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wrapping up november
november's results exceeded my expectations. not counting a bonus that's on the way, the final tally was +6.6k playing 14k hands of cash (almost all at PLO and NL 100) and a bunch of low-limit donkaments.
it s the 1st month in forever that I've been able to track my all-in EV (nice to run right around EV) and also the 1st time in forever that I deposited an amount on stars that I used as if it were a legitimate roll (as opposed to a random amount to be gambled away on a few donkaments).
a few things jump out at me as i look back on the month.
the bad:
-i didn't play very well when it came to final tables in donkaments at the end of long sessions. i was often just "happy to be there" and felt relieved rather than hungry for the biggest score possible
-i didn t play very many sessions of epic multi-tabling grinding, so low volume overall
the good:
-i brought my A game just about each and every session. when i didn't feel i had it, i played in cash games or tourneys where i felt that even my C- game was turning a profit
-i table selected extremely well. played lots of weak players HU, lots of satellites and tourneys with overlays and played a decent % of my hands late at night vs presumably drunk, bad players.
-on days when i didn t feel like playing, i let the game either come to me, or scare me away; i took a shot at playing, allowing myself the opportunity to stop if at any point i felt that i wasn t going to be playing well or the tables didn t feel great. this was probably the most positive thing that took place - maybe half my profits on the month were earned during these "in-between" sessions.
-i didn t worry for a second about rakeback, bonuses or anything besides profitable play at the tables. when i m playing well, the money i m capable of making dwarfs anything the rakeback or bonuses bring, so it s infinitely better for me to just concentrate on bringing my A game than to worry too much about mindless volume
the "i m not sure" :
-rather than take full days off in between days of hard grinding, i played pretty much each and every day but rarely put in huge sessions that left me feeling drained the following day. this probably was a smart adjustment i made when i felt burned after a sunday of playing a zillion donakments, followed by a day when i just didn t feel capable of firing up any tables.
-i pretty much stayed away from NL200. i don t think this is particularly significant. my winrate is probably the same at 200 (maybe even higher since i value-town myself less frequently) but i filled in the time while waiting for PLO tables to get going with NL 100 and ran like shit but still profited some. if anything, i play a little more alertly at nl200 so this decision (or simple lack of courage) probably cost me some significant EV.
conclusions:
-14k hands might seem absurdly low, but it probably equates to about 40k hands of NL on a normal site when you factor in the slow play on PKR's software as well as the uber-slow nature of PLO games in general. i won t let myself get caught up in mindless volume considerations, but a month of 10k hands of PLO with 15k hands of NL would be gigantic for me.
-if i can keep crushing PLO, I see no need to move up to NL200 at all, if anything, I should consider moving up to PLO 200. the only argument for moving up to nl200 is that... ummm... i should be making more maniez?
ok that s a pretty good argument. however, my pkr roll is still pretty thin (about 8k after a cashout) and a 10 bi downer would be very annoying. if my roll there eclipses 10k then maybe i ll consider banning myself from NL100 games. until then, i ll playNL l200 when the fish beckon (and i m feeling frisky) but continue to use NL100 as my defacto filler when there aren t enough PLO games running.
-keep grinding the satellites. to say they are gold is an understatement. so fking many ppl who barely know the rules of holdem STILL somehow find their way into just about any qualifier that s offered on stars. i m in no hurry to get grinding a bunch of 100$ + donkaments vs reasonable MTT pros so i ll hopefully continue to crush these super fishy sats and low buy-in MTT's for the next little while.
december:
this will be kind of a 2-part month.
the first part will last until the 17th. most of my "real life" will be pretty busy up until then so my plan will be to continue a reasonable grind of good, preferably late-night cash games, a few tourneys and sats here and to stay healthy productive away from the tables.
during the 2nd part, all bets are off. i ll be home with family for the holidays, hanging out with a couple poker friends, and - hopefully - getting bored enough to put in some great, juicy, epic holiday sessions vs fish. the two weeks leading up the new year s eve are the best opportunity for a big score that i ve had in a long, long time. or at least that s what i m hoping for/imagining.
i imagine the 2 halves of the month playing out something like this :
part 1 - grind about 3k hands of PLO, 8k hands of NL (mainly at 100) and a few donkaments
part 2 - something like 7k hands of PLO and 10-12k hands of NL, a few bigger buy-in donkaments over the holidays (probably play both mills around xmas and new year s eve), mix in quite a bit of NL and PLO 200.
I would be extremely satisfied with 25k hands of cash and a decent volume of donkaments in december. today i ve tried taking a day off to do nothing, but i find myself instead looking forward to the month ahead, making a long-winded and somewhat hopeful post in this blog, and feeling excited in general.
hope everyone is playing, running and living well.
these are from my desktop from november, don t include about 4k hands of breakeven on my laptop :
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