Tuesday, November 08, 2005

State of the Poker Union: October

(Little late in getting this up, due to massive busyness, but here it be.)

Results for 30/60: +$1,689
Results for 15/30: +$1,802
Results for $5/10: -$708
Results for MTTs and SnGs: -$482.00
Results for live play (4-8 and 10/20 in Vegas: +$375.00

Total Results for October: +$2,676

It was sort of an odd month, as it was very front-loaded, with much of my play (and profits) coming from the first half of the month. I spent the last week or so banging out hands at 5/10 6 max for the Caribbean Sun Freeroll, and didn't play many hands at all over that limit in the last half of the month.

I did dabble a bit in the 30/60 for the first time, which worked out well results-wise, but I really don't have the stones to be sitting in that game on a regular basis, not at this stage o' the game. A couple of cards flip the other way in big pots and that number could easily have been -$1800.

(This is a bit of a tangent, but Eric at threebet33 just put up an interesting post about the utility of money for poker players, which has been something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been more aggressive with utilizing my bankroll lately, instead of just letting a pile of money sit in Neteller or poker site accounts. Since I'm biting the bullet and being a good tax monkey, there's really no advantage to having money sit in Neteller, so of late I've been leaving the bulk of the poker bankroll in an ING Direct savings account and a high-yield bond fund that pays monthly dividends. So I end up playing 15/30 fairly light, with only 3-4K in the actual account, as I can reload if necessary and it's easy enough to shift funds around in the electronic age. Granted, any financial gains from all that are pretty small, in the bigger picture, but they're something. The only problem is that it leaves me less inclined to consider moving up in limits, as it'd basically double the amount tied up in poker accounts.)

Part of me would like to claim that I ran pretty badly in the 5/10, which I did, but I also have to admit, at some point, that I'm just not a good short-handed player. While I theoretically know that I need to be very aggressive, especially with steals, I often only get halfway there, and can't fire again to finish the deal when the villain is teetering on the brink of a fold. This is a pretty serious leak, especially since I start out uber aggressively, as it wouldn't be quite so bad if I continued to play a normal tight, aggressive full ring game. So I get halfway there, spew chips, but can't finish. I suck. My testicles are this (holds thumb and forefinger very close together) big.

The bright side to having wee shorthanded testicles is that I can, you know, just not play shorthanded, at least for now. So it is written and so it shall be.

The MTT and SnG results are based on a fairly small sample size, and I'm more willing there to just chalk it up to variance. I've played a few poor SnGs, donking around early in hands I should have gotten away from, but most of the damage has been done in situations that I couldn't get away from, or wouldn't ever want to get away from, where the 2 outer for the villain hits on the river or they flop the nut straight with 47o after calling a 6BB raise pre-flop.

In the end, I'm more than happy to book a +$2,500 month. Sometimes I feel like I'm the slow kid in the gifted class (the one that's not really all that smart but willing to sit down and spend days memorizing all the US Presidents, world capitals, and periodic table), based on the results I read about in other blogs where people play 15/30 and higher, but I'm also fairly happy with where I'm at. On an hourly basis, it averages out to about $65/hour, since I started playing 15/30 regularly, which isn't that bad, in the grand scheme of things. While it'd be nice to never have a losing month and win $17,294 while making an omelet, I've had more than a few jobs in the last where I didn't make $65 a day, so it's all relative.

As for November, I just need to be better about getting my hands in. I've barely played and we're nearly a third into the month, plus I'm going to lose a few days around Thanksgiving, due to the whole get-together-with-family-and-eat-turkey thing that seems to happen every year at that time.

6 comments:

jremotigue said...

you mean you don't play at the thaknsgiving dinner table?

is there something wrong with my family???

CC said...

I agree with your $30/60 assessment as I took one quick experiment, lost $800, and figured I wasn't ready to put in the time. Good month, and good luck.

Rod said...

I'm wondering if at your level you see a change in the seasons as it regards to poker. In my record keeping in 2/4 3/6 where there are more casual players, this 4 month period is always great (the BEST 4 month stretch) and it cools off in summer.

In your limits is there a difference in seasons that you have noticed?

In 2/4 I can average over $1K a month easy October thru January but then the $$ starts to dry up.

Also - I'm glad to hear somebody else has a problem going higher AND has the bank. I've stabbed into 5/10 and have a huge bank to fall back on. BUT - sticker shock and the hatred of losing keeps in in a comfort zone.

I laos have too much in Neteller - hmmmmm ING?

tymbrimi said...

Can Neteller send money to/from an ING Direct account? It is not exactly a checking account, so I never tried to do it before, but if it works, great...

ScurvyDog said...

grinder,

(Thanks for the linkage on your blog.)

I've never noticed anything seasonal about results, but I've also not honestly paid much attention. In general people claim that this time of year is more +EV than normal due to ESPN's coverage of the WSOP, as the theory goes that the tv coverage leads to an influx of new players who sign up and deposit at online sites and pump more dead money into the system. Which sounds likely enough to me.

ScurvyDog said...

erik,

The Neteller/ING Direct connection is a weird one. They both independently claim that it shouldn't work, as you're supposed to only be able to link a traditional brick and mortar banking account with an ING Direct account.

But people have apparently been able to link their Neteller directly to ING, per some posts on 2+2. I forget exactly how you swing it, but you need a routing number or something similar from Neteller, and then you simply input that into the ING Direct side, pretending that it's a "normal" brick and mortar checking account, and apparently sometimes they process it and link it succesfully without realizing its tied to a Neteller account.

Mine isn't, so I have an extra step of transferring to Neteller to my checking account, then to ING Direct. Which is a little annoying but not the worst thing in the world.