State of the Poker Union: August 1-31

Total August Poker Results

Results for $15/30: +$2,685
Results for $5/10 and lower: +$356
Results for MTTs and SnGs: +$2012

Total: +$5,053

So, umm, yeah. Pretty damn good month, especially since I lost about two weeks of play due to no Intraweb. Results are a bit inflated with the score from the live tournament at Coushatta thrown in there, but even backing that the numbers are pretty decent.

Forgot to export the daily 15/30 results to Excel, but there wasn't much unusual there to see. Whether by luck, skill, or the happy side of variance, I managed to avoid some of the big junk-kicking days that have plagued me in the past, as far as steady small profits over multiple days being erased by one bad day. I think part of that is due to being more willing to simply let losses go, without stubbornly chasing them, coupled with the fact that I was better about making myself play a set number of hours every week, and not bailing early on sessions just because I'd booked a decent win already. Sessions can turn pretty quickly at mid limits, even on one hand, so I think focusing on getting my hands in, come hell or high water, is probably good.

This is also the first month that I've regularly played two tables, which also seemed to help. Yeah, you get kicked in the junk twice as hard when things go bad, but more often than not it's a mixed bag, which helps my mindset as far as not tying the day's result to what occurs on one single table.

BB/100 seems to be settling in around 1.5, which I'll gladly take, given that there's still much work to be done on my game. Still don't have enough hands to really definitely draw any conclusions from those numbers, but at this stage of the game I'd be happy with anything near or over 1 BB/100.

Still need to work on assorted aspects of my game, especially what to do when facing turn raises/re-raises. I still haven't found a happy medium I'm comfortable with, as far as giving people credit for big hands in those situations or chalking it up to simply uber aggressive play. I think I'm paying off too many people by calling down when they represent obvious strength there, and am too prone to assuming their aggressively playing a draw, etc. I'm also still not happy with my play with hands like 66-99 from mid/late position, when it's folded around to me. I usually end up grudgingly open-raising but often can't make myself fire the second bullet on the turn, thus kneecapping myself and rendering the pre-flop open-raise a -EV proposition.

As far as September, more of the same, I guess. I'm going to play some of the WCOOP events, likely just buying in directly, and take a few shots at satellites to other big events.