Progress

Only a donkament, I know.

Apparently, You Can Fade Me

Picks are not going good this year. Try try again.

Football Lock of the Week: NFL, Jets (-3.5) @ Bills. Buffalo will have the 1st draft pick. NCAA, Penn State (-3) @ Illinois. Don't be fooled by Illini win over Syracuse. CFL, Montreal @ Saskatchewan (-6.5). Alouettes seemed to have tanked after injuries. [2007 YTD 5-9]

I Just Don't Know

This is how I feel right now:



I've been losing at every form of poker the last two weeks. Played mostly SNG's for the last week - split between PLO8 and NLHE. See the results for yourself:



Am I really this bad at poker? I know I had some serious cooler sessions, but I have no idea where my game stands. Psychologically, I've had an expectation of winning, so I don't attribute this to being a Debbie Downer. (Whaaat Whaa!)

I know this - I am far from busto and I'm far from degenerate gambling. (I know this because I am questioning if I can beat the game at all.) The real question is if I should continue to put time and energy into grinding. I enjoy the grinding but it isn't productive right now.

Picking Poorly

My football season has started off slow. 1-1, 1-2, 0-3. Let's reverse that trend.

Football Lock of the Week: NCAA, Temple @ Bowling Green (-20.5). Temple lost 42-7 to Buffalo... enough said. NFL, Jaguars @ Broncos (-3). Why did the Bills ever let Travis Henry go? CFL, Winnipeg (+2.5) @ Toronto. A must win for the Argos, but they don't have enough defense. [2007 YTD 5-6]

Crushed, With Inaccuracies

It has been a week. I'm down about 35% of my bankroll. Believe me, if I had not practiced good bankroll management, it would be worse.

What sucks is that many of my big hands (winners and losers) were not imported into my database. I realize that the occasional hand gets rejected by PT, but I can think of at least a dozen hands where I stacked someone (or was stacked) that are not in there.

I like to replay the big hands in PokerEV to see where I went wrong (or right). So while some big hands are missing I have to assume that the database is a good overall representation of my play.

Onto the massacre. My overall O8 play:



Back into negative territory. Still earning Sklansky $$$. Since my luck is "better than normal", I should be even worse:



When I separate just my PLO8 hands, it still looks bad:



But what really chaps me is my LO8 chart. I'm down about 150 BB, but according to their "equity adjusted" total, I should be UP 200 BB. So... wtf? (The all-in chart is useless in LO8 because you're never all-in.):



I'm really looking for leaks here (and I know I've played some hands badly). But I keep popping all the pots at the right time, it just seems I'm not connecting.

The rest of the month I'll be grinding SNG's. I don't enjoy it as much, mostly because of the endgame.

I played the latest $3K LO8 on Full Tilt and had Jim McManus at my table. I believe I played only 5 hands before I was out, shortly after the 1st break. I'm sure I looked like a total donk - but you just can't get anywhere without making a few hands in the first hour.

Excuse Me Sir, But I Don't Swing That Way*

(*And other things I might say in an airport bathroom.)

It's difficult dealing with the swings in poker. Split-pot poker is especially deceptive in that regard. You're quartering, getting quartered, you split a bunch - no big deal. But you lose a bunch of big pots in a row, and you start thinking, "zomg, wha happen?"

Downswings are inevitable in poker, it is the nature of the game. Recognizing the downswings, and checking "under the hood" during those swings are vital to keeping your game from leaking too many chips.

I hit a downswing this past week, but checking my stats it appears I was more unlucky than anything else. Here come the charts:



Notice around 25k hands I lost a bunch, but my Sklansky bucks still went up. During that session, I lost every big pot where I was a favorite (or +EV). Losing a bunch can shake your confidence, but checking the histories can confirm or deny if you are leaking.

My last 10k hands on Full Tilt:



I'm proud of the fact that even though I gave about 200BB back during this downswing, I never went into negative territory (for this range OR the year). It does suck to run bad, but the confidence in my play and the softness of the games will keep me there.

I also had a losing week picking football - Thanks, Jason Elam! Way to miss 2 gimmes. Let's do better this week:

Football Lock of the Week: NCAA, Virginia @ North Carolina (-3). The Cavaliers had some problems with Duke. NFL, Vikings (-3) @ Lions. Minnesota has quietly put together a contender. CFL, Montreal (-1) @ Edmonton. Loss of Calvillo won't slow down the Alouettes. [2007 YTD 5-3.]

Pigskin Picks

Football Lock of the Week: NFL, Broncos (-2.5) @ Bills. Buffalo is in for a long season. NCAA, Indiana (+1) @ W. Michigan. IU has too much offense for the Broncos. CFL, Saskatchewan (-3) @ Winnipeg. Bombers fall short in a rematch of division leaders. [2007 YTD 4-1.]

'Cause Sometimes Leaving Comments Is Just Too Damn Hard

Seriously, it is easier to get a Sears card than leave a comment on some blogs.

For Bill Rini's most recent post: Don't you think this domain snatching is a futile strategy for gaming opponents? How does this really affect the download client for existing players? So we have to update our client before playing. We pretty much have to do that all the time these days.

I'm sure Calvin Ayre has bought enough domains in the past week to last three lifetimes.

By the way, how is PokerStars able to offer me Echeck deposits & withdraws? I thought the ACH/EFT system was shut down for US players.

For Waffles post, "When does poker become profitable?" : Young Grasshopper, whenever you want it to be.

Seriously, you are a good player (and smart enough to know you need to practice good bankroll management *cough cough*), but saying it is not worth building a bankroll because of the hourly rate is just an excuse.

If you can make $10/hr at $1/2 NL, then 4 tabling these stakes = $40/hr. At $2/4 that's $80/hr, which you stated is an acceptable wage.

But it's not just beating the game. Play with rakeback. Take advantage of the reward programs. Select the softest games (some razz maybe?). Mix it up.

If you play tourneys, it's the highest variance of online poker. Be prepared for long droughts that might shake your confidence. If you play SNG's, be properly bankrolled just like cash games. (IMO, cash games pay you more per hour, unless you can crush turbo SNG's.)

If you play poker as a hobby, just have fun. But if you want to make it profitable, you have to grind with passion. There's a lot of good (even great) players who left the game because they just don't have the passion.

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I'm still running good. Almost +2 PTBB/100 this year. Hurray, more charts!:



I posted on the PokerEV forum, and the creator thinks my chart is skewed by my style of play. Highly unlikely anyone can be that lucky over 21k+ hands. But even my all-in luck is considered above the norm:



I just don't think these charts accurately represent my play. NOBODY folds in PLO8 multi way pot, so I'm not taking down as many hands without a showdown. Since I showdown good hands, and am able to fold 2nd nuts (most of the time), I appear lucky.

It is a neat program for calculating Sklansky Bucks, which is a very good indicator of your play. I have done pretty well in that department.

Since my downswing, I'm actually playing at +5 PTBB/100. My last 10k hands, thanks to poker grapher:



I'm pleased with my play so far, and the availability of games. It seems Stars PLO8 is waaaay tighter. I might try Cake if they continue to keep tables going.