March Review - Three In A Row Makes A Streak

I should probably feel better about March than I do. I ran pretty brutal for a good part of the month resulting in a few pretty major downswings (two being of the ~$2k, ~15BI variety), but despite this still managed a very respectable winrate. In addition, I had money riding on two prop bets (in one case my $2k to win $500, in the other my $1.25k to win $500) and I shipped both. Finally, I also binked the 200k VPP milestone bonus, thus giving me a lot of profit in March that came outside of pure table winnings and FPPs. Due to this additional profit, I managed my third straight month of > $20k profit. Not a bad start to 2010.

I still feel like the game quality at Stars has been good, though March did perhaps see a slight regression in this regard during the latter half of the month. The Flames continued shitting bed, and I broke out FFXIII for the PS3 to which I will dedicate a blog post with my thoughts in the near future.

More importantly, I also finished all the necessary booking for my big EPT Monte Carlo trip, which is followed by a week spent in France and England. The trip begins on April 23rd, beginning with a week in Monte Carlo where I'll be playing the EPT finale Main Event (using my second SNE tourney package for the buy in and accommodations). We'll then hop the train to Paris for two days (we being myself and my girlfriend, obviously), followed by four days in London with my father (whom emigrated to Canada from Britain immediately after graduation) as our tour guide.

Anyway, here's my graph/table for the month:


The Bottom Line:
$12053.30 table winnings
+$5166.56 FPP value (65482 VPPs x 5 FPPs/VPP x 1.6c/FPP)
+$2600 200k VPP milestone bonus ($3400 - $800 worth of FPPs to buy)
+$500 booger369's 10k in March over 200k max hands of 100NL FR prop bet
+$500 hard2tel's 40k in 31 days at 200NL FR prop bet
-$18 takesix loldonkament staking
-----------------------------------------
$20,801.86 USD total profit.

Because I'll be spending the latter week of April and the first week of May out of the country, I highly doubt my streak of $20k months will continue. Honestly, it would take nothing short of a miracle, given I plan on putting in a paltry 50k VPPs worth of volume each month. Hopefully I can keep the winrate steady, though the way I've been running lately that doesn't seem terribly likely. You never know though, maybe next session will be the one where I can occasionally win as a 90%+ favorite.

We've Got A Turd In The Punch Bowl

After watching the season premier of South Park, I've been trying to use the expression "turd in the punch bowl" as much as possible. Fortunately for me, it applies fairly well to two avenues I can blog about: poker in March, and the Calgary Flames.

Beginning with the latter, the Flames' season is all but done and it is nothing less than a colossal disappointment. That said, many hardcore fans are (understandably) overreacting. Going nuts and trading Kipprusoff and Iginla for picks to rebuild would not end well - luckily I don't think even Sutter (or whomever may be taking his job) will be that insane.

In terms of poker, I've encountered a ton of utterly ridiculous runbad in March. I've had three fairly significant downswings due to this, one of which came today (though I managed to almost entirely recover). You know it is getting bad when you are pleading to just win one out of ten times you get it in with 90%+ equity. On the positive, booger369 conceded his 10k in March at 100nl prop bet, which means I win $500. That's 2/2 on prop bets in March for me, bringing in $1k side profit. I'll also reach the 200k VPP milestone in a couple days which will yield $2.6k free money.

Despite not being close to the worst suckout in either equity or pot size that I've taken in the past week, for some reason the hand below struck me as funny. 4.5% equity is tons - I've been one outed with one card to come three times already in March, so if 2% can win 4.5% is a fistpump stackoff!

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (8 handed)
UTG+1 ($376.40)
MP1 ($200)
MP2 ($202)
CO ($177)
Button ($133.65)
Hero (SB) ($394)
BB ($254)
UTG ($227.40)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, A
5 folds, Button bets $8, Hero raises to $28, 1 fold, Button calls $20

Flop: ($58) 6, 6, Q (2 players)
Hero bets $23, Button raises to $82, Hero raises to $278, Button calls $23.65 (All-In)

Turn: ($269.30) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($269.30) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $269.30 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had 9, 10 (straight, ten high).
Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and sixes).
Outcome: Button won $266.30

First One Down

I have now officially binked one of my two props this month, with hard2tel giving up on his quest to make 40k table winnings over 31 days at 200NL FR (on FTP). I put up $2k to his $500, so I'm +$500 on the deal. Total action on the bet was his $25k vs $100k from various 2p2ers, so it was truly a man's bet when you consider the stakes.

I couldn't wait any longer to bust out FFXIII, so since Sunday I've been putting in serious time. I think I've played a shade under 20 hours so far. It starts slow in terms of gameplay, but so far I have nothing but excellent things to say about it. I'll save anything else FFXIII related for when I have a blog post entirely dedicated to my experience with the game.

I did manage to play some poker on Tuesday, after slacking mightily and not playing a hand on both Sunday and Monday. My Tuesday session was decent (though a bit on the boring, not many 200bb pots won/lost), ~3k hands and ended up +$450 in addition to ~$100 FPP value. I should hopefully hit my first major milestone bonus of the year (200k VPPs) on the last day of March.

Prop Bet Action

I've been running pretty abysmally lately, it feels like 2009 all over again. Rather than rant further, I really should mention that I have given action to two prop bets this month. The results of which have thus far been positive from my betting stance.

The first prop to which I gave action was booger369's 10k in March over 200k max hands of 100NL FR bet. I met booger in Vegas (good guy), I've played a bunch with him at both 100NL and 200NL on Stars and he's a respected 2p2er. He ended up getting 2.5:1 odds, with me personally putting up $1250 to win $500. In hindsight, I think this is actually a pretty reasonable line for the bet - at the time of my betting, I thought it was definitely a +EV wager, but with the state of the games in 2010, 2.5:1 is likely a good line given the variables. Thus far booger is moderately behind pace with a little less than 80k hands left to be played.

The second prop I'm participating in is hard2tel's 40k in 31 days at 200NL FR bet. This is a very large scale bet, with h2t putting up $25k to win $100k, getting 4:1 odds. I personally have $2k on the line to win $500. In this bet I'm absolutely certain my wager was +EV, as earning $40k at 200NL FR in one month is borderline impossible. h2t is an awesome guy and great player, but he's behind pace and appears to be pretty close to throwing in the towel.

Anyway, here's a random hand from Saturday where a fish shows us the expert way to play AA:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
MP1 ($100)
MP2 ($44.65)
MP3 ($73.80)
CO ($18.50)
Button ($100)
SB ($130.10)
Hero (BB) ($111.05)
UTG ($20)
UTG+1 ($104.15)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6, 6
7 folds, SB calls $0.50, Hero bets $4.50, SB calls $3.50

Flop: ($9) 4, 7, 5 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $6, SB raises to $18, Hero calls $12

Turn: ($45) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $21, Hero raises to $88.55 (All-In), SB calls $67.55

River: ($222.10) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $222.10 | Rake: $3

Results:
SB had A, A (two pair, Aces and sevens).
Hero had 6, 6 (straight, eight high).
Outcome: Hero won $219.10