October Review - Worst. Month. Ever.

To put things in perspective, I've had at least two 100k+ hand break even stretches before. I only put in 83k hands this month. I was intending to be coasting to close out the year so I don't have a problem with my volume. However, I do have a problem with the fact that I run so egregiously bad on Stars I'm really regretting putting in the extra 100k VPPs for the 600k milestone this year. I also lost SNE status this month, so my effective rakeback from FPPs decreased significantly compared to the previous 9 months.

I don't mind that I run awfully against fish. I have for months and months and months, in addition to a huge chunk of 2009. I don't even mind that much if I run awfully against everyone. The key is the degree of awful. I played poker 22 days this month. I had one day where I was at or above AIEV (I posted about it, it was a big deal). On Friday, I was out just under 2000bbs AIEV. On Saturday, I was out just over 2000bbs AIEV. Yes, that's 20 BIs per session - and they weren't even terribly long sessions. Here's a peek at Saturday's runbad:


Given my style it's pretty tough to run this bad. On Friday I lost 14 consecutive (yes, 14) pair over pair AIPFs. The odds of such a streak is astronomical to say the least. Obviously, some were only for 20bbs against SSers, but the odds defying aspect doesn't care if it's for 1bb or 1000. It's just really tough playing poker when unless a player is drawing stone dead, I'm bluffing with 0 equity. It's especially tough when my game selection is good enough that I'm getting 100bb stacks in on the flop with QQ on 653 vs J2o (I'm drawing dead in this case, unfortunately). They just won't fold, which a long long time ago was a very good and very profitable thing. Not so much anymore.

At any rate, despite the low volume and my runbad going so far beyond ridiculous I don't really think I can describe it, I did actually not lose money this month. Here's the paltry total:


The bottom line
$3273.90 winnings
+$2197.19 FPP value (39.235.55 VPPs * 3.5 FPP/VPP * 1.6c/FPP - oh how I miss you 5x multiplier!)
+$42.90 FTP rakeback
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$5513.99 USD total profit. Outside of December 2009 which I took almost entirely off, my lowest profit month since the summer of 2008 before I was even playing professionally. Obviously I didn't play a whole lot this month, but that still says something.

I intend to play a similar amount of volume (perhaps a tad more) in November, and reach the 600k milestone right around December 6th. Some of you will know why. I'll be basically done with poker for the year at that point, though I may put in some FTP volume afterwards. Oddly enough, while I haven't played much on FTP lately in the hands I have played I continually do NOT run in the bottom millionth percentile of AIEV and Sklansky variance there. How strange.