In Poker, More Risk Means More Reward

This was going to be my October results post.  I will post that tomorrow.  November so far has been a perfect example of what variance in poker looks like, and I wanted to show it to you.

I made a profit in October but I wasn't happy with how I played.  I was worrying too much about cashing, and not taking enough risks to get the few (sometimes vary few) large cashes that will make me profitable in the long run.  My wife always likes to know when I cash.  When I do, Juicy Stakes Poker sends me a congratulatory E-mail, which I forward to my wife.  I was putting too much pressure on myself to get those E-mails on a regular basis.

In October, I cashed way too often, more than 25% of the time.  That's never a good thing in the long term.  I know better than to play like that.  Sooner or later there will be long stretches of a month or more when I don't cash.  That's just how it works.  No matter how well I play, I'm not going to regularly play tournaments of 50-100 player players and finish in the top 3, where most of the money is.

November has been very different so far.  As you can see from the numbers below, copied and pasted  from my financial spreadsheet, I took a lot of risks and it paid off.  I was all-in early and often, and for a while if didn't produce anything--but I knew that I was getting better, doing it the right way and there would be a pay-off. I'm getting much better at being more aggressive and unpredictable without being a complete maniac.

I had a losing streak from November 1 to my first tournament on November 6.  I wasn't winning anything and in less than a week I was down over $30.  My second and third tournaments on 11/6 turned that around.  It's similar to the big turnaround that I had at the end of September, but this time it happened early in the month, giving me time to see if I can get one or two more cashes like that and, I hope, make it one of my best months.

Starting on 11/1 and ending on 11/6, this is what those numbers looked like (tournament cashes in black.)  The cash of $25.90 was for second place out of 38 players, followed immediately by $12.95 for finishing 4th of 84 players.

3.15
-3.10
-1.20
-1.10
-3.10
-0.83
-1.10
-3.00
-1.10
-2.20
-3.10
-2.20
-3.30
-2.10
-0.85
-5.50
$25.90
$12.95 --------- + $3.12