October Surprise

Well, it's official -- I was officially profitable for the month of October. As I've said, I'm not *very* profitable. According to PokerTracker, I'm making 16.29 big ones per hour. Unfortunately, I spend most of the month playing 1c/2c NL, so 16.29 BBs isn't even going to buy me a pack of cigarettes. Of course, you have to play where your bankroll will let you. I've still only invested a total of $100 in on-line poker, and I'm surprised nearly every day when I see more than my initial investment is still left. I really thought I'd be broke by now. How many players stick in their $50 initial deposit and piss it all away in a week, or even a day? How many of those come back and do it again? Through October 21, I was fighting the huge variance on the NL micro-limit tables and getting terribly frustrated. I would have three, maybe four winning sessions in a row, pulling down somewhere between a dollar and three dollars per two dollar buy in. The problem on those tables was it only took one bad beat to break me. I'd lose my two bucks, along with whatever profit I'd managed to amass, to one bad beat. That's where the leaks would start. I suppose that is the moment I should have walked away, gone to watch the newest episode of Queer Eye or something, but I never did. I'd buy back in, hit the tables a bit more agressively, and string out at least one and sometimes two more losing sessions. The 5c/10c NL tables were even worse. My agressive style, which served me so well at the 1c/2c level, would bust me out fast at 5c/10c. I only played three sessions there and busted out my five bucks all three times. Maybe I just could adjust to the idea of causing a 30c raise with a JTs in late position instead of a 6c raise, or maybe I just couldn't get used to pushing all-in for five bucks instead of two. I don't know. All I know was that I was frustrated with lose play at the lowest level and unable to move up successfully, so I switched to what I had previously seen as the boring tables. I sat myself down at 2c/4c limit hold'em to see what would happen. What happened was that I could not lose. I'd played some micro-limit, particularly during the slow moments at work. Limit seemed mostly mindless to me. If you have the best hand, you bet. If you have seven or eight outs to beat the current best hand, especially in late position, you raise (or bet, if it's been checked to you). If you're in first position and you bet, you're obligated to either (a) fold to a raise or (b) bet out every round from there on out. And when you don't hit the flop, you fold fast. Those four simple rules had kept me profitable without forcing me to think at all, making it easy to switch back and forth between real work and poker. And almost every time I played, I made money. What surpised me was that, with a bit more concentration than I'd given it while slacking off from my job, I was nearly unbeatable. I made $4.22 in my first 46 minute session. Of course, this doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind that the big bet was only 4c. That comes out to something like 36 BB/hr. Mere seconds after doing that math in my head, I went searching for a 5c/10c limit table, which is where I'd really made my score. Despite a bad run this weekend (four losing sessions in a row) I've still come out ahead 13 of my last 24 sessions. Over 675 hands, I've posted an average of nearly 3c/hand. Not an amazing total, I have to admit, but just think if I could take that to the $5/$10 limit tables and I might start to make some real money. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'm ready for that yet. I've 50/50 on my two attempted sessions at 25c/50c limit. I'm still $1.65 up at that level, but it's not enough to make my confident I can win there. In fact, it mostly makes me certain that (with enough bad luck) I could lose my whole stake playing there. So I'll continue to make forays onto that level every once in a while. If I have a good session and I can afford to lose my buy-in, I'll give it a shot, but I'm not married to the concept of moving up another level this month. I'd like to send a quick shout-out to my first two blogger peeps out there. My first comments, from Blu over at One in a Blu Moon, seems to post somewhat infrequently but is significantly more successful than myself. More recently, I got a comment from SirFWALGMan at Online Poker Thoughts that complimented my writing style, surely the quickest way to a girl's heart. You can thank him for tonight's post, as he left me with the momentary feeling that people would keep reading this as long as I kept writing. Anyway, if either of you guys (or anyone else for that matter) can explain how exactly I set up a blog list like most of you have, I'd be most appreciative and even put your blogs near the top of the list. Let me know if you have any insight. I think for now I'd better head off to bed. Next episode will feature some quick analysis of my tournament play for the month of October, a story about the people who really taught me how hold'em works, and (if you're lucky) a brief foray into my plans for world domination. Until then, just pretend that every time you're playing, I'll be there sweating you... or at least making you sweat. ;-)