Pioneering Days

'Twas a fine weekend, spent with much hearty labor, toiling at improving the homestead by day, and reading Homer by candlelight at night, rising early the next morning to begin anew.

Yeah, fuck me, still no Internet access at home.

Didn't quite finish the back porch tiling project, but took a big chunk out of it's ass. It's a big more square footage than I was guesstimating, plus I'm going to go ahead and tile the retaining wall, too, so I've got a few more days of work, plus grouting. Definitely could use a helper monkey, as the actual installing of tile goes quickly, it's just the constant stopping to mix more mortar that slows me down.

Still reading a few poker books, despite being bereft of my online poker fix. Exact numbers for the last week are stranded at home, and I don't see myself summoning the energy to write down results from PokerTracker, bring them to work, and post them, but last week was a pretty damn good one, despite it's abbreviated nature. I was up about $1,400 for the week when things went dark on Wednesday night.

Spent a goodly amount of time thinking about general poker goals while toiling away in the tile mines this weekend. I think I'm more firmly getting my head around the idea of playing at higher takes than I have before, especially in regards to expectations. Bumping up to 2-3 tables has helped as well, as I hadn't really thought about the psuedo-psychological pressure created by playing just one table. I've been multi-tabling for forever at lower limits, but dropped back to just one table when I started playing 15/30. Which obviously is a good idea, variance-wise, but it does put some pressure on you, as far as that table solely determining whether you have a "winning" or "losing" day. I know, it's one long session, but I found myself pressing too hard at times playing a single table, and chasing losses too long at times, trying to avoid a losing day, etc. It's a bit easier for me to take the good with bad when I'm playing multiple tables, as each bad beat or suckout seemingly stings less.

I'm also mulling the idea of possibly sacrificing a little bit of EV for the sake of consistency in results, given my long term goals. I spent a few hours this weekend going through assorted PokerTracker results, pegging consistent winners that I have tons of hands on, and looking at their stats. If you're playing solely to increase your BB/100 as high as possibly, there's little doubt that a pretty damn aggressive style is the way to go. You play more hands and you play them as hard and fast as possible. The only obvious downside is that your variance will be pretty high, given the sheer amount of money you pump into pots. In the end a lot of it comes your way, so it's definitely optimal play.

That said, if you're perfectly happy with a smaller, smoother return, there's no law etched in stone that you must subscribe to the cult of hyper aggressive, in an attempt to maximize BB/100. I'm not talking about nut peddling, far from it, but more about situations like playing 88 from MP, A10s UTG+1, etc. Open-raising with it if everyone folds to you is +EV, especially if you back it up by playing hard and fast, even when the flop misses you, but it's also going to increase your overall variance and likely not greatly increase your BB/100.

As odd as it sounds to willfully make sub-optimal plays, I think they need to be put in a larger context, as far as overall goals and what-not. I'd be perfectly happy to be a recreational 15/30 player, play 10 hours a week, and make $2,000/month in supplemental income. Given those goals, I don't necessarily have to take on the additional variance that others would who are solely looking to ratchet up their BB/100 as high as possible. There's nothing wrong with simply folding that pair of eights, despite the fact that raising with it is slightly EV in the long run, if folding it serves a larger purpose as far as your goals.