And the announcement is………

I’m going pro on Sit n Go’s!
&
I’m completely quitting all forms of Cash Games.

Why?

I’ll start with Cash Games.

The only way to put this is I don’t enjoy them and that’s putting it politely! I’d convinced myself earlier this year that I have to master cash games and if I don’t I’ll never make it. This decision was a sudden knee-jerk reaction to a massive downswing I had in January playing 6man DoN SnG’s at Titan.

After 4 months of “experimental playing” I really have absolutely zero desire to play these types of games. I made a loss last year from them and things are looking the same this year.

I’m not going to crap on and on about negatives in this post, but cash games won’t be happening for me. This is obviously not a life-long decision but a decision I’d say for quite some time. To be honest, if I hadn’t of had such negative variance in my SnG’s at the start of this year, I probably never would have thrown everything I had at cash games.

The style of play just doesn’t do it for me, and if I’m going to do something I’m going to do it 100%. I simply have zero passion for ring games.

There is so much talk and emphasis on cash game poker that I got myself to the point where I basically felt guilty for not “following the crowd”. But I’m on my own journey and hopefully all players I know and respect that are ring players will support my decision and understand that this is what I want and this is how I believe I will succeed. Maybe down the line I can even give something back to aspiring SnG grinders.

So, onto the positive news.

Professional SnG Player:
This is where my passion is and this is what I want to do.

Specifically the games I’ll be playing will be exclusively, but not limited to, 9 player turbo’s.

I love SnG’s. I’ve mastered the basic strategy and getting much better at advanced strategy. I’m so comfortable with the games and ready to take them to the next level.

After running a filter on SharkScope for 9 player turbos with a buy-in between $6-$15, I noticed that the best players are between 5-8% ROI. I expected it to be heaps bigger. Bearing in mind that their game size is a little over 20K. I’m very confident that with a little more study and practice I can get myself up there. After 3.5K games on PokerStars I’m currently on 5% ROI.

I’m seriously considering signing up with Sit N Go Grinders Still just have a little more research to do. Looks like their annual cost is ~$200 so I want to make sure it’s worth it.

This new approach is also having a large impact on my Bankroll. The original reason I set-up separate bankrolls was to protect me from potentially losing heaps on cash games if I had a large tournament win.

EG. If my BR was $1000 and I won $15,000 in a MTT, then I could go directly from 10NL up to say, 200NL. A jump like that without experience at levels in between could kill a player. As I’ve decided to abolish cash games entirely I’m operating under the following:

This is a design I wrote a while ago but never implemented it, I’ve tested for a little while and am now comfortable enough to LIVE BY IT!

Single Game Play = 2% of BR (50 Buy-ins)
Multi Game Play = .5% of BR (200 Buy-ins)

Why the above structure?

Let me explain.

Even though I have 50 buy-ins for a $16 SnG, when I’m multi-tabling them and have a bad run, say 1 cash in 4 sessions, psychologically and financially the hit is just too hard.

Picture this:
BR = 1000
Buy-Ins for $16 SnG = 62.
4 sessions of 4 games with 1 cash (3rd) = $229
BR after 4 sessions = $1000 - $229 = $771
BR loss of 22.9%

All of a sudden after 4 sessions, which for me I can do in a single 4 hour sitting, I’m down a level.

Whilst the above is almost impossible to happen on a regular basis, the reality is it can happen and when it does there’s nothing that can be done about it.

This year I’ve literally been a mess having bad runs, changing the BR without telling anyone, then changing it back to the original structure. I think I’ve changed my own rules over 10 times in the past 4 months and it’s completely stuffed with my head.

I now know more than enough about both Bankroll & Money management. I know the importance of protection against both bad play and unavoidable variance. I also know the importance of not being overly nitty where games become boring as the stakes are too small relevant to what cash I have. I’ve found my happy medium, finally, and I’m locking this in for good.

A major plus to this new structure is I can, and did for the first time last night, play games larger than I’ve played before. Last night for the first time I played a $38 game which resulted in a 2nd place netting me a little over $50. I’d expected and was dead right that the playing style was more like playing poker rather than playing against 8 maniacs. It’s no hidden secret that the larger the buy-in, the more respect is given to the game, although completely avoiding those crazy plays seems like it will happen at any level, just much less at the higher ones. I noticed an unbelievable difference in that game as opposed to a $6.50 game. An example was the first played was knocked out when the blinds where 75/150, in a smaller game, by the time the blinds are at 75/150 it’s normally down to 5-6 players left. I tested a strategy in that game which worked to perfection and will be copied every time I play 1 game at a time. Not sharing the strategy (can’t give away all my secrets).

It was fun playing the 1 game, I was able to get reads on every single player and anticipate what was going to happen, something that is next to impossible when playing 4 games at a time. It really felt like playing poker.

So that’s it for the time being. Next step is to finalise research on Sit N Go Grinders to make sure it’s a positive investment and play without distraction and continue my journey towards freedom.

It’s been a sluggish 5 months so far this year, but now with direction and admitting to myself exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it I feel I’ve got myself back on track to get where I want to be.

Thank you for following so far and reading such a long post. I didn't intend on it going this long but sometimes when you write you just can't stop. This is clearly a pivotal point of my online poker journey, one that’s been going since August 2007. I'm looking forward to sharing success stories soon and providing help to anyone that asks in the not too distant future.

Custo

PS. To all cardchatters, I'm coming back shortly.