Hello Variance, My Old Friend

One week into the $.10-$.20 ($20 buy in) experiment, things are up, then down, then way up, then way way down, then up. Considering that my post-catastrophe bankroll started at $13.07, these swings are huge. My session results:

* up $27.99
* down $20.00
* up $19.62
* up $11.16
* up $13.15
* up $5.83
* down $18.78
* up $5.30
* up $5.00
* down $40.00 (tilt!!!)
* up $32.46

With rakeback, I'm sitting at $69.00, having played over 1300 hands in my post-meltdown period. Heck of a lot better than $14, but a long way to go to get back into it. Check out the crazy graph. Glad I'm still in it, but I basically can't endure more than one or two lapses in concentration or coolers.

Oh, my graph. My beautiful, beautiful graph....is dead

Ok, my June 1/July 1 snafu has been well documented.......and very well exploited for the enjoyment of the crowd. So happy to entertain. Frustrating, but it's in the rear view.

So, I started June with a whopping $29 and change in the 'roll. I'm not going to pitch it in, because, well, I desperately want Whitmore to pay for shorting me. But, there's no way I can get back into contention...in 30 days...by adhering to proper bankroll management. At least, not until I can get the 'roll back to Marsh's neighborhood.

Following my May meltdown, I started June with $29 and proceeded to play a couple hundred hands at $.02-$.04 NLHE.....getting me exactly nowhere. In fact, it got me down to about $22. I shouldn't say it didn't get me anywhere. It got me off my self-induced, "if I could only count to 6 months" tilt. But $22 is $22.

So......with apologies to Marsh and Chris Ferguson.....I calmly and consciously bought in for $20 at the $.10-$.20 NLHE table. 44 hands later, I cashed out at just south of $48, with the overall 'roll at $50.01. My plan, for now, is to continue to buy in (way too large) at a single table in the hopes of sustaining some success. I fully realize that odds are that I will go busto employing this strategy, but I'm not sure what else I can do given my May debacle. I don't have much time or energy to grind it up in June, and even if I had Marty-like dedication and opportunity, I still couldn't turn $22 (or now $50) into $200 by month's end.

Any feedback on this approach????

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.

We Are Experiencing Turbulence

My schedule today allowed me to play a lot (for me) of challenge hands. All told, I played about 700 hands across a few different disciplines: micro PLO, micro NLHE and one MTT. It was a crazy turbulent day. In the end, I closed up $3.40 or so (excluding rake back), but it was a jagged road.

First things first, it was a very satisfying day in that I didn't forget the rules of ANY of the games I played. So, that's progress.

PLO was a quick, painful experience. Bought it for $4 at $.02/$.04, and that lasted a displeasurable 18 hands. Managed to drop $1.20 off the bat pushing too hard with middle set (raise your hand if you are surprised). The remainder of the stack went as follows. I am in the BB with AAK8 double suited. Liking that. Villain 1 (UTG) raises to $.14, villain 2 raises pot, villain 3 calls and when it gets back to me I re-pot. Villains 1 and 2 fold and villain 3 raises the tiny bit that puts me all in.....with 5567 badugi. What?!? I felt great until the flop came 66K. Turn and river blanked, and I retired (again) from PLO. Bad start to the day.

NLHE was, again, the profit center. Up $7.63 in 415 hands. As expected, suffered a few bad beats, but hung in there without getting all tilty. Proud of this hand, although the opponent was clearly a moron. While he may've believed he had the best hand when the flop hit, my call on the flop and turn should've tipped him off, especially when the river brings an overcard AND I speed up all of a sudden. Thank you, EBO29.

In this hand, I won a big pot with quads, but I felt pretty frozen pre-flop when he put in the third raise in position. I flatted, but I'm not sure my reasoning was particularly sound. I flatted because I didn't really know what to do. Ah yes....paralysis, the genesis of all great decisions. My "plan" was as follows -- please comment. When this guy (who was new to the table) 4-bet min-raised, I was perplexed. Seemed too small to be a bluff. I decided to flat call (leaving myself $2.50 behind) to see if I could dodge an overcard on the flop -- but think about it, if I'm worried I'm beat, then how does that really help? I suppose it cuts out one of the two scary possibilities (AK, as opposed to QQ-AA). The flop was super kind. I let him keep the lead, and he obliged. The river was gravy. So, ignoring the result, what should I have done (knowing nada about the villain) when he 4-bet min-raises pre???

The MTT was entertaining, but financially a non-event. It was the $.10 R&A variety, and I like my approach to those in general. While people are flailing about trying to "double up or rebuy" with super mediocre, or worse, holdings, I play pretty tight and very aggressive when I do have a hand worth playing. 236 players in this one, and my play was pretty good early on. Took one super aggravating beat, but climbed back in thanks to the R&A.

The money bubble was at 50th, and I cruised into the money without great drama after the rebuy period ended. I sat in 10th or so with about 40k in chips when I was dealt KQo on the button. Blinds (if I recall correctly) were something like 2000-4000 with a big ante. I raised to 10k with KQ and the BB shipped (total 27k). I didn't love putting most of my stack at risk, but I felt like I had to call, getting over 2:1. Villain showed 66 and I never improved. I clawed for a while, but that hand crippled me. Ended up going out in 29th, earning me a $.21 loss for my three hours of effort. From a time element, obviously not the greatest plan ever. But, I more or less play MTTs in the background while playing a few ring game tables. Having some diversity in games going seems to help me concentrate on both for some reason. And, I need as much tournament experience as I can gather. Three hours of tournament experience for $.85 seems like a decent price. Worthwhile???

So, that's it for today. The Eeyore 'roll sits at $178.43, plus I should be earning some decent rakeback this week....just in time for the end of Sushi Book challenge portion. Now, if I can only convince Martin to play 50k tilty hands before April 1......

Eeyore update

I fell off the blog train a few weeks ago, and thus a brief update. My trip to PLO-land lasted a week or so. Was very profitable overall, up $14.96 in 1589 hands. Was on track for a much better result, but then had one horrific 164 hand session where I dropped $14.51. Hello variance, my old friend. I don't remember the details, but my notes say "way too tired, why play?"

That down session sent me back to $.02/$.04 NLHE, where I've played much better than before strolling over to PLO. I've stopped playing the SNGs, and have stuck solely with ring games. In about 3900 hands of $.02/$.04, I've climbed just under $40. The diversion to PLO seemed to reset my attention span and focus, so yay.

When I got back to $180, I started mixing in $.05/$.10, playing 2 or 3 $.02/$.04 tables, while playing 1 $.05/$.10 table. My $.05/$.10 results have been pitiful so far, and I'll have to back off for a while. In 250 hands, I've dumped over $13. Can't say why. Perhaps ordinary variance. I can think of a couple hands where I over-committed, but in general I think I played fine.

But, for now, it's back to the kiddy table until I'm back over $180. As I type, the Eeyore 'roll sits at $175.01 in 19,686 hands. Not bad, not great.

PLO, the Cure for the Common Boredom

In two weeks time, I dropped (like a rock) from $200 to $140. While that cataclysm coincided with the Molly hospital exhaustion/stress, I don't think that explains it. Instead, I'm pretty sure what happened is that I got bored with $.02-$.04 and stopped respecting the stakes. Marsh somewhat alluded to this in a supportive comment when he talked about going up in stakes. Thinking back, I think this is what happened. I got to $180 or so and started transitioning by playing half $.02-$.04 and half $.05-$.10. I played fine at $.05-$.10, but lost enough (through what I believe is ordinary variance) that I decided I needed to bust myself back down to $.02-$.04. But, once there, I was bored. I stopped respecting the stakes and started thinking about bets/calls/raises as "it's only $.22." Disaster.

I've admittedly had a hard time breaking that cycle. I find myself much more interested in playing the double-up SNGs, and have fared well enough in the $2.20 ones (27 of 42) to turn a moderate profit ($15.60 for $92.40 invested). I've fared poorly in the $5.35 double up SNGs (winning just 2 of 7, for a loss of $27.45).

In the last couple of days -- similarly to Royal, apparently -- I decided to play some PLO. As Royal mentioned, the availability of $.02-$.04 PLO on Cake is ridiculously thin. But, I've been able to play one 6-max and one full-ring table at a time, and have had very good success (admittedly small sample size notwithstanding). In just 550 hands, I'm up over $20. I've tried to be very conservative with my starting hands, looking to avoid middle pairs, unless they're joined by connected straight and flush cards. Mostly, I've been looking for big pairs with straight/flush friends. I've tried to remain diligent not to overplay sets (where a better hand is already possible), but to make players pay the max for draws when no straight or flush is yet possible.

We'll see how it goes. I'm sure I'm getting way the best of variance right now. For now, with rakeback, the Eeyore roll sits back above $158.

So Much For the Good Times

My "hot streak" lasted one day. Yesterday, I reverted to form, dropping nearly $20. I lost three of four $2 double-up SNGs and both $5 double-up SNGs. Also dropped about $4 playing $.02-$.04 6-max NLHE.

Yeseterday's debacle felt much more like a "run bad" session than it did a "play bad" one. I wasn't particularly tired, and felt like I played reasonably well. I got busted out of one $2 SNG when my 66 got outflopped by 2-3o. With 6 players left, the huge stack started shoving on every hand. I get the strategy. He had 7k in chips and only needed to knock out one more player. He was the BB and I shoved my last 800 chips with 66. He insta calls, flips over 2-3o and 2-3-9 is the flop. Sigh. Lost another where I got my 1400 chips all in pre with AQs and lost to a runner runner straight to the bozo who put 2/3 of his chips at risk with A7s. Whatever.

So, the Eeyore 'roll now sits at about $135. Barf.