Monthly Review - April

I'll try not to turn this post into a whine-fest, but I make no promises. April was a frustrating month, as during the latter half I ran poorly. As far as "running bad" goes, it was certainly a significant trend of bad luck, but that said, it is very possible to run far worse. The good news is, my poor fortune didn't stop me from having a winning month and adding a non-trivial amount of cash to my roll. However, I played an obscene amount of hands (due to some unforeseen scheduling changes that freed up time), a pace I probably won't be able to quite match going forward, but can eventually strive to achieve again. Had I ran average during the entire month, my results could have been pretty spectacular due to the volume of hands I managed to play, and sometimes it's hard to not get discouraged over what could have been.

At any rate, time to review my goals:

(1) Play 35,000+ hands
I crushed this goal, playing 52.9k hands. I imagine once I replace my 19" secondary monitor with another 22" widescreen, playing ~45k hands per month will be a reasonable and aggressive goal. I may not reach 50k+ hands per month again for some time, as I'm fairly certain this month will prove to be an anomaly in that respect.

(2) Post a 3 ptBB/100 winrate or greater winrate at $50 NL.
I did not meet this goal, posting a 2.56 ptBB/100 winrate. Had I ran average, I would have exceeded the goal fairly marginally. I definitely think I can hit a 4.0 ptBB/100 winrate if I make some changes to my game and run average.

(3) Have my VPIP from the small blind for the month of April be <15.
I did not meet this goal, because it was silly to begin with. When I set the goal, I failed to realize that the leak wasn't how many hands I was playing out of the SB, but what hands I was calling PFRs with. Calling a PFR (even one to 3 BBs) with hands that are easily dominated like ATo, KTo, KJo is a leak, which I am working on plugging. However, I think it is +EV to limp in the SB with good implied odds hands like suited connectors/gappers, which I have been doing. I do not believe this to be a leak, and will continue doing so going forward unless I discover otherwise. My realization with respect to this goal should be credited to my reading of Harrington on Hold'em Volume 1. All that said, I think I can still cut down what hands I call raises with in the SB a bit, and 3-bet out of the SB significantly more often, as opposed to calling.

(4) Have my VPIP from the CO be >16, and VPIP from the HJ (POS 2) be >13.
I was right around meeting this goal, with my VPIP from the CO being 15.7 and HJ being 12.9. I think I can be a little more aggressive in blind stealing, something to work on for next month.

(5) Get comfortable playing 12 tables at a time, up from my current standard of 10.
Upon attempting this, I realized that my assumption that I could handle 6 tables on my 19" secondary monitor was dead wrong. I'm sure I can play 12 tables, but I need another 22" widescreen first. I will carry this goal over to this month, as I intend to be picking up the required hardware in the near future.


Ok, lets move up to my EV graph and Luck graphs for the month. On both graphs I am out roughly ~$150 due to bad luck, and I think it's safe to say due to the "folded missed draws" theorem, this probably should be increased to somewhere between $200 and $250.

For those unfamiliar, I am of the opinion that someone running truly average will appear to be running marginally hot in PokerEV showdown analysis, because hands in which they hit draws go to showdown more often that those where they miss. This may not be true at higher stakes, but certainly is at $50 NL. Thus, someone running poorly in PokerEV at said stakes is actually running a little worse that appear.

Also, thanks to Set-O-Meter I was able to see that I was marginally unlucky flopping sets for the month (no big deal) but ran my KK into AA 11 times versus having AA versus KK only 5 times. This disparity resulted in $150 of cooler bad luck, a surprisingly small amount as it seems lots of times the cooler happened it was against shorter stacks. While my AA held up against KK all 5 times, my KK failed to crack AA all 11 times. D'oh!

So, on the month as a whole I think it's fair to estimate I ran around ~$350-$400 below expectation.




Here are my general and positional stats for the month:



These stats are fine for now, but in May I'm going to focus on tuning up my game significantly to help my winrate. I will deal with "how" in my May goals post later today.

Finally, here is the state of my bankroll:


So I guess the bottom line most are interested in, is what did I make this month:

(1) Added $1350 in cash to my roll.
(2) Spent 5000 FPPs earned on the two Harrington on Cash Games books, a ~$75 value.
(3) Earned 16.7k additional FPPs, valued at $267 when I convert them after hitting Supernova.

Total month earnings in winnings + FPPs:
$1692

Not a bad showing, I guess.