Results for week 6/10-6/16

Poker Hours
26.75  play
  5.00  study
  3.00  admin
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34.75

I'm not happy with those hours, which should total at least 40.  I'm especially not happy with the study hours.  I had no idea that it was only five hours.  I try to study ten hours a week, but I probably should be doing more than that.  I'm trying to learn a totally new style of playing, using as my text Secrets of Professional Poker, volume 1, by Jonhathan Little..  I'll be getting volume 2 as a Father's Day present, and I'm sure I'll talk about the book, and some of the changes I'm making, in future posts.

I'm on my customary third reading of the book (I study it a little more deeply each time), and I thought that I was understanding it, and starting to incorporate what Little teaches into my game. 

After a few MTTs, I realized that I was playing a hybrid style, taking some of his concepts to heart, but not others.  It's important that I get comfortable with a loose style, even if I don't use it all the time.  The players who have a different gear, who can change styles as circumstances dictate, have a huge advantage, and I really need to be able to do this.

Poker Profit and Loss
$-45.78  loss from tournaments
      1.00  bonus
      0.90  rakeback
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-$43.38

Bankroll:  $163.69

It was a really bad week, and I need to change some things, but it's not about how I played.  I played a lot of MTTs, some with fields in the hundreds, and variance was not my friend.  In two consecutive tournaments  I lost hands where, if I had won, I would have been in the top ten and almost certain to cash..  In one of them I had a pair of queens against a pair of jacks, which I should win 82% of the time.  It was like that in tournament after tournament, which of course, in poker, is perfectly normal.

Variance happens in poker. I'm going to have days or weeks when I'm on the wrong side of vartiance, and that's just the way it is.  But until I get my bankroll back up a little, I'm going to have to back way off the larger tournaments, maybe playing one a day.  My bankroll isn't big enough to stand the variance that comes with MTTs, so I have to back away from those for a week or two.  It's hard, because I'm trying to learn a new way of playing, and I can't practice it.  But if I don't protect my bankroll, nothing else matters.

My plan is to play a lot of 6-player double-or-nothing SNGs.  They turn over fast, often takng less than half an hour to play, and since half of the field cashes, the variance is low.  An added benefit is that the fast turnover means that I can play a lot of them in one day, and probably double or more the amount that I'm getting in bonus and rakeback.  I still have $39 of my bonus left to clear.

So the next week or two will be about grinding out as many DONs as I can, which should stabalize my variance somewhat and let me grind out a small but consistent profit in those mini-tournaments.  By then my bankroll should be over $200 again, and I can reevaluate.  Of course, I could get a big cash in one of my occasional MTTs. Or I could have a big downswing in DONs, and lose some ground. Poker can't be predicted.