2010 1Q Report

So...on Tuesday, with 2 days to go in the Sushi portion of the challenge, I sat in the low $170s. Decided I'd try my luck at $.05/$.10 NLHE to see if I could make up some ground on our fair leader. A little out of line probably, but semi-reasonable. Bought in for $8 at a few tables (still under the 5% rule) and proceeded to get crushed. Down about $14 in just 134 hands. Ugh.

With rakeback, the Eeyore 'roll ended at $158.76 (subject to review -- my spreadsheet tells me it should've been $3 higher, but Cake says what it says).

The breakdown (just under 21k hands in total) is as follows:

$.02/$.04 NLHE -- $60.17
$.05/$.10 NLHE -- ($42.25) - ouch
$.02/$.04 PLO -- $2.02
SNGs -- ($32.30) - ouch
MTTs -- $11.21
Rakeback -- $60.01

These results are a little unsettling, especially as I hope to get to the $200 plateau and move out of the micro micro stakes. Ditching the SNGs is easy. Done. But the $.05/$.10 result (which occurred in just 900+ hands) is problematic. I'm somewhat at a loss to explain the results; the following is all I've noticed.

* My (limited) experience is that people aren't simply handing away their money, as they often are at $.02/$.04. That dead money sure does help. Duh.

* I feel like I'm approaching the game a bit differently, which is adding volatility to the results. I'm trying to be a bit craftier (rather than simply playing ABC, TAG poker). By anecdotal memory (as opposed to HEM analysis), I'm 3-betting more from the blinds when the initial raise comes from the button. This approach has me putting more chips at risk than I my typical ABC baseline mode.

* My buy in is a little light, as I tend to buy in for $8 rather than $10. Maybe somebody has some insight here, but I feel REALLY short stacked in this game when I buy in for $8 (as I would if I were buying in for $10) because I'm seeing some really huge stacks. I sat at a table the other day where there were several people above $20 and one over $40. (Perhaps that should've been a sign that these guys had been there a while and were picking off the other players)

Not sure. Any words of wisdom re an approach for $.05/$.10? Eeyore inertia would prefer to go back to being the TAGgiest of TAGs. At least my volatility would lower.