Resuits for July, 2012

Poker Profit or Loss
   -$8.59    July 1-7
   -11.37     July 8-14
     -5.12     July 15-21
    23.50     July 22-28
   -15.55     July 29-31 (partial week)
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 -$17.13

This month came down to two tournaments, on July 26 and 28, where I won a net $92.71.  If I failed to cash in those two tournaments and the rest of my results for the month were unchanged, I would have been down $109.84 for the month, which, given the size of my bankroll, would have come close to wiping me out.  In fact, I came very close to not playing the second tournament.  It was a great structure for me, but I couldn't really afford a $13 buy-in.  I wrestled with it for a while, sat and stared at the tournament list for two minutes, and finally decided to play. I won the 4th place cash of $72.96.  Welcome to variance.

Of course, I didn't have a lot of options.  The SNGs were dead, so I couldn't mix those in to mitigate variance.  I don't want to be in that position again.  Fortunately, the $5 six-player double-or-nothing SNGs are back.  Now I have at least a few options.

Since I have SNGs that I can play, I can be more selctive about playing MTTs.  Instead of trying to play whenever there is a halfway decent MTT, I can pick my spots and play the ones that work best for me.  In fact, I'm typing this at 8:41 P.M., when I would normally be playing an MTT with a tolerable, but not great, structure.  There is one at 10 P.M. that suits me better (more starting chips), so I will wait for that one.

I will be playing fewer MTTs, and I will use that free time to study, keep up on administrative work, or play DONs to lower overall variance.  I should be able to grind out enough SNGs to give myself at least $10 a month in bonus and rakeback starting this month, a bit of steady income to further smooth out the variance.

A combination of SNGs and MTTs was my plan all along, and my bankroll management formula was based on that assumption.  When Americas Cardroom killed their SNGs, that put me in a corner.  Now I have a bit of room to maneuver.

I've already started August out right, with a deep run in a 594-player  MTT.  More about that in my next post.