March 2017 Summary and Results

I have said many times that I probably don't have as many numbers in this blog as some people would like.  In fact, one of the first things people want to know when they meet a professional poker player is some variation of "How much do you make?"  That upsets a lot players and I understand that some are private about those things.  After all, as several male players have stated, "No one would ask my wife how much she makes."

Most people either greatly overestimate or greatly underestimate how much poker players make.  A lot of people hear "poker player" and they think "broke degenerate gambler." At the other extreme, people see poker on TV, with a big pile of hundred dollar bills on the table for the winner to claim, and they think that every pro is a millionaire.

When I was getting a new pair of glasses, I told one of the workers, who knew that I was a poker player, that I once played a $3 online tournament and won "three hundred eighty-four." She asked, "thousand?"

Everyone wants to know how much.  I don't like to get on here and post how much I won or lost in one day or one week unless something unusual happens, because it doesn't really matter.  Too many poker players obsess over what happens in a day or a week or a month.  It doesn't matter, just as losing one game in a 162-game baseball season doesn't matter very much.   Poker, like baseball, has winning and losing streaks. I focus and plan to make money over the course of a year. In my next post, which will cover my results for the first quarter of 2017, I will dig into that topic.

Without further ado, the numbers.  All numbers are net cashes, amount won minus the entry fee, unless stated otherwise.

March 2017 Online Poker Tournaments on Juicy Stakes Poker
tournaments played: 51
net cashes, 14 for a profit of $81.60
net losses, 37 for a net loss of 63.90
month profit or loss, +$17.70

That's not much of a profit and it's less than the two previous months, but with three straight winning months I've steadily increased my online bankrol.  That's all that matters.  Again, I'll have more to say about the long-term view in my next post.  For now I'll just say that I had about $30 sitting on Juicy Stakes Poker for two years, and this year I decided to concentrate on building an online bankroll.  It's now more than five times what it was in January, which gives me a lot more flexibility in my tournament choices.

One more thing.  I've said before that making money in poker isn't about cashing often, it's about getting a few big cashes.  Look at the numbers above and you will see that I only cashed in 14 of 51 tournaments.  More than 1/4 of that net profit came from just one tournament on March 26.

It was a bounty tournament,  That's a tournament where part of that prize pool consists of bounties. In this case, I could get a $1 bounty for each player I knocked out.  I'm not usually good at picking up bounties because I concentrate on making the final table and getting a big chunk of the general prize pool, where most of the money is--but this time, everything fell into place.

The entry fee was $2.20 and there were 66 players.  I picked up a lot of chips early and I was in the top 10 in the tournament except for just a few hands.  I even picked up 2 bounties along the way, the first time I've done that in a long time.  My chip stack didn't keep pace with some of the other players as we got deeper into the tournament, but I limped into the final table in 9th place out of 10.

I'm usually pretty good at moving up a few spots once I make it to the final table, but I did a lot more than that this time.  I tore through the table very quickly, knocking out three players, until we were heads-up.  I was the small stack.

Four hands later it was over. I won the tournament.

The first place prize was $21.45.  Add five bounties and it's $26.25.  Subtract the $2.20 entry fee and my tournament profit was $24.25.

My profit for the month was only $17.70, so added to a few cashes of between $5 and $10, that tournament made the difference in March. You keep plugging away, knowing that most of the time you're not going to cash, and you just keep playing until you get those few big cashes that make the difference.  That's exactly how tournament poker is supposed to work.

I hope that you enjoyed all the numbers.  You comments and questions are always welcome.