August 2009 – the month that almost ended my career!

Looking back at August, it almost felt like an out of body experience.

Hindsight opinion: I could have done things so much different.

So what happened?

First real month of deciding to play SnGs exclusively and I got hit with my first BIG taste of negative variance.
I’ve had 10BI downswings before.
I’ve had 12 games ootm in a row.
But I’d never tasted what negative variance can really be like until last month.

I can’t recall the exact figures, which is beside the point to be honest. But I suffered from a 30+BI downswing which shock my world. I was over-rolled for my games which was fine but damn, 30 buy-ins down in the game I love SUCKED.

From there I started single tabling 100NL on Stars and 4 tabling 50NL on Ipoker, trying to convince myself “If I play really really really tight, I shouldn’t run into that much trouble and make back my losses asap, WRONG.

No need to give dollars and cents, but I had a negative 4 figure loss in August.

I really questioned, for the first time in my life, can I do this? Also, do I want to do this? The answer came back to what it always has been, YES!

Looking back I lost the main chunk of money due to not following my own rules and letting my emotions take control of my actions.

In a really weird kind of way, I'm actually happy I lost so much last month. It really taught me that there will be big downswings and there is nothing that can be done about it. Importantly, they will happen again, so be prepared for it. The most shocking part is that there still may be bigger downswings to come!

September 2009.
Having recently gone gold star on Titan I’ve decided to test the waters volume wise and see what I can do. I’m starting to get used to the fact that I need to put in the games and time so I’d like to see how many games I can actually get through in a month.

Since the start of the month I’ve played 160 SnGs for a +9% ROI. A little shocked at that but happy as I’ve never played so many games 8 days into the month.

I’ve moved from 4 tabling to 8 tabling which is working out very nicely. I’m was hoping to play 300 SnGs by the end of the month for at least a 5% ROI, so far the volume is tracking good, hopefully I can attain the good return.

August was a learning curve, yes another one. I lost big then played out of my depths to make it back quickly. Doesn’t work, looks like this will be a slow grind, but one things for sure…..

I will never ever give up and I will become stronger with this!

I had a lot of support following my last post and want to thank everyone on my blog and forums for their help and advice, if no-one wrote back or helped, my results would have been a lot worse, so THANK YOU ALL.

Be back soon with mid monthly updates.

Good luck to all.

Custo.

20 Buy-in downswing in 8 hours, how to deal with it?

What really sucks was I played optimal poker for the first 5 hours, and then tilt took control for the next 3 hours.

How can I play optimal poker and lose 20 BUY-INS IN A SINGLE DAY?

Good question.

I’m not going to entertain you with video replays of the BS hands I went through but here’s an idea, all hands are allin hands…

AK vs AQ – He flops the Q
JJ vs 77 – He flops a 7
AA vs AKs – He runner runners flush
A9 vs A2 – He rivers a 2
Heres one of my favourites for the night……
3 way pot, my AK vs QQ vs A5…..
Board….. A J 2 5 5

You can see where this is going.

I know what your already thinking, took some bad beats, get over it and get on with it. I’m not denying that for 1 second. But 8 hours of this repetitive garbage, seriously wtf?

I’m to seasoned to know PokerStars doesn’t “have it in for me” nor am I going to say that’s it’s all rigged.

What I’m pleading for at this stage is just advice, how the hell do you deal with poker when the cards treat you like that over and over and over again?

I know the swings and variance associated with SnGs and accepted that a long time ago. I’ve just never seen a consistently harsh set of outcomes dealt to me

What to do???????

FYI - this is all on $16 9man turbos at PokerStars

Adding 1 more table and plans for August.

For years I’ve played 4 tables simultaneously. I’ve been watching heaps of videos from Sit N Go Grinders, mainly videos from ‘glitlr’. With 2 monitors it’s a little easier to do so basically I’ve stared 4 tabling on my primary monitor and having 1 extra game on my second monitor. This was if I bust out early I just bring the 5th game over and continue to 4 table.

I’ve done this for a few days now and my last 3 sessions I can do nothing but laugh.

Stats are:
3 sessions of 5 tabling.
Cost = $16x5 = $80
Results:
Session 1: 3 3rds Return of $81, profit of $1
Session 2: 3 3rds Return of $81, profit of $1
Session 3: 3 3rds Return of $81, profit of $1
can you friggin believe it?

So basically I’m a little unsure of what to make of these results. Is this some strange random luck or lack thereof? Or have I somehow conditioned my brain to just expect the minimum.

Certainly won’t stop me, in fact I’m so comfortable with 5 now I’ll be adding another in my next session. I’ll only stop once I either become uncomfortable or start showing a consistent negative roi. I was going to make a dramatic jump from 4 tables to between 10-12, but a lot of successful players I know online all say the same thing, just add one at a time. I think I’ll heed that advice.


August
As far as August is concerned I’m planning on doing something I’ve never done before.

I’m really going to make a go of the $16 9man turbo on stars. Month after month I’ve been switching between game types and sites and all for what, either a minuscule profit or even a loss. I’ve never spent a full month of just grinding away at the same type of game.

From watching pro sng grinders I’ve noticed a distinct and obvious pattern between them all, they all have a routine. Every day at every time I’ll find them playing the same amount of tables at the same time of day. “Clock in, Clock out” seems to be their way.

Me, I just sit down, logon and play whatever the fuck I feel like. Bad idea.

I’m actually really excited about this and keen to watch the graph after a few weeks of consistent playing.

The only slight variation to this routine will be I plan to play a few 180 non turbo games. Only problem being is as they are around 4 hours per game I’ll probably only be able to play these on the weekend, or in the middle of the night.

So that’s it for now. July was a little all over the shop only cause I was a little all over the shop.

Let’s see if I play consistently good, can I get consistently good results?

Go Ivey Go!

I can not explain how excited I am the Phil Ivey has made the November Nine. I was watching the updates on worldseriesofpoker.com all day yesterday from the final 27 down. Every year it seems that 1 pro makes the final table yet an amateur takes it down.

2003 - Sammy Farha – Busted 2nd
2004 – Dan Harrington – Busted 4th
2005 – Mike Matusow – Busted 9th
2006 – Allan Cunningham – Busted 4th
2007 – Tuan Lam & Lee Watkinson – Busted 2nd & 8th
2008 – David ‘Chino’ Reem – Busted 7th

Every year at least 1 pro seems to make it through this monstrous fields and every year they fall short.

When I first go into poker I loved the fact that amateurs where winning the main event. Now, after playing semi-seriously for several years, I’m praying for a pro to take the title down, and I could not think of one more deserving then Phil Ivey.

Along with the rest of the poker community, I’ll be watching you Phil, good luck and take it down!

No more data entry – YAY.

As some may or may not know, I’ve been keying results and statistics for all game types for some time now. In a failed attempt to get away from this I purchased PT3 late last year. Unbeknownst to me, it is practically a useless piece of software for tournament tracking. Finally last weekend I just took the plunge and got my self Holdem Manager.

Like a blessing from the gods this piece of software is. It has been a right pain to start a SnG, log the start time, enter the final place, and calculate the time played (4 games at a time) all in my head. Now with nothing more than a single mouse click, it’s all taken care of. Just need to make a few small personalisations and I’ll be happy

It’s also helped my avoid looking at my actual BR so hopefully there will be a nice surprise at the end of the month. I know as of right now I’m down, so any positive figure, I’ll be happy with.

Brag for the month

4 games - 4 Cashes.

Doesn't happen often but damn its good when it does
3 wins, 1 2nd



Gotta give thanks to the trainers at SnG Grinders. After watching your videos confidenece in coming back, and understanding why and when to make certain moves starting to make a lot more sense.

Results for May 2009.

Start of May 2009 BR =$2668.40
End of May 2009 BR = $2973.57

Overall $305.17 Profit
Bankroll increase of 11.44%

Where did the money come from?
Ring games = -$154.01
SnG's = - $16.8
MTT's = $339.98
Bonuses = $136

Super disappointed with myself for not showing a profit in the SnG section for the month but easily explainable. I played 3 main games for May.
• Full Tilt $12 9man turbos
• Poker Stars $16 9man turbos
• Titan Poker $11 6man turbo Double or Nothings.

FT & PS showed a healthy profit. Dropped around $300 on Titan. Went a little crazy for a while. I saw I was not far off from maintaining my silver status @ Titan so I decided to open up a ridonkulous amount of tables and play just so I could maintain my VIP status heading into June. So basically I lost $300 on these crappy games to maintain a $10/month loyalty bonus, WTF? Not doing that again.

Different mindset/approach/strategy between a regular SnG and a DoN. I’m sticking to my regs at FT & PS. Might start 4tabling $11 9man turbos at Titan but need a sample size from there first to get an expected winrate. Might even grind out 100 or so next week to get an idea.

My plans for the month of June:
• Focus on grinding it out and 1 or 2 specific types of games and locations.
• Keep watching videos from SnG Grinders and posting in their forums (best investment I’ve made so far)
• Play MTTs only for the win, no more of this ‘trying to scrape in mentality’
• Start playing more frequently the Stars 180 player turbo, probably the $12s to start with. Thanks to a video from TigerBalm I’m quite happy with his strategy and hope to use it myself, just pray I don’t run completely card dead.
• Implementing a daily stop/loss and stop/win amount (still considering whether this a smart move or not, too many pros and cons to make a concrete decision.

Overall, happy with 10% growth. Obviously I want more but if I took my money to a bank and asked for a 30day term deposit, I don’t think anyone will give me that type of return.

That’s it for May folks.

Custo