Update six. I have played 113 games since my last update and have increased the account by $1,393. I cleared the $750 freeload bonus during the week and have started on clearing a $1000 one.

Therefore my operation stats since starting in July 2007 are:

Games: 1,310
Ave Stake: $34
ROI: 12%
Playing Profit: $4,008
Profit Including Bonuses: $6,143

My goal is to have a $50,000 bankroll by July 2008 so I am 12.3% complete.

I decided to stay at the $50+4 level until I cleared the $750 bonus and I also didn’t want to start playing the $100+8’s at the top of a variance upswing for obvious reasons. Looking at my results over the last 1,310 games I am starting to see that zones of negative variance last about 150 games and are then generally followed by short but very good runs which build profits to a higher level each time. I have included my Sharkscope graph below to show what I mean.

This pattern actually reminds me of when I used to play a lot of blackjack where you would have these long runs of breakeven or losing sessions and then experience massive profits for short periods of time where you would make back all of the losses and more. This was until the casinos started putting the cut card shallower therefore negating much of the counters advantage.

PS I never really made much out of playing blackjack using counting strategies.

Anyway back to poker and over the last few weeks I have noticed that shorthanded turbos have been added to the Ongame network between $200 and $500 buy-ins which is good to see. Eventually it would be good to play the $200’s but I would want at least $10K to play these comfortably. I think any higher than the $200’s and you just run into too many good players. I could make a 2-3% ROI at best which looks good profit wise on paper but playing at a lower ROI means the bad runs would last longer and I would probably end up cracking the shits with it and tilting too often. (rakeback would be juicy though!)