Results for weeks statting 4/8 and 4/15

Once again, a new semiregular feature--Dumbest Thing I Saw (or Heard) Recently:

I was in Staples a week ago, and I saw a keyboard  for use with a tablet computer.  Am I missing something, or don't we already have a portable computer with a keyboard?  I believe it's called a laptop.

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Results for week 4/8-4/14          Results for week 4/15-21
    $1.29 rakeback                         $26.00 poker profit/loss
   -22.47 poker profit/loss               1.40  rakeback
  ---------                                               1.00  bonus
 -$23.76                                            ---------
                                                          $27.40

It's easy to break those results down.  The week after americascardroom.com turned all of the MTTs into rebuy or add-on tournaments, I was scrambling, looking for something to play that would work for me, and my results were not good.  When I finally settled on double-or-nothing tournaments, the next week was much better.

Double-or-nothing tournaments are a type of one-table SNG where play continues until half of the field is knocked out.  Those players get nothing, and the remaining players each get twice the buy-in, less the rake.  In this case, the buy-in was $5, the rake was 35 cents, 3 players got nothing and the other three won $10.

DONs are a peculiar type of tournament, requiring strategies that are often counter-intuitive to most tournament players, for example, survival is much more important than chip accumulation, and there is no incentive to finish in first place.  Fortunately I played and studied  DONs while I was on PokerStars.  There is a thread on the 2+2 forums devoted to DON strategy and I was active in those discussions, so I was well-repared for DONs.  I'm cashing about 70% of the time, and the breakeven point is around 55%.  So far, so good, at least until ACR throws me another curve.

Playing poker post-Black Friday is always interesting, that's for sure.

The Game-Changer That Wasn't

New Thing That I Learned

The Romans worshipped a goddess of sewage, named Cloacina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloacina

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I apologize for not posting in the last ten days.  Thing got a little crazy, as tends to happen in the post-Black Friday poker environment.  The new affordable tournaments with a good structure only lasted a few days.  Last week I got knocked out of a tournament, then there was a pop-up notice that I could pay another buy-in to play again.  All of the freezeout tournaments below $40 are now reentry tournaments.  That makes the cost prohibitive, which was the problem that I had in the first place.  It's hard to come up with a post about what I'm doing when I don't know.

My schedule, which was based around the 4 P.M. tournaments, is now out the window.  For the last week or so I've been thrashing about, trying different types of NLHE tournaments.  My bankroll has taken some crazy swings during that time, but unless americascardroom.com changes something again, I should be OK at least for a while.

Sometime this weekend I'll catch up with posting my results.  It would make an entertaining graph, that's for sure.

This Is A Game-Changer

Before I get to the heart of this post, I'm intoducing a new feature, called New Thing That I Learned.  I'm always learning new and interesting things, in and out of poker, so here is the first . . .

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New Thing That I Learned
That cute little song, "Ring Around The Rosey", is about Bubonic Plague.

Pocket full of posies--posies were believed to ward off the plague, and were in fact carried.

Ashes to ashes--"Ashes" is onomatopoeic for the sneezing that is a symptom of the plague, in the same way that we use the word "achoo."

All fall down--That one is obvious, as an estimated 25 million died in Europe between 1345 and 1350.

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americascardroom.com has redone their tournment lineup, and it's a game-changer for me.  Like most serious players, I like a long time between blind levels.  The longer it takes before blinds go up, the more likely it is that a player will get a fair distribution of cards.  In other words, luck is less of a factor, and skill is more likely to prevail.

Until a week ago, the best MTT that I could find which fit my bankroll had 10-minute blind levels.  But now there is a $5 tournament with 15-minute blind levels, which is enough to greatly improve my chances.  Not only that, but everyone starts with 2,500 chips instead of the usual 1,500, which also gives the tournament more play.

This is tailor-made for me.  As a tight player, I like to play fewer hands than most and look for good spots to get my chips in.  Now I can do that, and I'm ready to tear those tournaments up!  Right now there is just one of those tournaments at the $5 level or below, daily at 1600.  But I'm hoping that with my continued urging, more of them will be added.

Even if if takes a while for more of these to be added, as I build my bankroll I will be able to play at higher levels, where that type of tournament is more common--there are several that go off for between $6 and $10.  I have a first and a second in $3 tournaments with a structure not nearly as good as the new ones, so this should go very well.. I had a near miss on the April 8th (13th of 102, 12 cashed).

I expect an MTT cash an average of once or twice a week.  I haven't been this excited about poker since Black Friday!

Results and Analysis, Week and Month Ending 3/31

Wow, I can't believe that it's been a week since I've posted.  After living with undiagnosed ADD for so long, and having to break all the bad habits that I learned, I guess I'll always struggle at least a little with being organized and dilligent.

Last month was defintely a mess.  The numbers aren't good.  But at the end of the month, something very positive happened, in fact, I think it will be a game-changer.  I won't cover all of that in one post, but without further ado, here are the numbers:


Weekly Results, 3/25-3/31
-$26.34  Profit or loss on poker
   +1.00 Released amount of original deposit bonus
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-$25.34


Monthly Results for March
  -$3.67  3/1-3/3 (partial week)
     2.93  3/4-3/10
   19.16  3/11-3/17
    -9.93  3/18-3/24
  -25.34  3/25/3/31
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-$16.85

What was looking like a decent month fell apart in the last two weeks.  There are several reasons for that.  Some of I have no control over, some I have some control over, and some are very fixable.  Here are some of them.

1. Variance.  It happens.  A pro can be the World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour player of the year one year, and barely break even playing live tournaments the next year.  I didn't have a lot of things go my way last month, and there is nothing I can do about it.  It goes with the territory.  At one point last year, one of the poker rating sites had me in the 93rd percentile at my tournament level, even though my cashes were in about the 25th percentile.

2. FPS. This is very fixable.  As mentioned in an earlier post, it's easy to get too cute and fall prey to Fancy Play Syndrome.  I was getting way too tricky in my SNGs, and I'm sure that it cost me some cashes.

3. Play options.  The choices on Americas Cardroom have been limited.  The number of players is growing steadily, but with only 8,000 players on the site during peak hours, and the player pool divided into a lot of pieces, playing different games and variants, the things in which I do the best haven't been available.  Add to that that the schedule has been changing regulary, and they only show the tournaments a few hours at at time, and most of the changes haven't been for the better

I'm definitely disappointed. Whenever players post on 2+2 that they have never had a losing month, I'm always envious, even though I know that most of them probably aren't tournament specialists (the variance in cash games is not nearly as nasty as it is in tournaments.)

All that I can do is try to make lemons out of lemonade, and make the best table selection and game selection decisions that I can.  At some times it mught just be better to not play at all, and study or do something else instead.

The good news is that in the last few days things have changing for the better.  The site is accepting user input (including mine), and things are changing for the better.