2012 Review

Though I've gotten away from doing monthly reviews or posting at all recently, I promised a couple people a yearly graph and it is that time. Fittingly enough, the graph illustrates quite well why I decided to stop updating with the day to day stuff: it's all pretty much the same.

If you put this year's graph beside that of either of the previous two years, it's tough to spot any signficant difference. Compare it to my SNE run three years ago and the only difference is I won the amount over twice as many hands in 2009 (but picked up an insane amount of rakeback on the way). Just like the previous two years, I didn't put in a whole lot of volume simply because my hours are slack, around 25/week. The last ten days or so I've succesfully (for now) changed my sleeping schedule back to what most humans would consider normalcy for the first time in years, and I've found that I'm sleeping ~2 hours less per night thus far. This gives me hope that I could potentially manage stronger volume next year - though I'm certain I've said that before.

At any rate, here's the graph and chart:





The bottom line:
~$87.3k table winnings
+~$15.1k FPP value
+~$8.3k milestone/stellar/deposit bonuses/coaching/etc.
----------------------------------------------------
~$110.7k total profit

Like almost every regular, the change from dealt to WC VPP calculation on Stars was costly for me. A quick comparison to 2009: current VPP/hand rates appear to be just slightly better than half what they were back then. Some of this has to do with the state of the games and the slight rake reduction introduced to try to mask the cash grab - but it is still pretty insane when you think about it. I pity anyone trying to grind out SNE at small stakes these days.

Since I don't have any plans to change anything drastically in 2013, I imagine in 12 months I'll have another graph clone ready to be added to the pile, but you never know. There definitely are worse things than boring graphs.

One For The Road

Last September I went almost a month without blogging, partially because I was out of town for a bit but mostly because I just didn't have much I felt was worth saying. To be honest, I haven't enjoyed blogging nearly as much the past few years, and the reason why is pretty simple: much of what I post is similar stuff. Ran good/bad, Patriots played good/bad, Flames played good/bad/were locked out, video game I'm playing is good/bad...

When I started the blog, it chronicled what I believe was pretty interesting progression. In 2009, it helped keep me on track and motivated to hit SNE. In 2010, I had the SNE tournaments to blog about which I think were legitimately interesting stuff, but aside from those it basically followed the pattern of 2011 and this year.

So, since I'm not enjoying the writing much and frankly I don't think a lot of it should be worth reading (though some of you obviously disagree), I'm going to be posting a heck of a lot less. If something comes up where I think my voice is both relevant and interesting, I'll post about it (things like Pokerstars making changes to Full Ring structures, or US regulation going through could qualify as examples). The small talk stuff is done for though, at least after this post. One more can't hurt, right?

Poker this month has been unremarkable. I've been playing a little less volume which has been nice. Game quality the past few weeks has seemed really bad though, hopefully not a sign of things to come. Time for a reload bonus to bring back some fish perhaps?

The Patriots won on Sunday but didn't deserve to - their secondary looked really, really bad all game. Devin McCourty tried really hard to give the Jets the game by fumbling a kickoff with two minutes left in a tied game, but somehow the Jets only managed a field goal and the Pats were able to equalize on the last play of regulation time. Hockey is still on hold.

I should also mention I played live poker for the first time in over a year last week. One of my friends was visiting from Kugluktuk (yes, that's a real place waaaaay up north), and we hit up the recently rebranded Cowboy's Casino (ugh, they took the Stampede Casino and reduced its class several notches) for a six or seven hour session. The table was butter soft, despite some of the other players (who I assume were regulars) suggesting otherwise. I ran pretty poorly to start but after doubling with KK > A6 AIPF (iso'd a limp to 7.5bbs, got min 3b by whale, overshipped 85bbs and got snapped) ended up booking a 150bb win which was nice. As I say after every time I play live, as soft as it is, it just sucks. So slow, and kind of dirty - I don't really know how to describe the latter part, I just never feel good after a session.

September Review - Full Blown Disaster

As I alluded to in my last post, September wasn't a fun month at the tables for me. I'm actually reasonably certain I've never run this badly over a 100k+ hand stretch before. February 2009 wasn't pretty, but it was a combination of runbad and extreme auto pilot from putting in ridiculous volume. While I'm sure there was some bad play this month, it's really hard to overcome a 2ptBB AIEV handicap (ok, technically it was 1.74ptBB).

Over the 91k hands I put in at 100NL ZOOM, I was thirty-six and a half buyins below AIEV. I took two pretty insane beats at 400E and 600PL near the end of the month where in both cases my sets ran into no pair no draw on the flop that turned weak draws (in one case a double gutter and the other a bare gutter) that wanted to play for stacks. If I hold in those two pots and run at EV at ZOOM it's a ~$10k table winnings month. At least I ran fine at the 200NL limit - without that things would have gotten so ridiculous I don't even want to think about it.



The bottom line:
$3778.89 table winnings
+$1461.04 FPP value (26,090 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$2600 200k VPP milestone bonus
--------------------------------------------
$7839.93 USD total profit.

In all, certainly a legitimate contender for "worst month ever" status though I'm not sure I can give it the nod over Feb 2009. 100k BE stretches just aren't a lot of fun. If you put in a lot of volume I guess its inevitable to run this bad eventually. It sure would be nice to get some rungood of even half the magnitude though. Maybe one day.

Exceptional Incompetence

I apologize for having not blogged in a little over three weeks. Though I've been slightly under the weather lately, the actual reason is simply that I try to avoid posting if the content is going to be thoroughly negative. Regardless, it seemed like it was about time, so prepare for some ranting below.

First, poker. I've run as poorly in September as I have in over a year at minimum, perhaps stretching all the way back to February 2009. It just gets really old fast to be getting the money in with top set and losing to backdoor quads/gutters. Not to mention being bluffing with zero equity whenever I shove preflop. I'll save the rest of this rant for the monthly review, which won't be pretty.

What the title of this post is about are the two labour disputes currently destroying professional sport in North America. One of my more recent posts talked about the (at the time upcoming, now in full swing) NHL lockout, so I don't really have much more to add to that.

The situation in the NFL may not be costing them football games or revenue, but it is quickly turning the league into a joke. If you read this blog religiously, you may recall that I have in the past wished for NHL officials to perform with the same degree of competence as their NFL counterparts. I'm not aware of what demands the union of NFL officials have made, or who fans should be upset at over the current state of things. What I am sure of, is that the replacement officials currently being used are utterly incompetent to a degree I never would have thought was possible. That overwhelming degree of suck was on display tonight in the Pats/Ravens matchup - and I know what you're thinking, this isn't me being sour over a Patriots loss, as there were brutal blown calls both ways. I'm trying really hard not to blame the replacement officials themselves, as they're probably embarrassed as hell. After seeing this gong show go on for three weeks now though, something has to be done - because this isn't the NFL the fans deserve.

I'm currently working my way through Gungnir for the PSP. It does a lot of things well, and provides a stiff challenge. Unfortunately, a few design choices make the game very frustrating at times. It really does shock me how often you'll find design features in a commercial game that nobody could possibly find fun, even in concept. Still, I'd say the good marginally outweighs the bad, though I will likely avoid the other games in the series.

TUESDAY EDIT:
Well, if you saw the end of Monday Night Football (I felt like a real idiot for turning off the TV after Seattle turned the ball over on downs with 2:00 to go), the replacement officials embarrassed themselves even further. I wonder how bad it can get... I'm sure eventually it'll go from a combination of sad and disgraceful to downright funny.

Also, I was actually almost finished with Gungnir and just unaware of it because it was much shorter than I anticipated. I figured I was at the very common point in a lot of RPGs where a pseudo-fake-potential-ending turns out to be a plot twist and you then deal with all the foreshadowing that had been building up. It turns out instead the game just ended, roll credits. I imagine they're making a sequel because they built up a lot of plot which they simply left utterly unfinished. Rather disappointing.