2008 Year In Review and 2009 Goals

On February 4th I started this blog, shortly after I deposited $500 on PokerStars to try to learn to grind online poker. I was playing live somewhat frequently back then, and was likely a winning player at the donkfest that is the casino, despite my game being poor and lacking a true understanding of fundamental poker theory.

By the end of February I had played around 20k hands, and increased my roll a little over 50%. In March I posted more than any other month, ran good, made Gold Star and had my first month earning over $1k (barely). My game was improving, though it was more through inductive thinking rather than understanding important concepts and applying them deductively.

I played 52.9k hands in April, thanks to adding more tables once I picked up a 22" widescreen monitor. Said monitor is currently being used by my girlfriend. I also moved up to 50nl, which was my first increase in stakes. I earned right around $1.7k, despite running a little cool. I didn't really find the move from 25nl to 50nl terribly significant, but I guess it was reflected in my winrate. Many micro grinders apparently find the jump very difficult, and often end up being unprofitable at 50nl. Luckily, this was not the case for me. Near the end of the month I had a bit of a "Eureka" moment when thinking about poker theory while taking an online "test". I didn't really fully understand the concept I had discovered at the time, but this was the start of me realizing how you determine whether you can profitably bet or raise (hint: for value, or as a bluff).

In May I started to run a little better at 50nl, and began working towards actually understanding some of the fundamental conceptual groundwork I had discovered. I purchased a second 22" monitor (this one also went to my girlfriend eventually). I ran marginally hot, crushed the games over 60k hands, and was able to start twelve tabling comfortably. It was a good month, and I felt really positive about shipping $3.25k profit, nearly double my previous best. It was time to move up to 100nl!

In June I played 68k hands of exclusively 100nl. It was a swingy month, and I believe the 12 BI downswing I experienced early on was my largest at that point in my career. Since then, I've had probably 6-8 between 10 and 20 BIs. The rest of the month went quite smoothly, and I found that 100nl wasn't much more difficult than 50nl. Perhaps this was a bit of an underestimation, but despite that I ended up making $5k, and started to reach a point where my rakeback was contributing nicely. I was on the road to Supernova, which I expected to hit in August. My hourly rate playing poker was now most definitely exceeding that of my day job.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of July was my purchase of a new (badly needed) office chair which I am very happy with, my Logitech G9 gaming mouse, and my first 28" monitor. With the 28" paired with the 22", I was able to play up to 18 tables at a time, and saw a huge increase in efficiency thanks to AutoHotkey software coupled with my new mouse. If I recall correctly, I was ~15 tabling comfortably by the end of the month. PokerStars also had a double VPP week, which caused the game quality to decrease considerably as the regulars played long hours, but did yield a nice increase in rakeback. Unfortunately, my internet connection was down for much of this time, which annoyed me greatly. To further my dissapointment, I also ran terribly during the latter half of the month, and ended up posting a very lackluster 1.14ptBB/100 winrate. However, since I played a large amount of hands (135k), this still managed to yield $6.25k profit.

August was the toughest month of my year, primarily because my awful luck from late July continued. My hands never held up. 1 out, 2 outs, 5 outs, it didn't matter - they'd catch what they needed. I inevitably play more hands when I run badly, and thus I ended up playing more hands in August than I have in any month to date: 194k. My winrate was an awful 0.94ptBB/100, and I'm sure my game suffered due to my mindset. Luckily, I turned things around a bit during the last weekend of the month, and thanks mostly to the rakeback from my monster volume, managed $7.5k total profit. It also must be mentioned that in early August my second 28" monitor arrived, and by the end of the month I had trained myself to 24 table. Perhaps the learning curve adding those last ~6 tables had something to do with the poor results.

In September I learned how to run average again. After the latter half of July and almost all of August, this was a breath of fresh air. I was 24-tabling comfortably, and the money rolled in. I reached the 200k VPP milestone bonus for an additional $1200 bonus. By the end of the month, I posted a very respectable 2.7ptBB/100 winrate over 145k hands, and made $12.1k profit - my second best month ever. It was during this month I think I really cemented my understanding of fundamental poker theory. Unfortunately, my game probably hasn't advanced much since then - but maybe this isn't as bad as it seems. Fundamentals, self control, and game selection are all you need to make good money.

October was basically more of the same, except I ran a little better than in September, and hit my second (and what would be my second last) milestone of the year, at 300k VPPs. This granted me a $2200 boost to the month, which helped me to my best month to date: $15k profit. I also started staking and coaching a friend during this month, and though he quickly won enough to play off his own coin, the coaching continues indefinitely. Hopefully he is crushing 50-100nl in 2009. For the second month in a row I did not reach my targetted number of hands. When I run good, I don't play enough - or perhaps the game was getting a little less fun, as there was less to learn?

November was kind of dissapointing. My mediocre 2.35ptBB/100 winrate coupled with only playing 127k hands resulted in a $9k profit number. I also wasn't terribly motivated to put in long sessions.

Finally, there's not much to say about December. I ran pretty bad, and the games were as poor as they've been since I've played 100nl, due to people chasing milestones. Thanks to my final milestone of the year (400k VPP -> $3200 free money!), I ended up making $10.4k, over half of this figure was rakeback + bonus money. Meh.

Yearly total:
$250
+$1150
+$1700
+$3225
+$5000
+$6250
+$7500
+$12100
+$15000
+$9200
+$10400
--------
$78025 profit

Not too shabby, especially for a guy who started playing online at 25nl in February. How about some 2009 goals?

2009 Goals
(1) Supernova Elite
This is the big one. The end all, be all, and why I am pursuing poker as a job for at least a year. This goal will require ~250k hands/month in volume, which is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. I am a grinder at heart however... so lets get it done! Looking forward to the PCA (in the Bahamas) and EPT final (in Monte Carlo) come 2010 when I am SNE!

(2) $250k profit
Including the SNE tourney packages, I think this is a reasonable number. I'm not going to be trying to move up stakes aggressively, which is both a blessing and a curse, it should make my results more predictable, but also limit my ceiling significantly. With a 2.5ptBB/100 winrate at 100NL playing SNE volume, I'd exceed this number.

(3) Get into a healthy routine, despite all the freedom
One of the big upsides to playing poker as a job is the freedom of schedule. I need to exert self control and get into a good routine of not sleeping too much (this is a big challenge, if you know me you understand) eating regular healthy meals and getting enough exercise. Honestly, it would probably be better for me to fail (1) and (2) but meet this goal, provided of course I don't fail (2) too epically.

Happy new year!

December Review

I played my last hand of the month and thus 2008 yesterday. After picking up my 400k VPP milestone bonus I knew it was time for a break, especially given I want to get off to a really fast start in the SNE chase come January 1st.

The month of December was perhaps a minor dissapointment, as I ran a little bad (reflected in a 2.17ptBB/100 winrate) and the tables in general saw a decrease in quality as regulars frantically put in the hands they needed for their last milestones.

Here is my graph for the month:


The bottom line:
$4583.90 winnings
+$2513.67 rakeback (44,887 VPPs x 3.5 FPPs/VPP x 1.6c/FPP)
+$3200 milestone bonus ($4000 - $800 FPP value to purchase)
+$150 "world record" promotion deposit bonus (thanks for more free money Stars!)
=$10447.57 profit

Sorry for phoning in this month's review a little bit, the blog should become a lot more interesting to kick off 2009. Also look for a yearly review post a little later on where I'll reflect on what I've accomplished in poker over the last year.

Too Much Going On

Between the holidays, house hunting (it looks like I'll be buying a very sexy townhouse in Christie Park, knock on wood), grinding out the last milestone bonus of the year and my other hobbies, there hasn't been much time to update this blog. On the positive side, I finally ran decently last weekend, and shipped a little over 2.5k in winnings + rakeback.

Graph:


I'll find more time to update the blog when I start my SNE chase on Jan 1, I promise!

Tableratings

I ran pretty poorly this weekend, but still shipped some winnings + rakeback. Managed to play the volume I was shooting for to maintain pace for my last milestone bonus of the year. Hopefully I'll remember to post a few HHs from the weekend tomorrow.

On a more interesting note, Tableratings.com has recently added Pokerstars support, with an initial database containing hands over the last ~2.5 months, for hands at 100NL and above. The stats they have for me seem eerily accurate, though I've heard some reports from others that their's are off, though they could just be FPP pros trying to save face on 2+2.

You can check out their list of the winningest 100NL regs here:
http://www.tableratings.com/topwinners.php?site=6&structure=1&stakes=1&timeframe=year

Yup, that's me at #4! Here is my player specific breakdown:
http://www.tableratings.com/overview/Ronfar3?site=stars

Once again it surprises me how many regulars are rakeback pros or worse, along with how many are satisfied grinding out their <1ptBB/100 winrate. Often when I'm playing, I start thinking in my head that players who would typically be regarded as "decent" regs are pretty bad, then usually catch myself and note that I'm probably just being a jackass because I don't like them. Perhaps most of those folks are pretty bad...

November Review

I'm not sure what I really think about the month of November. I had a lot going on, so I didn't play as many hands as I wanted, especially during the latter couple weeks of the month. It feels like this was because I was really lazy, but in some ways I don't feel bad about how I prioritized my time.

Lets start this month's review by looking at my goals from last month:
1) Play 135,000 hands
Fail. Talked about this at the start of the post. Actually got pretty close though, I think I set this goal to keep it very realistic given what I had planned for the month. Too bad I didn't make it.

2) 2,000 hands at 400NL, 18,000 hands at 200NL
Fail. Game selection at these stakes is really weak compared to 100NL. I also didn't make a conscious enough effort to find games at these levels to replace tables during the middle parts of a session. It would be nice to move more of my play higher, but I'm not in a rush either - maybe I should be to help try to push my game forward... who knows.

3) Run one three barrel bluff per session against a regular (when they likely don't have a set or better).
Pass. I've been running multistreet bluffs more often lately. Given my image they work like 90%+ of the time. In one of my spewier moments I turned KK into a bluff hoping to fold out villain's AA (he's a nit and is going to fold it a lot), and he ended up hero folding 88 on a 9822 board. Then he posted it on 2+2 and got grilled to death. Hilarious.


Here are my winnings for the month:



I ran pretty mediocre, played pretty average I'd say. Not thrilled about the winrate, but it's certainly not awful either. Lots of people would kill for a 2.35ptBB/100 winrate.

Total profit
$6223.85 winnings + (51723 VPPs x 3.5 FPPs/VPP x 1.6c/FPP = $2896.49 rakeback) = $9120.34 profit

Not terrible given my volume and lack of any milestone bonuses.

I'm going to include my December goals in this post, since they are very simple:

(1) Don't burn out, and hit the 400k VPP milestone
I've set myself up to need 43275 VPPs to hit the milestone, which is very much attainable. I've got a ton going on in December, so I may play around the same (or perhaps a little less) volume than I played this month. This doesn't worry me, as it will be nice to slow down a bit before going pro and pumping out massive volume in January.