps i'm overanalysing things and should just stick to full ring with a steady but boring level of profit battling with the regs and steadily increasing variance week by week. Low variance is important to me as I withdraw a wage each week from my profits, but is my fear of increased variance holding me back?

That was a long rambling post, hopefully somebody can input with some advice.

Thanks

Nathan